My now-husband, Jake, and I come from two different worlds. He is a Californian with German roots and I’m an Indian immigrant.
Recalling the moments right before I met his family, he told me to be myself and that they’re going to love me. (It worked.) But when it was his turn to meet my big, fat Indian family, the list of expectations was much longer.
He did his best to keep up, like learning a few phrases in Hindi and not calling elders by their first name. But one deeply rooted tradition surprised him.
“When you see my grandmother, make sure to touch her feet,” I told him when he visited India last May. “Her feet?” he asked me, his eyebrows raised.
I grew up with this practice as did those around me. What felt normal to me was obviously foreign to him. So I did my best to explain.
In India, it’s common to bow down and touch an elder’s feet as a sign of respect and a way to ask for their blessing. It’s a gesture of humility and acknowledges the elders' elevated position in society, I told him.
Jake nodded before adding he needed to practice. He showed me several ways he could go about it and asked me questions about his form and whether he needed to touch the toes specifically.
“Don’t overthink it. All you have to do is touch her feet and give her a smile,” I reassured him, or at least tried to, as he gave me a worried look.
When he met my grandmother, Maya, nearly 70 years old now, Jake did as he had practiced.
Maya, who was already smiling ear to ear after meeting Jake for the first time, instantly grew emotional and gave him a big bear hug. The language barrier did not matter and just like that, two different generations from worlds apart forged a connection.
This same gesture of humility and respect took center stage at Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing on Thursday. He is Trump’s nominee for director of the FBI.
As soon as he entered the room for his confirmation hearing on Thursday, he touched his parents' feet. The video went viral, with several social media users of Indian heritage sharing it and chiming in.
The Free Press’ Rupa Subramanya in a social media post on X said that while she doesn’t practice the ancient Hindu tradition, she respects it. “And it’s great to see Kash Patel touch his parent’s feet before the hearing,” she added.
Patel, in his opening remarks, said, “I’d like to welcome my father Pramod, and my mother Anjana, who are sitting here today. They travelled here from India. My sister, Nisha, is also here. She also traveled across the oceans just to be with me. It means the world that you guys are here.”
“Jai Shree Krishna,” he said while facing them. The widely used expression is used to greet people. It’s a Sanskrit phrase, which translates to, Victory to Krishna, a Hindu God.
“I wouldn’t be here today without their guidance, their unwavering support, and their relentless love. When President Trump informed me of his intention to nominate me as the director of the FBI, I was deeply honored,” he said.
Patel said he carried the dreams and hopes of his parents as well as Americans who value “justice, fairness and the rule of law.”
His father fled Uganda during Idi Amin’s genocidal dictatorship.
At least “300,000 men, women and children were killed based on their ethnicity, just because they happened to look like me,” he said. His mother is from Tanzania.
“She studied in India, as did my dad, and they were married there. They would later emigrate to New York ... where I was born, and we were raised in a household of my father’s seven siblings, their spouses, and at least half a dozen children,” Patel said.
He continued, “That’s the only way we knew how to do things at the time, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Indian way, but we would soon learn the American way,” he said.
As the Deseret News reported, Patel’s hearing Thursday was one of the most contentious ones so far as he faced tough questions about his professional experience and past comments as he seeks to be confirmed as the next director of the FBI.
Senate Democrats grilled Patel on a number of issues, claiming the Trump ally does not have the experience needed to lead the agency and airing concerns he would use the top agency position to exact revenge on those who have previously investigated the president.
Republicans pushed back on those accusations, including Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Tillis argued in favor of his expertise and commitment to the country.
“Kash’s parents are Indian immigrants of Gujarati ancestry. They’re up here in the front row. The Gujarat state is a melting pot of religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, with temples, mosques and other religious sites scattered across the state,” he said before noting his parents' upbringings.
“His parents raised Kash in the Hindu faith and they instilled in him the values of hard work and education,” Tillis said. “Kash is a devout Hindu, and consistent with his faith, he’s shown respect to people of all faiths.”