Takalluf

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
1

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet

The Ballad of East and West
Rudyard Kipling

I don’t know if its just an “east and west” issue, but I’ll give some examples to explain my point…

In the eastern culture, when you go to someone’s house for a daawat a dinner/lunch, and they offer you food, even if you are starving, you don’t take much in the first go, its not considered good manners. When the host offers you more for a second helping, you have to say “No, no I’m okay” and then they must insist on your taking more and only then is it okay for you to accept more.

If you are a female and you have gone to someone’s house for a daawat a dinner/lunch, and when its time to clear the table after everyone’s eaten, its rude if you don’t offer to help, but its rude if the host accepts your offer to help as well, since you’re a guest. Both parties know this unspoken rule. However, the formality of saying “Let me help you” and their formality of saying “No, no, please have a seat, we can manage” is always expected.

Lets say you go out for lunch with a friend and they offer to pay, even if its for example their birthday and their treat, you still offer to pay, its rude if you don’t even offer. And its rude for them to accept your offer as well. But the formality, of your offerring and them refusing must be there.

In our culture, we have a lot of takalluf.

Not only South Asian, but Far East Asian cultures have this too.

In Western culture though, from what I’ve noticed, this kind of takalluf doesn’t exist. You say what you mean bluntly, you don’t cushion your words. If you were to say “No, no I’m okay” when you go to someone’s house for dinner then you’d probably be coming back hungry because they’d think you mean it! Usually when people go out for dinner or lunch they pay individually. Saying “No” is also more okay in western culture than ours.

It takes time for people who go abroad from Pakistan to get used to this culture, some of them adapt the western ways, some do partially, and some don’t.

I don’t know…just some thoughts :slight_smile:

2

^ aap koa bahir ja kai kis nay bhooka maar diya?
or was this more abt eastern takalluf. waisay its not true that there is a lot of indiscriminate takalluf, it completely depends on how close u r to te fmaily and what the occasion is. large-scale parties are all abt gorging n nothing else.
kair, khair. i like yr lovely keen attempts at social commentary a lot. :flower1:

3

very very true Irem, sometimes this desi takalluf gets to your nerves. in our culture ppl are expected to be such angels, at a party they are supposed to be not hungry at all, out for meals with friends they are supposed to offer to pay even if they'll be ripped of all their dough, they are looked upon as 'evil' and noncooperative if for some reason they say 'no' to someone for something, like a friend asking you to come along smwhere, you can say 'no' but then you'll have to bother abt the effect taht'll have on ur image as a friend, if they ask you for say a book, and even if you need it at the time, you cant say outright 'no', cause that'll be considered bad. atleast in that area the wetsrn culture is far better. we should all be true and honest with ourselves and those around, we should say it out loudnclear, keeping it all in and killing ownself does no good, just gives more stress and headaches...but that mentality is deeprooted and cant be rooted out all of a sudden. no matter how much we may try, every other time we let others roll us over with their expectations and our obligations...i wonder whats the right stance on this...

4

thanx for replies guys :D

-irem

5

^^

irem, ug ot a new SN?

6

yaar i use this one sometimes when im too bored with irem :D

7

u know what my problem is when I am a guest somewhere? :frowning:

Actually I eat very fast, so the amount of food that I need to take, I take it within few mins, although I try to slow down when I am guest but still cant slow down much. Now the problem is that the hosts are still half way when I am finished and then they start saying, “ye lo na, wo lo na, aap ne tau kuch khaya hi nahiN!” and I have to explain to them everytime that meray sajno you havent eaten half of your “roti” and my digestion process is working on two of them right now.
I think the western approach is better, agar kissi ko kuch khana hoga tau khud se kha le ga na, baar baar kehnay ki kya zaroorat hai. :halo:

8

I can't stand the duplicity of so-called takalluf. Especially when its done for keeping up appearances. The trouble with saying one thing and meaning another is that first off you gotta assume alot of things and that always leads to loads of misunderstandings and bitching sessions. Which of course makes good gossip but not much else. So I'd stick to being frank and saying what you mean.

9

Oh and another thing which pisses me off no end when I'm back in Pakistan is this habit of never taking anything thats said at face value. You always assume there's an ulterior motive to what anybody's said.

10

Two amusing things to add - the first one I'm quite embarrassed about...

When I went to Pak, I just LOVED all the food. I'm slim but can eat like a hungry football player. So when I went to parties, I ate and ate and enjoyed every bit of it all....and reacted with much enthusiasm when more was offered...they must have thought I was a rude gori hog!

And I really know what you mean about speaking your mind if you're a westerner and talking around the issue in the east! We had 3 houseguests from pak, a married couple and an uncle. I was planning to cook them a lovely meal for dinner. Each of the three came to me separately...

The husband told me that the uncle wanted to go out so he felt obligated to go.

The wife told me that the husband wanted to go out.

The uncle said that the wife wanted a nice dinner out.

I was pretty confused but whatever...we did go out and had a nice meal...and yup I ate and ate once again...