As keen observers of our cacophonous environment and turbulent life as it swirls around us, as most of us would want to pride ourselves, we should be familiar with the unmistakable traits of people plying their individual trade or vocation. It is not as if I woke up from slumber today and decided to do behaviour-analysis of specific tribes of people we exist with. This is the cumulative experience-driven gleaning, aggregated from decades of observations, distilled with care and canned for casual reading; never to be mixed up with a diatribe on people of different vocations. The intent here is not to hurt anyone, but just to hold a tiny mirror to some sets of people. So, please drop that cynical and critical prism you generally look through and frown; just chuckle, laugh or ignore, as you please.
Have you noticed that delivery people of any stripe, religion, caste, creed, colour and denomination, regardless of whatever exalted or humble company they work for, always arrive at your door-step at an inopportune time?? When you would rather have them somewhere else, say, a few kilometres away?? The general high-handed assumption with which these deliverers start their work is that you have ordered the stuff, so you are duty-bound to wait at your address, ignoring everything else in life and just focusing on the impending delivery. The companies will graciously mention a period, say 9 am to 7 pm, long enough to deny you the freedom to do anything else except wait for the tryst. And you know when the delivery finally shows up - at 6.50 pm, to enable the company to gloat on on-time delivery, `always'. If you need the stuff badly, you have no choice but to stick around; if you move away to the bathroom or neighbour's house, it is very likely that the deliverer goes on to the next victim and your delivery is re-tagged for 9 am to 7 pm the next day, make for one more day of entertainment and excitement for you.
The other salient features of deliverers are (1) Pressing the calling bell at home thrice within 4 seconds with alacrity, to show their impatience with waiting - the gall of it -- disdainfully disregarding your own waiting for hours (2) Never showing up in the mornings when people generally are up and about and ruthlessly disturbing you during the afternoon siesta. And they are always in a hurry, perhaps answering their sworn calling to go to the next chap and wake him up too (3) Waiting till you climb up two floors after doing a chore on the ground floor of your home and then ringing the bell with obvious glee at your breathless discomfiture, having to descend again (4) Calling you when you are 10 kms away and asking you to reach post-haste so that you can sign for the debit or credit card, for which you have been waiting for one week; and yes, he can wait for 90 seconds, nothing more. (5) Perfectly knowing well that you are retired, captive audience at their disposal, asking you for approval to enter your residential complex with 20 other deliveries to do; then incredibly disposing of all the other deliveries before finally coming to you.
What about auto-drivers? The moment you approach one, the curtain opener is invariably his spitting whatever is in the mouth - colourful or otherwise - out on the road, just a foot or so away from you. I received edification from a seasoned and tough auto-driver dealer that we should not assume this act is just a casual, innocuous one. This sets the contours for the forthcoming negotiation/possible ride and cautions you that the next spit may not be a foot away, unless you are reasonable in dealing with his own inherent unreasonableness. Most auto drivers seriously believe they are God's gifts to people, doing a big favour to commuters by taking them anywhere and their behaviour generally reflects this attitude. The fake bonhomie with which they welcome arrivals at a railway or bus station stems from the warped belief that each one is new to the city and is a solid candidate for mindless fleecing. The moment they become disenchanted in this pursuit, they turn rude and recently one chap even manhandled a person who refused to deal with him. This is not to say, there are no good specimens among auto drivers. There are some, kind, polite, helpful auto drivers, but you seldom meet them!! They seem to carefully hide themselves from us.
A true-blue newspaper deliverer will always give you Deccan Herald instead of your favourite and usual Times of India twice a month; and twice a month one of the four papers you buy will go missing completely without any pretense of being replaced. The agent's excuse always is that he has new campus recruits to the highly demanding job and the intern/trainee deserves time to learn. Until then you better eat up the paper that is served. Also, if it is raining, you can count on the guy dropping the paper in obviously wet areas, such that you get some 60% of the news, if lucky. The rest is a soggy, unreadable mess. Once, when I complained to the deliverer, he nonchalantly dismissed me saying `Sir, this is all old news. Go online and get the latest'. And he rode off, looking at his smartphone as he rode, leaving me speechless.
During our childhood, a security guard's profile was such that he was at least above average height, had a good enough physique to deter random guys from creating small scale mischief; he was typically a retired guy from the army. Nowadays anything goes and we see security guards who are five feet tall, scrawny, weighing about 50 kgs and one wonders if they can even stand up to budding and aspiring bullies, leave alone midnight marauders. A security guard is not one, if he does not nod off during the working hours and if you watch one periodically for a few hours, you can catch him blissfully asleep, ignoring the hordes of mosquitoes which swarm around him. Just to delude everyone including himself that he is on duty, he manages to tap the bamboo stick a couple of times on the ground at a reasonable frequency. I guess it reassures himself but keeps people in the immediate vicinity more awake and alert, especially the older ones, who are sleep-deprived anyway. At the end of the day, so long as no untoward incident takes place, everyone is happy and a bunch of such young kids are probably just about the deterrent required.
