- I also developed my own relationship with namaste. My father expected us, mostly me as the eldest son, to touch our relatives' feet. You bend down, touch the feet with both hands, then touch your forehead. Touching people's feet, in Hindu culture, is considered to be the highest degree of respect you can give to your elders. It is reserved for grandparents, parents, teachers and a few relatives — ones who were considered as deities.
Sometimes I didn't feel like touching their feet. So I'd try to get away with just a namaste. When my father caught me doing that, he said, "No, no, no. You ought to touch his feet." I'd reluctantly bend down and graze my hands around the person's knees, which was still not as good in my father's eyes. He wanted me to touch the feet, not knees.
But sometimes, I did get away with just saying namaste. It made me feel good. I could blurt it out from where I was, with no foot contact
I think this is the only place I've ever seen the word "namaste" other than eightbitsamurai making fun of people in Boulder. Is it really that widespread a thing?
It's rooted in Hindu culture as a respectful greeting, but has been warped by the widespread white washed yoga practices in the US. In the west, used to conclude a class with the meaning "the light in me sees/recognizes the light in you". 8bit's sarcastic version is used to refer to the "spiritual" people who appropriate it and use it for other weird and often incorrect uses.
To me this is one of those phrases that if meant honestly can be a surprisingly vulnerable thing between otherwise strangers, but if at all not heartfelt becomes sour and makes the person receiving it more jaded."the light in me sees/recognizes the light in you"
right? it has the potential to be very meaningful and spiritual, but i think it gets plastered all over meaningless shit that it cheapens the value of the term. 
It's definitely a big thing in yoga culture. Also, I've known more than one hippy/trustafarian to use it to say, "hello" or "goodbye."