Finally, I hit on that most used and cliched word--"random"--of bloggerworld.
Though it's not really random, nothing is. NOTHING. Everything can be traced, but probably when we do not choose to/don't know how to trace, we use this most comforting cover of "random" and act in another of innumerable ways of being lazy and/or indifferent and express our hurt emotions, I guess.
Whatever, after this badly drafted justification, here's some of my random questions. Put forth for anybody who's still listening (I don't find anybody, by the way, and the reason has to lie more with the chance probability of my ill-destined luck than with the quality of this blog or the time-gap arrangement of potential and/or actual readers).
1. Why do we not call some friends we always remember and miss, especially when we're feeling miserable?
2. Why do English-medium bred Indian girls speak English in an accent that has very little gaps between the words? (Corollary question: does it sound very urban and more uptown? really, what's with the gap??)
3. Why don't we taste the flavour/seasoning when we chew chips as against when we lick them and then chew? (Try slowly chewing them.....even then the difference of tasting the flavour will exist between just chewing them and licking-before-chewing)
4. Why can't we say what we want to say? (even when the listener is listening and is most empathetic,/ sympathetic,/ friendly,/ unassuming,/ un-harming)
5. Why do, we (some, not all) drink water without touching the bottle with our mouth, knowing fully well nobody will be asking for water from our bottle (in a foreign land)? Is it habit? unconscious decision? or hope?
6. Why are some questions formatted in a profound way but are the most parochial? Like, "how are you?"
7. How does retaining old bills/old tickets in our purses, pockets, bags, ......help us (in any way?)
8. Why don't we never buy toothpicks but never fail to take one in eateries/restaurants after a meal? Are restaurant meals always successful in sticking something between our teeth?
Answers would be appreciated.
Attempts to answer them would be applauded.
And you know the rest.............don't you?
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13 comments:
Answer to question #1
May be the memories of those friends are entangled with some kind of happy feeling. May be those remind us specially about those days where life used to deal with a single equation of one unknown entity. May be we do not correlate memories of theirs with a very unpleasant feeling of ours. Even if we feel terribly miserable, we always want those portion of our memories to be taintless, just as much as we want an old bottle of perfume to retain its aroma.
Answer to question #2
"English-medium bred Indian girls" bear a pride of their own. It is the pride of getting educated in English, being able to speak it somewhat aptly and feeling moonstruck about the western culture while the rest of the fellow country people stand far away. They need to show their English speaking fluency in some way or the other. They very strongly believe that speaking it in a single breath without pausing anywhere for articulation would certainly prove their fluency right away. So they continue to speak it in that accent hoping that they would find a less english educated person more often with their jaws wide open in awe and wonder. When it happens, "English-medium bred Indian girls" feel that they are one up.
Answer to question #3
I think it depends how would you like to eat the chips. Perhaps people with extra ordinary IQ eat chips that way [:)]. For me, it is really a great deal of work to lick the flake first for few moments and then to chew. Munching a flake before I realize makes more sense and taste to me.
Answer to question #4
Because we are not used to. There are a very few occasions when we are supposed to say what we want to. The way we have been taught compels us to stay silent, to feel it, to dislike it but not to complain; otherwise it would hurt somebody else's feeling. We are supposed to be nice. We are supposed to portray a stereo type personality. We get used to that. So much, that when the listner wants to listen it; our brains speak, our minds ventilate, our hearts express but our lips just don't utter.
Answer to question #5
I always drink from a bottle touching with my mouth, be it my own or of some body else, I don't care. I attempted to drink it other way, but it ended up splashing water/fluid on all over my anterior body most of the time. So I do this way as it is convenient to me.
Answer to question #7
We would keep the air ticket that brought us a round trip to India and cost USD 1,800. Both the memory and the price are too rich. We cannot afford to forget. So let's keep it. How can we toss a token that had been so precious both financially and emotionally?
