I read Margaret Trawick's fascinating ethnographical study - Notes on Love in a Tamil Family that addresses the question of various kinds of love and their literalness. An interesting review of the same here.. (pdf)
Fascinating.
Neha, thanks for the link. Though I find it difficult to buy the motherly love containment theory. Probably too much is being attributed to it.
I tried not to be too personal in the post but hugging and kissing my mom is one I had to consciously overcome. That cultural expression of love just seems a lot more heartening rather than the love that is supposed to be just "understood" and "felt" in our culture.
I agree. Whenever I visit India and go hug my relatives, they always look at me in surprise. What's more, they found it "unnatural" that I hugged my brother (whom I hadn't seen in a while).
Brothers hugging is very common in India. Especially in the north - south indians are extermely prudish in this matter. Its commong knowlegde that South Indians do not approve of this kind of North indian behaviour either.
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Right on the point. For a while, I've been wondering about exactly the same thing. I currently live in France where people are emotionally very expressive. India is probably at the opposite end of the spectrum.
But, I would like to relate an incidant when I was startled over reading some verses from Ramayana for a Sanskrit course. The incidant is between Rama and Bharatha (already grown up, but don't know exactly when). Rama makes Bharatha sit on his lap and kisses his head. This is the normal way people used to show affection those days.
I don't know how India ended up becoming the prudish country that it now is.
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