Chapter 3: World View (Culture and Customs)

I really enjoyed reading this chapter because it showed what it was like to grow up Indian and how people come to certain cultural ways that are so different from what I am used to in the U.S. One thing I learned is how much life in India is centered around the family. I feel like the family is highly regarded in most cultures, but I now see how this is even more so in India. And they do not just mean the nuclear family…but extended family, especially along the paternal line. I found the role of the mother very interesting because the children develop close bonds with all the females of the family, and not just the biological mother, which reinforces that inclusiveness and sense of belonging in the wider scope of the family.
I have heard from various people as I have grown up…especially since I have been an “adult” (I use the term loosely because my mom says that I am not an adult until I am out of the house and paying all my own bills!) that you “love your boys and raise your girls.” Therefore, another point I found interesting was that this seems to be true in Indian culture because the text says that boys are more coddled and girls learn at an earlier age that they have responsibilities. Also, in American culture I have noticed the importance placed on making sure that you treat all your children the same. Therefore, it is interesting to me that Indians do not “expect or attempt” to treat their children all the same! This makes me wonder whether some children feel disadvantaged and less loved, or if it is such a part of their culture that the children do not feel deprived from unequal treatment.
All of this emphasis on the family makes it a virtue to have a large family and network of support. I am very interested in poverty and its effects, so I enjoyed that the author acknowledges how poor families deal with this ideal. They do not have the resources to support a large family because of their economic situation. How does that influence how they construct their family situation? Do they try to maintain ties at the risk of losing them, or cut themselves off completely to avoid that loss?
Finally, I was interested in what the author said about Indian belief in supernatural and natural forces. Here are just a few I found intriguing: parents dress young boys as girls to avoid the Evil Eye, parents give children ugly names also to avoid the Evil Eye, people should not verbalize anything about the future, Tuesdays are in auspicious and bad days to start a trip, and how a person turns out depends on their ancestors and the quality of the soil on which they were raised. Just a couple comments on these: what is the Evil Eye? And what does it mean for poor people that much of who they become is based upon the soil? What if they do not have any soil at all or that which they are raised is infertile for crops, but is rich in minerals? What does “good soil” mean?