18 pages • 36 minutes read
Amit MajmudarDothead
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Religious Context
Because “Dothead” describes the experience of an American teenager whose family observes some Hindu customs, it is useful to learn more about Hinduism in general and its presence in the United States. Hinduism is the world’s third-largest religion, after Christianity and Islam, with over 1.16 billion followers, more than 15% of the global population. It is practiced around the world, but most Hindus live in India, where they comprise nearly 80% of the country’s population. Nepal and Mauritius are the other two countries in which Hinduism is the dominant religion. Some predominantly Muslim countries, like Pakistan and Bangladesh, also have large Hindu communities. Approximately 2.23 million Hindus live in the United States. (The stats come from “Hindu Countries 2021.” World Population Review.)
Hinduism is a diverse system of religious, philosophical, and mythological concepts, ideas, and practices. There are several denominations within Hinduism, each with its own rituals and interpretations of Hindu sacred texts and traditions. There are disagreements about whether Hinduism should be seen as monotheistic (belief in one God) or polytheistic (belief in multiple gods). There are numerous gods and goddesses in Hindu mythology, though many of them are incarnations of major gods, like Shiva, Vishnu, and Kali. On the other hand, all these deities are often understood as manifestations of the supreme divine spirit, sometimes called Brahman. Brahman is not a personified god or a material entity. Instead, it is an abstract concept representing the eternal and omnipresent spiritual core of the universe. Accordingly, some describe Hinduism as henotheistic: belief in one supreme God but without denying the existence of other lower deities.
In addition to being a major religion, Hinduism is also a way of life. Classical Hindu thought defines four appropriate goals of human life: dharma (religious and moral duties), artha (virtuous pursuit of material well-being and worldly success), kama (sensual and aesthetic pleasure), and moksa (spiritual freedom from worldly sorrows). Another key concept is karma, a moral law holding that a person’s ethical or unethical behavior has consequences in that person’s current life or, in some Hindu traditions, in a future life following reincarnation. Many Hindus are vegetarian or vegan because they believe in not hurting other living beings. Meditation is another important practice in Hinduism because it facilitates the practitioner’s awareness of their connectedness with other living beings and Ultimate Reality beyond the world of physical appearances. These spiritual aspects of Hinduism are particularly important for Majmudar’s poem. What the poem’s speaker wishes he could make his schoolmates understand is precisely the spiritual values and aspirations behind the strange-seeming symbols like the bindi.
Cultural Context
It is a platitude—but a true one—to say that the United States is a country of immigrants. Throughout its existence, people have arrived from all corners of the world in search of freedom and a better life. The traditional immigrant goal was to assimilate into American culture, which was often described as the melting pot. That ideal is embodied in the famous phrase E Pluribus Unum, Latin for “out of many, one.”
However, there is also the desire to acknowledge and celebrate one’s national or ethnic origins rather than leave them behind in the process of Americanization. The form and intensity of hybrid self-identification varies depending on the diverse historical experiences of ethnic groups in the United States. For example, it certainly makes a difference whether one’s ancestors were forcibly brought into the United States as enslaved people, or came here of their own volition looking for personal fulfillment. Attitudes regarding cultural assimilation are more divergent and contentious today than they were in the past. Some have even suggested that the melting pot should be replaced with another metaphor: a salad or a stew, in which individual elements are still distinct and recognizable but unified by shared affinities into a more complex entity.
While the speaker in “Dothead” is too young to understand or articulate it, this cultural context bears significantly on the experience he describes in the poem. He goes to a school in which most students are white, and while their ancestors might have come from different European countries, the students are fully assimilated. However, for someone who is not white or Christian, the situation is more complicated. The Indian American teenager in the poem is torn between the pressure to erase difference so he can be one of the boys, and the desire to acknowledge—and defend—his ethnic and religious identity, which is what he ultimately does. His Indian American identity is not something he can easily ignore because he will always be reminded of it by those who smirk and snicker (or worse, frown and curse) when faced with difference.
The poem’s title, “Dothead,” conveys a dismissive attitude toward difference. It is an ethnic slur for people whose religious or cultural heritage entails wearing the bindi on their forehead. When asked in a radio interview why he chose a slur for the title of his poem (and the whole collection), Majmudar responded that he wanted to reclaim the word from those who use it offensively because for him a dot on the forehead relates to something beautiful and spiritual (see Further Reading & Resources).
