Nodding in consent or otherwise
Yesterday, my elder daughter was trying to teach my younger one the correct way to nod. The younger cannot talk yet, but relies on nodding her head to indicate yes or no. Now, the confusing part could be the direction of her nodding. And this is what the elder was trying to correct.
I have worked with quite a few Dutch colleagues, who on visiting india are always confused on what the Indian means by the head nod. There is at least one guaranteed discussion on this. It seems from this post that even we Indian's are not in agreement with what exactly it means :) - Nodding and Shaking and India
I will not even begin to clarify what the correct "Indian" way is. Purely because I do not think that there is a single "Indian" way. People from different places, from India, make different styles. Some individuals even have a bharathnatyam style when they indicate yes/no and then we need to tell our confused Dutch colleague that this was NOT again to be confused with the Indian style. I have even come across people where family members nod in a certain way. It is like some sort of coded signal you know. No one else in the room will have a clue whats going on, Indian or otherwise, except for members of that family. Unless you have been inducted ;) . This is possibly a reason why we can understand what my younger one means when she is nodding. Although I still look at my wife to decrypt the message every now and then! Still learning.... still learning.....
:) When I nodded my head, my colleague used to ask, "Is this the Indian way or the American way?". Depending on the type of nodding, my colleague deduced the answer.
ReplyDeletethis is lesson #1 in ILI sessions :) :)
ReplyDeletemean while figured out the issue i mentioned the other day was while clicking this link : Post Comments (Atom)