The mystery of the bobble head

One of my goals while I'm here is to try to figure out what it means when Indians bobble their heads while talking. It's not an up and down "yes" nor is it a left and right "no". I've been confused in the past when I asked a cabbie whether I had paid him enough or not and he did the bobble. I had no idea if that was yes or no but asking him repeatedly always got the same response so I just walked away.

The Lonely Planet book that I got from the library says that the bobble head sometimes means "yes", sometimes "no", and sometimes "I don't know". It's nice of the book to speak to the subject but that doesn't really clarify it. Here's what Wikipedia has to say. Still not entirely satisfying.

We made a breakthough last night when we asked Venkat about it. His explanation is that the head bobble with no hand jesture means "ok ok" but if your hands are turned up or your shoulders are shrugged then it means "i don't know". Hmmm...very interesting. So the bobble is contextual based on the converstation or other body language.

I don't think the chapter is closed yet on this subject...