Respectfully

This is in response to Esther’s Weekly Word Prompt.

This week’s Prompt is: Respect

***

Respect-fully

In our culture we greet elders by bowing down and touching their feet to seek their blessings. This is the way we show our respect to their age, experience and seniority. This is also a gesture to imbibe their wisdom, virtues and all the good and positive that they embody.

The elderly can be part of the close or extended family, friend’s family or any senior member of the neighborhood, community or society.

We even touch the feet of our teachers because they are our gurus , educators and groomers. Teachers are an integral part of any child’s upbringing. After our parents they are the ones who shape our overall personality – physical as well as mental – by imparting knowledge, instilling morals, showing us how to conduct in society and guiding us in various aspects of life.

We also bow down and take blessings of towering figures who we look up to, consider our role models and who inspire us by their ideals,  leadership and contribution to society.

Bowing down, touching the feet and folding both hands in salutation, are gestures of respect , reverence, courtesy and also signs of humility and submission. In temples we bow down and touch the feet of the idol to humbly acknowledge the presence of the Divine.

Likewise, we also touch the feet of priests, monks, sages and sadhus.

We don’t address our elders by their first names as in our culture it is considered as a mark of disrespect. First names are only for equals or juniors. 

Elders are addressed by the relationship we have with them. Since we have separate nomenclatures for relationships on paternal and maternal sides our address depends on which side the elders are of.

Not only in human relationships but a show of respect can also be seen when a factory worker touches his forehead to the body of the machine and says a silent prayer before beginning to operate it, when a farmer lays prostrate and kisses the land he tills, when a pilgrim or bather takes  water of the river in the cup of his palm and splashes it over his head chanting mantras, when a soldier smears a daub of earth of his motherland on his forehead, when performers kiss the stage or dais on which they are about to perform.  All these gestures show that respect is not merely an act  but something far greater and more humbling , almost like devotion and worship.

The signs and symbols of respect differ from culture to culture and are deeply connected to tradition and ethnicity. Every gesture of respect is beautiful, pure and noble because they emanate from the deepest core of the human heart.

***