The only thing about some advice people provide me and that which bothers me is the fact that they are hypocrites. They will seldom do what they advise others to do. Take the example of the parents who continuously make a fuss about the lying habits of their children. 'Don't tell lies'- was perhaps the first moral lesson everyone gets as a kid. It's hard to believe that at some point of time peole have not lied in their life. Even the legendary Yudhishtir lied anout Aswathhama during the battle of Mahabharat. People just would not admit that they are deep down hypocrites. The idea is to to do everything and not get caught. But what happened recently has shook my beliefs and has reinstated a belief that most people are hypocrites by mistake and not by choice, and such people try to lead by examples...
SD had been constantly sending out mails and reminders to people about their tendency to speak out in their native languages. Now, it is a common urge for everyone to speak out their dissatisfaction in the language they are adept in... for it is the language that can bring out the emotional state perfectly. Imagine you are frustrated because your bengali girlfriend would not let you hang up for a meeting where your appraisal is made and you have to explain calmly to her in English that you are in a meeting with the bosses looking at you.... It is just too difficult isn't it? SD has no qualms about speaking in Odiya and that too with almost half of the clients turnig round to see where the strange noise is coming from; nevertheless it is English that we all must speak in, even amongst us.
One fine day CL and SB were in a deep argument whether to start the mainframe job at 7:15 pm, after the database backup has been confirmed or to start it at the scheduled time of 7:00 pm and let the job keep trying to connect to the database every 5 minutes until it succeded when SD happened to pass by. CL and SB did not notice him at all but when he stopped briefly and turned around, I braced myself from a cubicle not far away, for yet another round of advice-giving from none other than SD.
I watched him sneak up to the duo and address them in Bengali "Banglay keno kotha bolcho? Tomader kotobaar kore bolechi tomra office-e Engrijitey kotha bolbe. Client bohubaar kore eta niye complain korechey. Tomader jeno aar Banglay kotha bolte na shuni".
Having said that to a very surprised looking CL and SB he turned round to proceed on his way. CL and SB looked at each other as if undecided what to do when I noticed SD stop on his tracks, turn around and head back for the duo.
"Dont speak in Bengali. How many times have I told you to speak in English. This has been escalated many a times by the client. I must not hear you speaking in Bengali again in Office"
Leading by examples I guess...
1 comment:
well personally i feel its better to speak in a common language when there is multi linguistic lot.. we bengalis do get carried away dpeaking in vernacular even half the gathering do not speak or know the language. Its quite similar to what i had faced at my ertwhile flat in delhi when my malayali room mates room mates would speak mal and it would seem hebrew to me. That was home and this is office. we bengalis have personally spoken in Bengali amongst a group of Marathis in Pune extent to the point , that they started learning Bengali and Bengali became the Lingua-Franca of Fergusson college. We bengalis simply over do it.
Secondly i do not feel Yudhisthir Lied about Ashwathama.. he told the truth. He was dis honest though. There is a subtle difference between Truth and Dishonesty and their respective acronym.. similarly there is a subtle difference between Hypocrisy and Diplomacy
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