Thursday, October 8, 2009

Eating on the floor

I just remembered sitting down with father on the wooden blocks (peetalu) and eating. I tried doing that on my recent trip to India and it was not easy...

1 comment:

Vishu Gurram said...

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The reason you sit on a mat or a "పీట" is because sitting directly on the bare floor is held to be inauspicious.

Here's a passage from Tagore's Home and the World, translated by Surendranath Tagore:

"I hurried through my bath. When I came out, I found Bimal sitting on the floor outside. Could this be my Bimal of old, my proud, sensitive Bimal?"

And the Translator's footnote for the passage above:
"Sitting on the bare floor is a sign of mourning, and so, by association of ideas, of an abject attitude of mind."

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