I frequent a departmental store which has one swinging door to enter and exit through – you know the type you push from either side to open? Around this store you have two five-star hospitals, three or four offices of MNCs, and one of the top management schools of the country. Why are these details important? So that you know the type of clients that visit this store.
You’d expect a minimum level of courtesy, manners and sensitivity from such people? Wrong.
Every time I go there people are walking in and out of the swinging doors never once holding it open ever so slightly for another person to enter or exit but letting that door swing back rapidly right on their face if they are not careful! If they have to exit, it does not matter who is on the other side – senior citizen, child, pregnant lady or a someone carrying a child – it is the same. Push the door and let it swing back without even looking back.
When I mentioned this to a young person he laughed and said “chivalry is dead and the feminists killed it.” Chivalry, who said anything about Chivalry? True there are fewer damsels in distress today needing knights in shining armours to protect them. They are quite capable of taking care of themselves, thank you. But what has that got to do with simple courtesies and good manners from either sex - why throw the baby out with the bath water? Holding doors open may have been part of chivalrous behaviour but it is as much simple manners and good behaviour. I expect that in women as well as men. Are those dead too? That would indeed be a sad day for humanity. If anything they are needed much more today than ever in human history.
One smartie even told me that it is a cultural thing . We don't do such things in this country. Men always walked in first and women came behind. Yes they did but it was in those days when danger lurked everywhere and men went first so their women and children were not exposed to it. How do you argue with someone who doesn't even know this? There may be hundred arguments in favour of bad behaviour but good behaviour needs no justification - it is just the right thing to do, period.
To be ‘considerate and caring’ – is it only for the girl scouts? Not for the rest of us? At school one of the first things we were taught was to let others pass and not rush. Older girls always ensured that the teachers and children got out before them and the younger ones picked up the habit soon. It seems to me that nobody teaches them these things today. In fact I have seen some parents telling their children to rush and push out of international flights in order to get to the immigration counters first – they show them how to do it by their own example. Getting up even before the flight has come to a complete halt, opening overhead storages, blocking walkways – name it. And it is n’t just the labourers coming back home who block the area around the luggage carousel making it impossible for others even to look if their boxes are there – many of them work in MNCs and have impressive degrees. After a long haul flight everyone is eager to go home but elbowing, pushing and blocking are not the best of solutions to expedite matters. Granted that the facilities and services at the airports are pathetic but we make it worse for ourselves with our behaviour. Put a seemingly gentle and soft spoken Indian in a situation like this and see his worst come out – ‘it is “me” against the rest and I am getting it whatever it takes’ seems to be the attitude.
This generation is highly competitive and they want to be ahead of every one everywhere. Try waiting at any pedestrian crossing without an automated signal or a policeman and see how many vehicles slow down to let you pass by – even if it is a school-going child or a senior citizen trying to cross the road - not just the buses and autos driven by the choicest boors but the plush ones driven by uniformed drivers and by smartly dressed yuppies of both gender. We are all in a hurry and there is no time for meaningless delays - meaningless as they are not going to help us get ahead in our career or finances. It is no excuse that others are like that and you'd be a fool or (the even more descriptive) "loser" to try to be different. I don't know. I'd rather be rated a 'loser' than lose my manners and be a winner.
While I can at least understand ( not accept) this behaviour in the above situation, I cannot understand it at a super market or a multiplex cinema hall. Here there is no hurry to get out but simple apathy and lack of manners. Funnily the doors of the auditoriums in this cinema hall in Bangalore has no stoppers. So invariably the door keeps swinging back and people push it and get out and let it swing back in your face. I always hold it for the next one to pass but the next one just walks through and then I am left holding it forever or until someone observant comes along . Young college girls and boys, yuppy men, older gentlemen, middle aged ladies – no distinction. No one thinks of the next person in line. It is I, me and myself only.
Today’s life is on the fast lane and we all seem to be hurrying from one thing to the next all the time. But it is sad if consideration, courtesy and good manners are the casualties in this race. Life may be short but not so short that there is no time for simple courteous behaviour towards one another. Meantime I will still stand holding doors while people nonchalantly walk past. After all , as the wise one said:
The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones.
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