Have you ever hugged a person, who simply stood there like a flag pole on Republic Day?

Uff, let’s say I’ve had my fair share of those, including my Amma, Indu Shedde. I’m a very touchy-feely person with my family, and while Amma lovingly exchanged hugs when I was a kid, she grew stiffer in the Accepting Hugs Dept as I turned adult. For years she has refused my offers to give her a reflexology session—a foot massage—it ranks much higher in her eeks scale, than a hug. There are very few close people, to whom I would offer a foot massage, yet they include some who shriek and refuse it outright. Indians have loaded subconscious associations with the feet—dirt, neecha, low caste, shudra, low class, low status, polluting, and worse. Perhaps they imagine I’m a woman of high status, who couldn’t possibly do for them what a parlour girl would do.