Then there are the house-keepers, who inexplicably keep moving things from their original positions (where you want them to be) during their elaborate dusting performance every single day, at least by a few inches, prompting you to readjust after they are done. This minor, probably involuntary, revolt either gives them the satisfaction that they control the placements or convinces them that they are doing their jobs. A maid or gardener, who does not 'kill' the same relative frequently, just to get a day off, does not qualify to be a gardener or maid. A gardener who arrives to trim the plants protruding into the balconies on the higher floors, will never arrive with the required ladder; even if it is a monthly chore he has been performing inadequately for years. He will reach with the scissors, sickle and other contraptions, then doubtfully look up at the balcony he has known had existed for time immemorial, look around to find a jugaad-like solution and then go to retrieve the ladder which should have come along in the first place.
Many of us have grown up with teachers amongst us. Some of us might have encountered multiple teachers at home, in each generation. Like yours faithfully, whose grandfather, father, many uncles and aunts had all been Principals, Professors, Headmasters and teachers. And then came the teacher of all teachers, my dear wife. So much so, that the arduous responsibility of being a student or learner at home squarely and heavily falls on the few souls, who decide to be non-teachers. A teacher seldom casts aside the teaching mantle, even when he or she is not in school. The rest of the family learns to cope with constant questioning because the teacher believes teaching through catechism is the better way. Even before one finishes the explanation to the previous question, the next `why' or `how so' pops out quickly, making the most prolific of speakers struggle for breath and words after some time. If the answer or clarification does not provide satisfaction, while thankfully you are not asked to kneel on the floor or stand up on the bench or get out of home, there is no mistaking the fact that the teacher is unhappy about your shortcoming and a corrective session will follow down the line, involving a serious monologue.
Sometimes the home-teacher's instruction could be contradictory, leaving you confounded as to which way you should go. My father was a real guru for all of us and a lot of our learning came from just observing him. But sometimes he used to get testy about some action of mine and I had been frequently admonished not to talk back at elders, even if some questions are specifically asked of me. Point taken, I used to assume the stoical position of a statue, cast in concrete, all respectful and stubborn silence, during the next grilling session. Then I was accused of being akin to a thief caught in the act and having nothing to say in self-defence and was encouraged to at least mumble something in response. I learnt not to fall for this taunt because once I responded, things go back to status-quo-ante, with me being admonished again for talking back!! He never solved this distressing and vicious tangle, by laying out a clear process for such situations. Didn't matter because, after half an hour, he was playing cricket with all of us and all else was forgotten.
My current in-house teacher is very kind and patient and I never get reprimanded for my acts of omission and commission. But I do get the feeling that some teaching is always going on in the background, consciously or otherwise. I try to learn as much as I can but I think I am yet to make the grade in terms of learning with my dear teacher-wife!
Have you noticed that delivery people of any stripe, religion, caste, creed, colour and denomination, regardless of whatever exalted or humble company they work for, always arrive at your door-step at an inopportune time?? When you would rather have them somewhere else, say, a few kilometres away?? The general high-handed assumption with which these deliverers start their work is that you have ordered the stuff, so you are duty-bound to wait at your address, ignoring everything else in life and just focusing on the impending delivery. The companies will graciously mention a period, say 9 am to 7 pm, long enough to deny you the freedom to do anything else except wait for the tryst. And you know when the delivery finally shows up - at 6.50 pm, to enable the company to gloat on on-time delivery, `always'. If you need the stuff badly, you have no choice but to stick around; if you move away to the bathroom or neighbour's house, it is very likely that the deliverer goes on to the next victim and your delivery is re-tagged for 9 am to 7 pm the next day, make for one more day of entertainment and excitement for you.
The other salient features of deliverers are (1) Pressing the calling bell at home thrice within 4 seconds with alacrity, to show their impatience with waiting - the gall of it -- disdainfully disregarding your own waiting for hours (2) Never showing up in the mornings when people generally are up and about and ruthlessly disturbing you during the afternoon siesta. And they are always in a hurry, perhaps answering their sworn calling to go to the next chap and wake him up too (3) Waiting till you climb up two floors after doing a chore on the ground floor of your home and then ringing the bell with obvious glee at your breathless discomfiture, having to descend again (4) Calling you when you are 10 kms away and asking you to reach post-haste so that you can sign for the debit or credit card, for which you have been waiting for one week; and yes, he can wait for 90 seconds, nothing more. (5) Perfectly knowing well that you are retired, captive audience at their disposal, asking you for approval to enter your residential complex with 20 other deliveries to do; then incredibly disposing of all the other deliveries before finally coming to you.
