Page 13 - Seniors Today - March Issue

It’s good to make conversation – it’s also
good to know when to stop. Going on a
holiday is great, but we get greater pleasure
in letting our friends, neighbours and
other passengers on the flight know our life
details.
In my childhood, we were taught – at home
and at school – that it was rude to interrupt
someone who was speaking! The common
phrase was “Chhota mooh badi baat,”
speak when you are spoken to, and do not
interrupt elders’ conversations. ‘Listen’ and
‘wait your turn’ were drummed into us. Not
any more.
Watch and listen to a debate on television.
See the body language of all the people
who are waiting for the speaker to pause to
inhale, before leaping in themselves. Quite
often, the new speaker’s subject bears little
or no relationship to that of the previous
speaker and the conversation leads to a
subject that is completely off the track. No
one understand the nuances of debating the
simple niceties of allowing others to speak,
and finally you don’t know what to make of
the din and switch off.
Yet another irritating habit is that of
asking Chhotu or Chhoti to sing and
recite for Chacha-Chachi, and you are
expected to clap in great appreciation. I
remember in my teenage days I taught
a group of Chhotus about Jack and Jill
With everyone trying to out-talk each other, the noise level
at restaurants can be irritatingly high
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #21 | MARCH 2021
There’s always someone ready to give you advice on
mostly any subject under the sun
doing something on the hill and coming
down with a daughter. Fortunately I got
blacklisted and did not have to suffer
Chhotu’s nursery rhymes any more. We are
experts at dispensing advice / medicine /
nuksas, ie remedies; the strangest people
will tell you what to eat when you have
a cold, constipation, diarrhoea, earache.
I frequently hear my family members
offering such advice about the benefits of
haldi, aloe vera, ajwain etc etc etc, and this
conversation can happen between India and
Kanayda, Amricaa… and this could go on
endlessly.
Why have we become such a bak-bak
nation? Is it the television, internet, social
media that has had such a profound
influence on today’s generation? Everything
is about me and myself. What sort of
competition do they think they are
winning?
Do you think our younger generation talks
too much without listening?
And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never
share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
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