People skills.. Kids have to be taught this!
It was holiday and I was travelling in the bus. It was not crowded but all the window seats were taken. I sat in a seat that was reserved for women. In front of me, a woman, probably in her late 20s, was seated by the window, again in a seat reserved for women. Her friend sat on the other side of the aisle, again occupying the window seat. But this seat was reserved for senior citizens. They both were wearing attires that was common in Rural India.
Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
After observing them for a while, I was almost certain of the following things 1) They were not from the city, in fact they were not from this state. 2) They spoke a language spoken in North India but the dialect was something I had not come across before. 3) They were casual labourers who were commuting after finishing the day’s work. 4) They were illiterate.
On two occasions, middle aged men who boarded the bus, directed the woman seated in the senior citizen seat to move; all they did was point at the ladies-seat. They also had an authoritative + irritated look. She, understandably ignored them. Why should she pay attention to that? She had all the right to sit there. There were plenty of empty seats around, why does she have to vacate her window seat to a middle aged man?
One of the middle aged man reluctantly sat beside her. I could see that he was disgusted to be sitting next to her, why, I cannot imagine. Soon, he got off at his stop. Two stops later, a couple entered the bus. The man was easily over 60, his wife was younger. They made their way in the (still) half empty bus.. till they reached the senior citizen seats, when the wife rudely gestured to the lady at the window seat- udhar jao (move there!)
This time, the frightened young lady got up from the seat aand joined her friend at the ladies seat. They both looked annoyed and perplexed. Why were people asking her to get up from that seat? Obviously, she could not read the sign board that said “for senior citizens” and even if someone explained it to her, she would have been perplexed because all the people who demanded that she get up did not belong to the senior citizen category.
Yet, city people assume that they can “order” these “illiterates” around, as if they own the bus. It angered me to see the two women being treated that way by everybody. You can (rightly) claim a reserved seat, but politely.
It reminded me of the time, when my husband and I were travelling in a foreign country and we boarded a local train. The train was almost empty except for 5 or 6 passengers. We sat down in one place and were talking, when an old man sitting 2 seats away said- Shhhhhshhhhh….
We were taken aback, why should we shssshhhhhh?
We were not loud, so we ignored his comment and continued talking.
And he shhhhssshed us again!!
We were quite offended and thought that he was probably racist and hence tried to order us around. Later, though, we realised that we were seated at the Silence-Zone of the train which meant that people seated here cannot speak to each other, or talk on their phone, listen to loud music or make any kind of noise. Then we thought, the old man probably was disgusted by our disregard for the local rules. Never the less, he could have tried to explain to us politely that this was a silent-zone… obviously we were foreigners to the country and did not know about the local rules and regulations. It was hurtful to be shunned like that… and I felt that these women in the bus would have been offended the same way.
We need to teach kids basic people skills, how to communicate something with people who are culturally different. Miscommunication can lead to complicated situations. We are already living in a society where some groups of people think they are better than others. And in such situations, good communication is even more important. You may not feel you are superior to someone else, but the way you behave or communicate things can lead the other person to think that.
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