We let anyone and everyone interrupt us as isn’t it only polite to attend to whoever is interrupting us? We may get to the front of a queue and finally sit down in front of the bank manager. But then his own peon comes to him with a chit which naturally he looks at, ponders over it and maybe start writing on the chit… and then just as you get started, the phone rings and he takes the calls and even tells you, “Excuse me it’s an important customer” as if you are, as the Americans say, chopped liver.
What about visiting a person at home — of course nowadays nobody just drops in — you make prior appointments not because you value their time; on the contrary you don’t want to waste your time and find they are out. Anyway you drop in and the host gets a phone call and starts a long conversation with a long lost relative who would be offended with a remark like, “Someone is here and so can I call back later?” Oh no, much better to look over your shoulder and shrug and say excuse me.
Meanwhile you first sit looking un interested in the call and then you are forced to listen but it is a one sided conversation and boring so you look for a magazine or anything to read even if it’s a club newsletter which normally you wouldn’t be caught dead reading…
The other day I was on the other side so to speak. I called an official at work and suddenly he started talking in another language till I realised that he was also talking to someone probably in front of him.
Of course we have all come across some women who seem to be talking to their maids, cooks, drivers, gardeners, dhobhis, tailors, fruit man, vegetable man even a beggar in the middle of a telephone conversation with us. But that may be a case of multi-tasking.
There is also a story of a lonely old woman who used to live in a very small town and who got only occasional visitors. So she had a veritable library of good books and magazines both international and Indian. A family once went to visit her and got so engrossed in these magazines that they forgot about the poor old lady they had come to visit till she asked them earnestly to take the magazines home with them … ( and talk to her?)
There is also another type of unwanted Indian politeness which compels you to go to your brother-in-law’s cousin’s in-law’s father-in-law’s funeral. This kind of ritual of course forces other families also to do likewise till we are all attending ceremonies not at all relevant to us.
The ultimate Indian politeness is at exit polls leading the poor politician who ultimately loses his own deposit to think he is about to get a landslide victory!
The writer is founder, director Coachlife
mail: santha.john@coachlife.asia