Skip to main content

The honkers and the quiet ones

I think there are two kinds of people in this world -- the ones who honk and the ones who keep quiet. The honkers, as the name suggests, are our vociferous brethren. In team meetings, they talk the loudest without making any sense, really; they also crack the worst PJs and in traffic snarls, they invariably honk the loudest and the longest.

Then there're the others -- the quiet ones. I think I belong in that category. Today, I had to travel across the city for some office work. Ever noticed that it's always the taxi or auto you get into that has the aspiring rallyist for a driver with the lousiest and loudest taste in music! Well, as if fate had willed it, that was my lot today. Throughout my two and a half hour drive, I couldn't help but notice that my driver also had the irritable remote syndrome -- you know, that strange urge that comes over us when we lay hands on the TV remote or the FM Radio dial.

He had an FM radio, so I spent my drive listening to snatches of Kannada, Tamil and Hindi songs, interspersed with the frenetic conversation of preternaturally cheerful radio jockeys. I asked him to tone it down once, but quite naturally with all the sounds going on, he didn't hear. So for quite a while, I had my fingers stuck in my ears. The weird thing was, I couldn't bring myself to tell him again to lower the volume. The words kept bubbling up within me, and I kept repeating choice words under my breath, but say them out loud, I couldn't!

Till of course, it occurred to me that I might become hearing impaired and finally, decided to speak up.
Why do we, the non-honkers, hesitate when we know we're the ones who're right? Why do we stay so civilized when the rest of the world obviously doesn't give a damn?

And if I manage to figure that one out, will it make me one of the honkers too?



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wasteland

Something happened over the past two days. Our next door neighbours, or rather one particular family (like all metrizens in this cramped city, we live within literally, touching distance of the others in our neighbourhood), have decided to demolish their home. Fine, so what, you ask. They see how valuable land now is. Who can blame them? But along with their home, they have also decided to kill off the two trees -- a mango tree and a coconut tree -- in their compound. I used to look at those trees from my kitchen window. The mango tree, in particular, was a welcome sight. Bunches of ripe green fruit used to hang heavily from it. Looking at it, I'd think of my home in Kerala -- of the time when I was a little girl in a white petticoat helping my father pluck mangoes as they slowly changed from parrot green to a golden reddish-yellow-orange shade. That was our annual summer ritual, you see. My father plucked mangoes using a long stick with a hook or a 'kokka' (in my collo...

Morning scenes

The wind blustery Skies grey blue A light so muted Birds are quiet too We walkers go Sidestepping Couple-dancing No touching Looking or meeting Glances…Oh no!   Masks dangling From chins Below noses Hanging from one ear Or sometimes Fitting so properly Covering everything So no one can see Or know What we’re really like.   Runners running Soundlessly Iron determination Seeping through So much so   That dogs being walked Know they cannot Wag tails Or even Bark a greeting.   Two men Creating content One breaking into Hair flipping, body popping Dance Faithful friend filming In fits and starts As a security guard Sips his chai Utterly bemused.

This is why acid attacks continue to destroy lives

  Last week, I went to my local kirana store and bought a bottle of ‘acid’. You know the kind of store I mean -- one those neighbourhood shops that stocks everything from groceries to greens, to cheap Made-in-China toys, to household germ killers. I wanted acid to clean my bathroom. So the friendly shopkeeper called out to his assistant: “Hey, get that bottle of ‘acid’, will you.” “Do I need to wear gloves or any protective clothing,” I asked. “No, you can either use it as is, or dilute it,” he replied. The shopkeeper did not ask me for either age-proof or id. The other patrons around me saw nothing amiss, either. They went about their purchases. So for just Rs 60, I gingerly carried a bottle of ‘acid’ home. Life went on as usual. But should it? Shouldn't we all be more concerned that acid can be bought so easily? Did you know that the Supreme Court has laid down a number of guidelines against such sale or purchase of acid, in order to prevent acid attacks? For in...