It’s a bit embarrassing asking for cultural advice on the basis of Bollywood films and Mary Poppins, but what can I do. In an incredibly cheesy dance scene from Om Shanti Om, Sha Rukh Khan performs what seems to be a respectful greeting gesture among men, whereby the greeter clenches a fist, points it towards the knee of the greeted person, then at his own chest and finally kisses it. It can be seen at 84 seconds into this video (targeted link to the Youtube video - be warned that there will be cheesy music) but is also performed several other times in the same video, always among men.
Dick van Dyke performs a similar gesture in the dance clip for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins, although he doesn’t bow to the other person as Sha Rukh Khan did in the other video, and raises his hand up higher: Targeted link to Youtube - Be warned that there will be catchy music
As you know, Mary Poppins is set in Victorian or Edwardian London, and in this particular scene Dick van Dyke (Bert) poses as an upper class gentleman, so from the context it might well be a British colonial thing.
Are these gestures the same, and are they actually used in Indian culture as a greeting? What is it called?
Hey! One of my favorite Bollywood songs at Indian weddings (though there is a faster and higher energy remix version that gets played at every single one I’ve been to.)
To me it looks like he’s putting his hand on his chest, then he salutes, then he flips his hand up. I’ve seen putting the hand on the chest as a greeting and a salute is obviously a greeting too. Not sure about the final flip.
All I can add here, is if you are in Delhi, go here.
The theatre itself is like a Bollywood set, and you don’t need subtitles to understand the inevitable cheesy boy-meets-girl plot. Plus the snacks are way better than popcorn.
I don’t think the Dick Van Dyke thing is anything like the one in the Bollywood clip. A sketchy salute followed by a flip of the hand has been a fairly common casual greeting gesture that seems familiar to me, maybe it is only in movies (and older British movies at that). I don’t think the touching the chest is even part of the greeting, he barely touches it anyway. The Indian gentleman doesn’t just point his fist at the other guy’s knee, he bends way over and almost touches it; Van Dyke doesn’t do anything remotely like that.
I don’t have any information about the Indian gesture. I just don’t think it has anything to do with the Raj.
I believe the younger man on the right (? is he the groom-to-be) is doing a symbolic “touching of the feet” gesture to the older gent on the left (? father of the bride?).
Rather than completely touching his feet, it’s more like a half-bow or an air kiss - part of the gesture but not the full gesture.
Just to quickly answer this (not that it matters for the main question): In the context of the plot of the film, this scene is not a wedding. It is a birthday party of a successful Bollywood actor (played by Sha Rukh Khan), and the other dancers are party guests, all played by Bollywood actors who effectively play themselves. The scene was simply an excuse to cram as many celebrity cameos as possible into it.
