The other day I noticed with
pleasure a small sticker on the windshield of an autorickshaw. It
read: ‘Kum bolo, dheere bolo, meetha bolo (Speak
less, speak softly, speak sweetly).’ I thought that an
amplified version of the sticker should scream out in all places
where people gather, whether for work, entertainment or travel.
Some of the loudest people I have come across are Gujarati traders in local trains. They use what I call stock-market voices while playing a card game, talking about their business or speaking to some distant being on their mobiles. Once I had the privilege of having two Gujju gents yapping away about the Infosys scrip on either side of me in a crowded train, using my ears as microphones.
I remember my first sortie into Dalal Street as a young lad many years ago. I was passing by when I heard this huge din of numerous people shouting at the tops of their voices. I thought that a riot was at hand only to find out from a hawker that they were voices of some of the richest people in the land buying and selling stocks. At that time, trading was done in the pit and bidding was made verbally. Since loud voices were a virtue, they must have been scrupulously cultivated and passed on to the following generations. Today, of course, trading is done to merely the sound of clicks from keyboards and mice, but it will take a while before the next generation outgrows the need for loud voices and resorts to dheere bolo.
Of course, there are others too who urgently need lessons in dheere bolo. Like the motley group from different communities — Maharashtrian, Keralite, Goan, Manglorean and, of course, Gujarati — in my office who firmly believe that a newspaper cannot be brought out without yelling in decibel levels that could put the latest surround-sound systems to shame.
Recently, I re-visited Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and I now recall the scene where this garrulous man behind Allen and Diane Keaton was impressing his girlfriend about his knowledge of the work of a particular artist, much to Allen’s consternation. Allen provides a dream way of getting the man to shut up by fishing out, from behind a billboard, the artist himself, who promptly tells Mr Braggadacio off. But, as Allen concludes, life’s not like that. So one is often forced to listen to a monologue of a fellow traveller delivered to, most probably, a suffering companion. Sometimes the monologue is conveyed through a mobile phone. Like a while ago, a fellow train traveller was dictating through his mobile — over the noise of the train — a lengthy software programme to some colleague. At the end he announced that the whole programme was strictly confidential and “keep it between just you and me!” Kum bolo?
We have all had unhappy experiences when dealing with public-sector employees, whether in the postal, telephone, banking or municipal offices. But I still think that results can be obtained with a little politeness, oblivious of what the provocation is. However, there is this large, florid, elderly Parsi gentleman clad in khaki shorts, half-sleeved shirt, boots and sola hat at the savings counter of the Churchgate post office who gives short shrift to my theory. The postal clerk merely pointed out to him that the form he had submitted was not complete and required another signature. The ‘gentleman’ startled the clerk by bursting out into a long tirade containing some of the choicest gaali in Mumbaiya Hindi. Being in a hurry to get back to the office, I did not wait to see the final outcome. But Mr Foul Mouth could certainly do with a lesson in meetha bolo.
(The above illustration is by my colleague Mahesh Benker)
Contact: Manuel Fernandes
Updated 21/May/2000