Dothead

The discussion of the bindi in the poem follows a World History class in which the subject was India, its “myths, / caste system, suttee, all the Greatest Hits” (Lines 13-14). The gently sarcastic tone suggests the speaker’s dissatisfaction with the class. Most likely, it was another presentation about Indian history and culture that listed some of its most unusual elements without providing sufficient context. Children often learn about India’s caste system, a rigorous class structure in which an individual’s social position is determined by birth and almost impossible to change, without information about the historical reasons behind it or its similarities with serfdom in Medieval Europe or slavery in the pre-Civil War American South. They might be shocked to hear about suttee, an ancient custom whereby a widow would throw herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre, but gain no broader understanding about patriarchal gendered assumptions that lead to such misogynist practices. The same goes for the bindi. Without an explanation of its symbolism, the speaker’s Western, presumably Christian, friends have no way of seeing it as anything but an oddity. The deeper implication is that foreign cultures are all too often taught in a disconnected and superficial manner. While multiculturalism is a long-standing educational goal, developing best practices in teaching and learning about non-Western cultures is still a work in progress.