Odzer's Blog
Wow I have been busy with things, I have travelled a bit more since the last blog and those posts will come up soon. The first post that I am going to be doing on this new blog would be about manners. Good manners go a long way and cost nothing. Yesterday after a full day of work I returned back to the city with T and we went to a restaurant for dinner along with another friend.
It was a bit chilly in the evening and as we settled down to our dinner I noticed that the restaurant door was open. It had got stuck perhaps because of a faulty hydraulic door closer. In any case several patrons of the restaurant walked in but none of them had the decency to close the door. I was a bit far away from the door and there were many tables in between the door and us. The open door was especially bothersome because of the draft. After a while a small kid got up and closed the door. None of the full-grown up adults near the door or even those that took advantage of it being open and walked in bothered to close it.
Now the lack of manners in this part of the world has been written about a lot and I certainly do not intend to rant on and on about it but I sometimes do wonder if the way people behave with each other here and how they treat strangers leads to a certain impression on outsiders. We do have a great campaign going on in India about attracting foreign investors and India being a great investment destination but does anyone really want to live and work in a country where people are so uncouth and uncivilised? Alright we can go on and argue great lengths about how standards of culture differ globally but there are certain things that are common across the world.
As I remember growing up Indian people were not that rude actually. As the country grows richer and more prosperous instead of the people getting more refined and cultured an opposite effect can be observed. Nouveau riche sometimes consider it beneath them to really do things that a few years ago were considered essential to function in the world at large. No one holds doors open for other people any longer, no one thanks people for the services they provide, a lot of this new section of our population even refuses to acknowledge that others do exist around them.
So why do we find it so unnecessary to be just a bit nicer? It’s not really something that costs money. It only builds good will among each other and it makes the country a pleasant place for those who take the pains to visit us or do business with us. The answer lies in deep attachments to their own families. I have often observed that the top priority for most people here is the welfare and prosperity of their own family even if it comes at the cost of the society at large. It’s something that can be observed in daily life at large. Be it trying to reach the office earlier than everyone else to suck up to the boss by trying to run a motor rally on the public roads or jumping a queue to get cinema tickets for your own family while elbowing waiting people out of your way.
People have forgotten that if they can elbow their way to get the things that they want or if they only think about themselves at large they are creating a society in which their own children will grow up to be bullied and edged out by those that are considerably stronger than them. Dog eat dog can only last only for so long. Of course I would be stupid and naïve to believe that a blog post can make an impact on how the public at large behaves but I think I would be even more naïve if I just ignored how people behave at large in public and did not write a word about it at all.
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I remember so many instances of this… it was the one thing (ok I lie, it was one of the things..) that would piss me off massively in India. One time I was boarding the train to Delhi, struggling to my seat with a heavy bag, only to find myself nearly elbowed out of the way by an elderly man (for obvious reasons I’ll not call him a gentleman).
When I confronted him about nearly bulldozing me out of his way, he was a bit shocked at first that I dared to say anything, and then he exclaimed that he was trying to get to his wife who was all by herself. I responded saying that’s no reason to shove me, as I was also a lady all by myself and to wait his turn. Not sure if he got the point but at least he backed off until I found my seat.
I think the only thing one can do is put people in their place sometimes. Your average “shovee” isn’t a white early 20s student without any cultural inferiority complex though, so I may have had an advantage there. But it can only benefit the situation to tell people to their faces that they do not own the world and can’t treat others like dirt simply because most (poorer?) people won’t argue back.
Wow a real comment and not something about an elliptical machine. I agree the shove people are pretty awful. It is best to board trains just before they leave if you do not have a lot of luggage but then again if you have a lot of it you will do well to go ahead of everyone else or they will leave no place for your luggage in the hold above the seats. I also find the same to be true on planes. Uncle Ji’s and Aunty Ji’s are the worst offenders when it comes to manners because they think that they can get away with anything and no one will really check them.
You know what, this type of behaviour does not limit itself to India. Although the example I am about to give involves an Indian aunty – it’s funny that the behaviour continues in a place where your average white person would not dream of doing the same.
Maybe a year or two ago I was boarding a bus to get home in the evening. I suppose it was rush hour, but this particular bus was not as crowded as the term rush hour would have you believe. Still, all the seats were taken so there were a number of passengers standing up. Towards the front of the bus there were a few seats reserved for “disabled people or those less able to stand” with a polite reminder on a sticker that one should give up the seat should such a person require it. I was standing near the exit door when I saw an elderly man board the bus (with some difficulty I might add). He looked about 85, quite frail. On the “disabled seats” there were 2 aunties sitting there chatting away, and although he was standing right next to them, they simply ignored him and kept chatting. He was forced to stand until someone further down the bus noticed and got up to let him sit down. I could not believe that these women who were maybe 50 years old and looked healthy enough (they had bags of shopping, so presumably they were able to walk just fine carrying heavy bags) would just let this old man stand in the moving bus. For god’s sake would they treat their own father this way? He certainly looked the right age! (I doubt it would’ve made a difference otherwise, but the old man in question looked Indian as well – so it wasn’t a case of passive aggressive racism.)