Thanks?....no thanks.

another interesting cultural aspect we learned about indians is that they rarely say please or thank you. the people here are much more direct and forgo the niceties that we americans use.

it's not that they are rude though, let me give you an example. if someone wants a book, they will say "hand me that book," but they won't make it into a question like "will you please hand me the book?" b/c for indians the question is implied, so there is no need to preface it with a "will" or "please." i realize that this sounds like they are being curt, but for indians you are always expected to help anyone who seeks it, so there is no need to make a question out of it.

likewise, indians very rarely say "thank you." for someone to say "thank you" you would have to do something really big like replace a transmission for free. when it comes to normal day to day transactions, thank yous are just not necessary. a student here, Sunil, was trying to explain it to us and said that for a deal involving a money the payment is the thank you, so there's no need to add it. this shed some light on the times that the rickshaw drivers looked at us strangely when we said "thank you" after dropping us off.

when it comes to smaller things around the house, say someone brings you some coffee, you wouldn't thank them b/c a "thank you" sort of negates the action. this one is weird, but Sunil told us to think of it as a deposit in a bank. when you do something, like bring someone coffee, it puts a credit into your bank, but if they say "thank you" it withdrawls that credit from you. for indians, you have to return the favor by doing something for them. i guess you could call it karma.

this one has been hard for us to get used to, as we are so accustomed to adding 'thank you' to every little thing from U.S. formalities.