People who piss me off:
Chapter 1: The talker.
The talker is a fine specimen of the human race. As Ford Prefect once conjectured "They probably keep talking so that their brains don't freeze up" or something along those lines.
I've met a bunch of these people and almost every single encounter has resulted in me having a splitting headache. When one gets trapped into a conversation with a talker one has to drop hints with the same amount of subtlety involved in driving a tank through a china store. One has to visibly squirm, shiver and scowl and even then it might be all in vain.
Recently though I have had a couple of experiences with a talker that has left me shaken. I am a Malayalee hailing from the south Indian state of Kerala. As such I am aware that there is a fair amount of stigma associated with my people. It would not be an overstatement to say that we are infamous for a number of reasons. People poke fun at our food (coconut oil..!!! why is there coconut oil in my coffee??!!??), at our english (or Engleesh rather), our affinity to the gulf (all aboard the Duffai express) and also our adult movie industry (or whatever passes for it).
Now please, do not misunderstand me here, we fire our fair share of salvos at folk from other states. We are by no means the innocent victims here. However, all of my experiences in this regard have been good natured ribbing exchanged with my friends from other parts of the country. Keyword being "friends".
There are some privileges that are granted to people who become friends. I single that statement out since apparently some people are baffled by it.
I recently met a "person" who seems to have been made real as the result of someone pointing a wand at a steam roller and saying "I bid thee be". I say this not in any way referring to her physical attributes but her social ones. Within minutes of said fateful (read apocalyptic) meeting she had already insulted me multiple times with me being nothing short of a gentleman (Hey! I was at the very least keeping my yapper shut and minding my own business.). Over the course of a lunch that degenerated faster than the plot quality of a saas-bahu serial she kept taking shots at me.
It is very important that the reader knows that I am in no way incapable of responding to verbal spikes in english. This "person" though was a hindi speaker (in the same way that a hurricane is a form of wind) and every jibe was delivered in this hybrid of hindi and english and scarcely would I formulate a response before she would cackle in glee (much like a crone of yore) and launch into the next attack.
Never have I seen a display so steeped in vitriol.
It didn't help that the other folks who were with me understood her hindi perfectly and would laugh on cue with every spike. I am happy to say that I suffered through it all with good grace and quiet dignity and steadfastly ignored her from then on.
If our paths do cross again then I fear that I shall not be so calm. There is only so much one can bear before spewing out those magical words.
"SHUT THE DUCK UP!".
'Tis nice to know that there are people in the world for whom words like "Harridan","Crone","Harpy" and "Scarecrow" apply as well as they did in the age in which they were coined.
There is much that I complain about and much else that I am glad for. One of the things I am very glad for is that at the very least I am not the sort of person one would cross the road in order to avoid.
Maybe, that's good enough.
Magus.
Chapter 1: The talker.
The talker is a fine specimen of the human race. As Ford Prefect once conjectured "They probably keep talking so that their brains don't freeze up" or something along those lines.
I've met a bunch of these people and almost every single encounter has resulted in me having a splitting headache. When one gets trapped into a conversation with a talker one has to drop hints with the same amount of subtlety involved in driving a tank through a china store. One has to visibly squirm, shiver and scowl and even then it might be all in vain.
Recently though I have had a couple of experiences with a talker that has left me shaken. I am a Malayalee hailing from the south Indian state of Kerala. As such I am aware that there is a fair amount of stigma associated with my people. It would not be an overstatement to say that we are infamous for a number of reasons. People poke fun at our food (coconut oil..!!! why is there coconut oil in my coffee??!!??), at our english (or Engleesh rather), our affinity to the gulf (all aboard the Duffai express) and also our adult movie industry (or whatever passes for it).
Now please, do not misunderstand me here, we fire our fair share of salvos at folk from other states. We are by no means the innocent victims here. However, all of my experiences in this regard have been good natured ribbing exchanged with my friends from other parts of the country. Keyword being "friends".
There are some privileges that are granted to people who become friends. I single that statement out since apparently some people are baffled by it.
I recently met a "person" who seems to have been made real as the result of someone pointing a wand at a steam roller and saying "I bid thee be". I say this not in any way referring to her physical attributes but her social ones. Within minutes of said fateful (read apocalyptic) meeting she had already insulted me multiple times with me being nothing short of a gentleman (Hey! I was at the very least keeping my yapper shut and minding my own business.). Over the course of a lunch that degenerated faster than the plot quality of a saas-bahu serial she kept taking shots at me.
It is very important that the reader knows that I am in no way incapable of responding to verbal spikes in english. This "person" though was a hindi speaker (in the same way that a hurricane is a form of wind) and every jibe was delivered in this hybrid of hindi and english and scarcely would I formulate a response before she would cackle in glee (much like a crone of yore) and launch into the next attack.
Never have I seen a display so steeped in vitriol.
It didn't help that the other folks who were with me understood her hindi perfectly and would laugh on cue with every spike. I am happy to say that I suffered through it all with good grace and quiet dignity and steadfastly ignored her from then on.
If our paths do cross again then I fear that I shall not be so calm. There is only so much one can bear before spewing out those magical words.
"SHUT THE DUCK UP!".
'Tis nice to know that there are people in the world for whom words like "Harridan","Crone","Harpy" and "Scarecrow" apply as well as they did in the age in which they were coined.
There is much that I complain about and much else that I am glad for. One of the things I am very glad for is that at the very least I am not the sort of person one would cross the road in order to avoid.
Maybe, that's good enough.
Magus.
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