What about auto-drivers? The moment you approach one, the curtain opener is invariably his spitting whatever is in the mouth - colourful or otherwise - out on the road, just a foot or so away from you. I received edification from a seasoned and tough auto-driver dealer that we should not assume this act is just a casual, innocuous one. This sets the contours for the forthcoming negotiation/possible ride and cautions you that the next spit may not be a foot away, unless you are reasonable in dealing with his own inherent unreasonableness. Most auto drivers seriously believe they are God's gifts to people, doing a big favour to commuters by taking them anywhere and their behaviour generally reflects this attitude. The fake bonhomie with which they welcome arrivals at a railway or bus station stems from the warped belief that each one is new to the city and is a solid candidate for mindless fleecing. The moment they become disenchanted in this pursuit, they turn rude and recently one chap even manhandled a person who refused to deal with him. This is not to say, there are no good specimens among auto drivers. There are some, kind, polite, helpful auto drivers, but you seldom meet them!! They seem to carefully hide themselves from us.
A true-blue newspaper deliverer will always give you Deccan Herald instead of your favourite and usual Times of India twice a month; and twice a month one of the four papers you buy will go missing completely without any pretense of being replaced. The agent's excuse always is that he has new campus recruits to the highly demanding job and the intern/trainee deserves time to learn. Until then you better eat up the paper that is served. Also, if it is raining, you can count on the guy dropping the paper in obviously wet areas, such that you get some 60% of the news, if lucky. The rest is a soggy, unreadable mess. Once, when I complained to the deliverer, he nonchalantly dismissed me saying `Sir, this is all old news. Go online and get the latest'. And he rode off, looking at his smartphone as he rode, leaving me speechless.
During our childhood, a security guard's profile was such that he was at least above average height, had a good enough physique to deter random guys from creating small scale mischief; he was typically a retired guy from the army. Nowadays anything goes and we see security guards who are five feet tall, scrawny, weighing about 50 kgs and one wonders if they can even stand up to budding and aspiring bullies, leave alone midnight marauders. A security guard is not one, if he does not nod off during the working hours and if you watch one periodically for a few hours, you can catch him blissfully asleep, ignoring the hordes of mosquitoes which swarm around him. Just to delude everyone including himself that he is on duty, he manages to tap the bamboo stick a couple of times on the ground at a reasonable frequency. I guess it reassures himself but keeps people in the immediate vicinity more awake and alert, especially the older ones, who are sleep-deprived anyway. At the end of the day, so long as no untoward incident takes place, everyone is happy and a bunch of such young kids are probably just about the deterrent required.
Then there are the house-keepers, who inexplicably keep moving things from their original positions (where you want them to be) during their elaborate dusting performance every single day, at least by a few inches, prompting you to readjust after they are done. This minor, probably involuntary, revolt either gives them the satisfaction that they control the placements or convinces them that they are doing their jobs. A maid or gardener, who does not 'kill' the same relative frequently, just to get a day off, does not qualify to be a gardener or maid. A gardener who arrives to trim the plants protruding into the balconies on the higher floors, will never arrive with the required ladder; even if it is a monthly chore he has been performing inadequately for years. He will reach with the scissors, sickle and other contraptions, then doubtfully look up at the balcony he has known had existed for time immemorial, look around to find a jugaad-like solution and then go to retrieve the ladder which should have come along in the first place.
Many of us have grown up with teachers amongst us. Some of us might have encountered multiple teachers at home, in each generation. Like yours faithfully, whose grandfather, father, many uncles and aunts had all been Principals, Professors, Headmasters and teachers. And then came the teacher of all teachers, my dear wife. So much so, that the arduous responsibility of being a student or learner at home squarely and heavily falls on the few souls, who decide to be non-teachers. A teacher seldom casts aside the teaching mantle, even when he or she is not in school. The rest of the family learns to cope with constant questioning because the teacher believes teaching through catechism is the better way. Even before one finishes the explanation to the previous question, the next `why' or `how so' pops out quickly, making the most prolific of speakers struggle for breath and words after some time. If the answer or clarification does not provide satisfaction, while thankfully you are not asked to kneel on the floor or stand up on the bench or get out of home, there is no mistaking the fact that the teacher is unhappy about your shortcoming and a corrective session will follow down the line, involving a serious monologue.
Sometimes the home-teacher's instruction could be contradictory, leaving you confounded as to which way you should go. My father was a real guru for all of us and a lot of our learning came from just observing him. But sometimes he used to get testy about some action of mine and I had been frequently admonished not to talk back at elders, even if some questions are specifically asked of me. Point taken, I used to assume the stoical position of a statue, cast in concrete, all respectful and stubborn silence, during the next grilling session. Then I was accused of being akin to a thief caught in the act and having nothing to say in self-defence and was encouraged to at least mumble something in response. I learnt not to fall for this taunt because once I responded, things go back to status-quo-ante, with me being admonished again for talking back!! He never solved this distressing and vicious tangle, by laying out a clear process for such situations. Didn't matter because, after half an hour, he was playing cricket with all of us and all else was forgotten.
My current in-house teacher is very kind and patient and I never get reprimanded for my acts of omission and commission. But I do get the feeling that some teaching is always going on in the background, consciously or otherwise. I try to learn as much as I can but I think I am yet to make the grade in terms of learning with my dear teacher-wife!
