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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?

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