We would keep the receipt of the purchase of our beloved fifty dollar microwave from walmart. We have to. Who knows if it malfunctions within ninety days? We would get it replaced for free only if we have the receipt! So keep it. What happens when the ninety day period is over? Do you remember to toss it specially when your microwave is serving great (touchwood)?
We would keep the other half of the movie ticket in our purse as long as our relationship after that 'movie date' stay put. It would at least remind us a pleasant endeavor of that night for some time to come. So keep it unless you change your purse or trying to clear out the junkies after you break up [:)].
We just purchased a pack of dentyne fire chewing gum from the convenience store nearest to our place. Would we keep the receipt? It would go to the trash bin located nearest to the store. Chewing gum purchase receipt neither spells a great number of dollar, nor a ninety day replacement commitment and more effectively does never ring a romantic bell!
Answer to question #6
I am equally intrigued about this question just as much as you are. Sometimes people would ask this question to whoever they come across but wouldn't even wait to get the answer. They would move on and keep doing whatever they had been doing. It is the question that used to put me in utmost discomfort till very recently. A person can never feel the same everyday. Someday you feel happy, someday you feel tensed, someday you feel like you will beat every person up that you come across and someday you feel like you added a few more inches around your waist line over the last weekend. In each of those days a simple "how are you" question is a real challenge. You might very well say that you are 'good' but sadly that would make you feel like lying a greatest lie ever told on this earth. Instead, if you say something else like 'not very good' or try to express in one phrase the current state of your mind, the enquirer would pause and look at you as if the hell broke loose. You will not only have to explain briefly why you are not good; rather, you have to defend your fundamental right to stay unhappy to that person. By the time you would finish petitioning on your behalf, you would realize that being the 'greatest liar on the earth' was the better option than feeling all those guilt of expressing what you feel like today. People do not want to listen how are you. They want to listen that you are good. Because, they know that they are good and so will the everyone else be.
I try to avoid asking the question unless it is a part of a compelling conversation. Nowadays, when asked, I say that I am very good with an incandescent smile on my face and I find a very reciprocating but speechless face on the other side. I learned the art finally and now I cherish it.
Answer to question #8
This is undoubtedly the best question among the lot. I've never seen anyone asking a brilliant question (no sarcasm intended, honestly)like that.
Coming to the point, I would say when you are offered a thing for which you don't have to pay (didn't mean the flyers), you would invent a hundred different utilities of that extremely 'useful' free stuff and you would eventually pick it up even though you had the option to refuse.
#1
why don't we?
are those people so valued that we have to stop and think about them? are those people so precious that draw on that emotional resource very sparingly?
are those people so close that the complexities spawned by intimacies override our instinct?
or are we simply scared to try to pick up the thread only to find we'd lost it long before and never knew? is it that inherent fear or things not having remained the same?
or maybe, we're simply lazy people who spy that bag of crisps and (as the catchword goes) "prioritise".
@ Anyamanush and Oxyacetelyne
Ole!
About #1, Thanks for putting me look towards those directions! Probably I lost the way.
@Anyamanush,
Regarding #3, nobody asked you how you eat the chips. I asked why certain things happen IF you eat chips in a certain way! Read the question again.
Lots and lots of 'haat talis' for the other answers though! Liked some of them and loved most of them!
I have reflected on qn 1 several times.
One reason is, there are times when we are miserable without a concrete reason, just feeling lonely and questioning our fruitless existence,... then we often hunt for permanent solutions. Since the call will only be a temporary relief, we dont find motivation enough for it. That is how I see it.
Another reason is, maybe if that person was staying with me, I would have just gone to him/her and talked even without thinking,'now i am performing this action' I think this involuntary process is always successful. When we are calling, by the time we take the phone and dial the number, our mind starts thinking about the possibilties of conversation and foresees its eventual futilty. Again this happens with me , and may not be generally true. My 'lyadh' sense helps me foresee futilities of actions very fast :)
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