Friday, July 26, 2013

My name is not shuk-shuk...

Friends, Indians, Countrymen (and women)!
Lend me your ears!

My name is not shuk-shuk. It's not even Shukla. In fact, as far as is known, shuk-shuk isn't a name in any community known to reside in India. It hasn't meaning in any Indian language. The only inhabitants of the country known to understand the term and react favourably are dogs, and stray ones too.

The horn in a car/truck/rickshaw/ motorcycle/scooty/moped/luna is not a magic button that can make any real or perceived obstacle on the road, including traffic signals, vanish into thin air.

Women who graduate from medical school are doctors, they may be addressed so. They need not be called sister, shishter, madam, behenji, deviji, auntyji, bhabhiji, maaji or any other female relation-ji. A plain and simple "Doctor" is fine, as in Dr. Mary Jane. Whether Dr. Mary Jane is Dr. (Miss) Mary Jane or Dr. (Mrs) Mary Jane is completely irrelevant to patient care. Stay out of it. Ditto for Advocate Mary Jane.

A group of people waiting in a line to avail of a service that can be rendered to one person at a time is called a queue. It may not appear so, but it is a fast and organized way to get things done. Highly recommended.

What relation two people of opposite genders travelling peacefully together on the bus bear to each other is only their business.

All those other people who do not speak the language of all those people are not necessarily stupid or doomed to go to hell.

Punjabis don't begin and end each sentence with Balle Balle. Tamilians don't holler "yenna Rascalla" on the hour, every hour. Maharashtrians don't exclaim "Aila Plane!" everytime something flies past.

Nationality and religion are not one and the same thing. Neither are patriotism and sartorial apathy.

The streets are not to be cleaned up; they are to be kept clean. The Constitution wasn't framed to provide a government that would take the spit and the waste off the streets and the monuments. Spit and waste were not supposed to get there in the first place.

Tobacco chewing is injurious to health.