- [Instructor] The description of Chhotomama
and the son's interaction mainly serves to blank.
And I've covered up the choices
so that we can form our own impressions
about what we expect the answer to be.
So let's break this question down, let's rephrase it.
We're looking for the purpose of the description
of Chhotomama and the son's interaction.
Okay, so, first of all,
what is the son and Chhotomama's interaction?
How is it described?
And then, what does that description do in the story?
So let's go over to the text and take a look.
And we know from our pre-read
that this interaction takes place
after the yogurts and sweetmeats bit.
So let's start reading at line 41.
"The son and the daughter-in-law
"emerged shyly from the anteroom.
"They both stooped gently to touch Chhotomama's feet,
"and Sandeep's aunt's and his mother's feet,
"a traditional greeting and a mark
"of obeisance towards one's elders.
"'Oh, no, no, no, no, no,' said Chhotomama,
"struggling to keep the son's hand away from his feet.
"'There's no need for all this.'
"This was half a token gesture towards modesty,
"and half towards the new, 'modern' India,
"Nehru's secular India, free of ritual and religion."
"'I have not met you for two years, Dada,' said the son,
"struggling to get his hands near Chhotomama's toes.
"'You must not stop me.'
"This was half a token gesture towards modesty,
"and half towards the old, 'traditional' India,
"Gandhi's India of ceremony and custom."
First of all, what's going on in this little scene?
So the son and the daughter-in-law,
Chhotomama and Mamima's daughter and her husband
are trying to touch everyone's feet
as a traditional greeting and a mark of obeisance,
of great respect towards their elders.
Chhotomama doesn't want his son-in-law to touch his feet.
He says it's unnecessary.
And this is described as a gesture towards modesty
and towards the new, modern India.
Whereas the son-in-law, the son here
says, "You mustn't stop me, this is very important
"because I haven't met you for two years,"
presumably since he got married.
And the narration, Sandeep characterizes this
as a gesture towards both.
So they're both making a token gesture towards modesty,
which is the same thing that's happening
in the gift-giving sequence.
"Oh, no, no, no, please don't."
Or, "You really shouldn't have."
But here, there's also this gesture towards old India,
"Gandhi's India of ceremony and custom."
So I'm gonna say that the purpose of this description
illustrates the tension between the old India and the new.
And it's kind of strange,
because the older people are trying
to push India away from tradition,
and the younger people are trying
to push India back towards tradition.
So let's go back to the question and expose those choices.
See what we got.
So my prediction is that it's going to illustrate something
about the divisions in Indian society.
That's my prediction.
So let's see what the choices are there for us.
All right.
"The description of the interaction serves to,
"A, show how the characters diverge
"in their approaches to cultural practices."
That seems pretty straightforward.
I'm not gonna cross that one off right now.
"B, emphasize the characters' complex relationship."
That seems a bit weaker,
but I'm not gonna cross it off right now.
"C, stress the characters' misinterpretations
"of Indian history."
Now, I think it's possible to get caught on this one
because it mentions two figures from Indian history,
both Nehru and Gandhi.
But I think that neither of these characters
are depicted as misinterpreting that history.
And especially the word "stress,"
it would suggest that it comes up multiple times,
and I don't think that's the case.
So I'm gonna feel quite confident in crossing this out.
Choice D, "The description of Chhotomama
"and the son's interaction mainly serves
"to depict how the characters
"created gestures that became routine."
So the issue here is the word "gestures," right?
Because we see this multiple times
in that chunk of the passage.
"This was half a gesture towards modesty,"
I believe is the phrase that keeps getting used.
Frequently choices will contain some element of the passage
so that if you're moving a little bit too quickly
you might get caught on them and say,
"A-ha, I recognize that, that must be it."
But I think it would be difficult to argue
that Chhotomama or the son invented
those gestures that became routine.
The feet touching seems to be an established tradition
that Chhotomama is trying to move away from.
And since it does seem to be an established tradition,
neither should we be able to claim
that the son invented or created it.
So that leaves us with A and B.
Emphasizing the characters' complex relationship
or showing how the characters diverge
in their approaches to cultural practices.
Well, I think we can cross off B
because I don't think that the characters
have a very complex relationship.
They haven't seen each other in two years.
So even though this is a possibility,
and even though in some ways their relationship
does seem to mirror a tension
between the old India and the new,
I think that A is in fact much closer to the full truth.
The main purpose of that description
is showing how the characters diverge
in their approaches to cultural practices.
Chhotomama is making half a gesture
towards the new India of Nehru,
and the son is making a gesture
towards the old India of Gandhi.
So again, what I did there
was I broke down the question into chunks, right.
So making sure that we're talking about the description
of Chhotomama and the son's interaction
really helps me zero in on what the question is asking.
It's not what the interaction itself serves to do,
because that has a different meaning to those characters.
What we're talking about is how the narrator describes it.
And so first we have to figure out,
okay, concretely, what's happening?
Then, what is the description of it?
And finally, third,
what is the function of that description?
I made an observation, I made a prediction,
then I checked that prediction against the choices.