Mind Your Language

It is not always I take an auto rickshaw for my travel. Thanks to my car battery gave in the other day, I had to hire one of these obnoxious looking three wheeler to reach my office. I could have taken the town bus, but refrained from the idea as I am not that master in hanging onto a moving vehicle's window panel, unlike many others who have mastered that art.

Being true to his brethren erratic driving sense the driver of my auto tried to show me all of his uncanny driving skills in my fifteen minute journey. All went along well till the point where my auto driver thought of applying some hard break (must be an ex Air India pilot), for some unknown reason to me. Along with me he took the biker coming behind us by surprise. Not to mention the biker couldn't possibly applied the break as hard as the driver did and eventually crashed onto the auto, almost throwing me as well as the driver out of the vehicle. That was enough for the battle grounds to set. Both the drivers rushed towards each other hurling each other with full throat abuses and adjectives. The drama continued for next fifteen minutes with Mother, Sister, Daughter and all other possible female relationships promptly being assassinated in open air under a huge public view.

Now this small incident make me ponder. Why are we so repulsive with our language and way of talking? Are we like this from our grandfather's time or off late we have become a rowdy bunch? I am not sure of the records but I don't think our grand parents would have been so nonsense with their civic and social sense. All these road rages, passing lewd comments to passing by babes, at times even aunties, going on a kick boxing exercise on the drop of a hat, all these are new found phenomenas which were not known even a generation back. Is it due to that 8% economic growth, Pranabda? or it has also some ISI hand Mr. Chidambaram?

Many would argue, it is the handy work of the uneducated bunch like the auto drivers and paan walas. Educated people seldom get down to this cheapness. I was also carrying the same impression until recently when I happened to take a flight from Pune to Delhi.

As I always has one tragedy or the other from a screaming infant sitting next to me in his mother's lap to an idiot sitting in front, who as if has left with these 2 flying hours only for the rest of his life to take a sleep and end up pushing back his seat to the point it seems from a distance, as if he his sleeping on my laps and I am just about to sing a lorry. So this flight as I expected was no different. A certain Mr. 100 Kg to the right, emanating some freshly eaten pungent fish curry smell and a certain Mrs. 80 Kg to the left and not emanating any effervescence, thanks to her religious beliefs. Being sandwiched by these two huge human beings and the smell, my nose as well as my limbs went for a permanent paralysis.

No sooner the jet lifted an inch from the ground the fish curry decided to take a sound sleep. I mean literally. By the time the beast was completely airborne and seat belt signs were off, the gentleman with whom I was unfortunately sharing the row was at his best of producing noise of all kinds matching decibel per decibel with the jet engine.Ghadghadghadddd.... Furrrr!!ddrrFur... and some third non descript sound type and repeat of the same cycle. 15 minutes to our flight my right ear has given up all hopes of getting itself back to the factory fitted normalcy again. Must be a wild bear incarnated, I thought. Losing all hope I stopped complaining mutely to the torture I was thrown into and started going through my cell phone's address list to find if I had an ENT specialist's number stored or not. Hang on, don't be confused, if you think at least my left ear was spared from this torture. It was not to be. Mrs.80Kg to the left, with a huge fear factor of flying has already taken out her 105 nut Rudrakha Mala and started counting one by one to thrash away the incoming danger, if any. Along with the counting there goes the full Hanuman Chalisha followed by the Gyatari Mantra with a tone, as if Lata Mangeshkar has a sore throat. The sandwiched posture, even struggling to breath properly, the fishy smell and the sound of various kinds - I was almost in the verge of vomiting.

Just when I was about to vomit the air hostess was at my rescue serving the in flight dinner (as it was an evening flight). I don't know how, but somehow her request to open the front tray did stopped the sound from both the directions. I promptly honoured her request and so does Mrs.80Kg keeping aside her Rudrksha thing for a change. But the incarnated wild bear was far from doing the act. After repeated efforts of the air hostess Mr.100Kg did woke up and asked for a non-veg meal. All hell went wrong when the babe returned with a sorry face to let the fish man know, they ran out of non-veg stuff and if he would care to manage with a veg one instead. Then and there the sleeping beast went out of control along with fingering last fourteen generations of Naresh Goyal as well as the air hostess followed by a good 15 minutes lecture on professionalism. The fight for food made me remind the clips of a documentary of the famine ridden Somalia and our own Bastar region. The incarnated bear possibly wielded almost all of the relationships before he went silent.

At least from his attire, if not his language, Mr.100Kg did seemed like one educated brat. But all education went out of the sealed window at 30000 feet for as small a thing as not getting a non-veg meal as ordered by him. If the law permits he could have made the air hostess stripped to the basics and paraded her in the corridor for not complying to his choice of food. Now that's where it makes me think, education has got nothing to do with we being turning out a large scale cursing factory. We have moulded all possible relationship to our cursing agenda to give it a more flamboyant look. It doesn't matter if one happens to be that auto driver or the incarnated bear in the fuselage. With this I rest my case!!!