It was a post lunch session. We were on a walk around the
corridor around our office. That is where we get to know many things about the
team, organization and the country. Isn’t it? That day the topic was about a
forest that lies in the Tamilnadu border. This colleague of mine is a
non-tamilian (I am taking atmost care not to tell which state he belongs to)
and he was telling that he could see a lot of elephants in that forest.
Suddenly to everyone’s surprise he cracked a poor joke, saying “The elephants
which are there are not tamil elephants, but they are black though” and he
started laughing. Nobody else talked for a minute. I remained calm too. I din
show emotions of offence. I took a while to settle down myself and then went to
him and said, “Man, you shouldn’t have told that, that is an offence and please
don’t repeat such things” But he never cared, he started arguing that he was
right and he continued to remain stubborn in his stand, the worst thing he
tried to convince me to take in a sporting spirit and kept telling it was just
a joke.
I ve always felt, rather than reacting immediately it is good to
remain calm and let the offenders know about the issue when they are in
good mood. (Learnt from my mom’s school of human relationships) But when we
tell them about it and if they don’t care what to do? As a professional one
should take minimal care not to hurt the sentiments of any other human being.
To a certain extent I believe words flow faster than our brain could think and
we end up with words that would hurt. But then what is wrong in apologizing? At
least when someone comes and tells that he is hurt?
Emotions are always subtle. You never know when and how you are
playing with it. But shouldn’t we apply some sense? One of my friends was
looking for a transfer from Pune. Amidst all her marriage preparations she
found it really hard to get it going. Her supervisor was simply dragging it for
no reasons. Once he played a game that if she could tell which god the statue
on his table represents then he would initiate a transfer otherwise she would
be denied. What non-sense? Is your sub-ordinate a playing toy or what? How one
could completely ignore the feelings of the person on the other side.
The other day when we had gone for an official tour with all my
team members, I was casually roaming around the riverside like every other
tamilian I was wearing a lungie. All those who passed me started making fun of
it at my face or gave a cheap look. I never thought wearing a lungie is such a
sin. That has always been a casual wear for most of the tamilians. What worries
me more is that even the people I admire the most end up doing such silly
things.
There are people even in this corporate world who talk about the
community; there are people, who talk rubbish about a particular race, There
are people who talk non-sense about women at their absence and there are people
who are always there to stab you at your back. They never seem to realize, all
could one day or the other turn out to be offences for some or the other. As a
human being we do commit mistakes and should we not try to reduce such mistakes
for one’s self than for anybody else? If not we could be professionals in
behavior, let us be human beings at the least!
