Is Arrogance an "in" thing ?

Strange !! …..Isn’t it? …. But I have felt it strongly. My experience says , many a times people get confused between "Arrogance" and "Self ' confidence".

I had felt the first dose of it , when many years back, there was an ad of a soft drink, where a small child around 5 yrs of age answers back to a man of his grandfather’s age "Apne kya mujhe bewkuf samajh ke rakha hai?" (What do you think, am I a fool ?) ….. My Indian upbringing could not take it, which constantly taught me to be polite with elders.

Mnay people may brush aside such things, but then followed the larger than life television era , which still continues and somewhere little kids muttering the dialogue taught by the ad gurus, flashing the styles (too much for their age!) …. reach the living rooms of each Indian household.

Shifting towards little senior age group,I find the similar traits here too. On one side BPO’s have given a good chance to an average student to earn a big money, fend his/her own education expense and support the family too but on the other side somewhere probably due to the lack of experience of life, somewhere good old teachings of politeness and code of conduct are being forgotten.

Not pointing at any particular group of people from a particular profession, or any particular age group ,this is a very general observation.

(I observe, now my each write up carries a disclaimer !)

Is the big money the only cause for this roughness? It is a very good thing that hard work is fetching people good, big and quick money at much younger age as compared to the people until early nineties. (younger gen would not even know the term “Brozgari bhatta” unemployment allowence that is!! we grew up hearing that, berozgari was an issue during the election ! Now it is Laying Off !……….we are quite at par with developed countries  :)  ) well, well, Jokes apart, …….technically people are smarter to invest and take care of the finance, but the cohesiveness, patience, humbleness are becoming rare qualities.

I think when we have too much to handle before we have enough backing of the experience called ‘life’, we tend to commit the mistake of "knowing every thing" and hence creeps in the ‘arrogance’.

"Self ' confidence" is the result of sound knowledge, knowing and believing your capabilities but with the humble attitude and readiness to learn more, and with the capacity of listening to "more experienced" people. A self confident person is on ground realities, he or she also knows his/her limitations and is ready to learn and overcome.

An "Arrogant" person can also be equally knowledgeable, smart and at times people can not do without him/her in the given field (It is an irony , but it does happen sometimes) but can’t go for long. As it is being propagated by the ads, reality shows that talking big,marketing yourself and having an attitude of AGE ' NO BAR while communicating minus humbleness …..well, probably can give one A big high !….. but does not work for longer run.

So, let’s not forget good old fashioned values, that will certainly take us far.

A cup of hot coffee !! So tempting all the time…., specially in winters !……and now with many chains of coffee shops , a cup of coffee has been made even more glamorous specially among youngsters! (This term is again far more relative ….. people in their twenties call teens as youngsters and twenty somethings are called youngsters by those who are in the next decade of their age ….!!)

Anyhow, this explains each cluster of a few years takes you to the next level of the maturity. I guess I had started with a cup of coffee and got stuck in the age trap.

I grew up visiting coffee houses with my parents. Coffee house…..so much so a place for intellectuals for long discussions, tired housewives enjoying Dosas after a long day of shopping, office staff dropping in for endless cups of coffee or people from art and theatrical background clad in long khadi kurta, bespectacled would gather for some discussion punctuated with loud laughters.

What fascinated me as a child were crisp white cloth fans adoring the head gears of the waiters out there…..and the best part was they would be smiling all the time!

This time in Diwali when I visited my parents in Indore, we visited the coffee house again after years. It has been shifted , the ambiance has bettered and to my amazement the crisp white fan head gear and smile of the waiters were still intact. My son who is 12, was amused to see their head gears and we all enjoyed Dosas and filter coffee. The best part was that he was able to serve coffee with different levels of strong ness to each one of us with the same warm smile.

That was quite a nostalgic visit.

I enjoyed my college life in early nineties and we welcomed the introduction of shopping malls with escalators and coffee shops in Indian markets. Glamorous coffee shops lured students though it was quite heavy on the pocket.

Now the new millennium and the era of BRANDS and ADS and Compulsive shopping ! Coffee shops got even more glamorous, with wonderful sitting area, cozy english décor and wonderful prizes!!

Last week after a typical long tiring day at the mall, we thought of having a cup of hot coffee before we went to underground parking, we were tired and thirsty. After placing the order for 2 cappuccino (It had taken me some time to learn the exact pronunciation, when It was being launched here years back!)

We had to ask for water and it came in 2 very small disposable glasses, which could just wet our mouth and I had to ask the waiter thrice to get more water to quench our thirst !! I was completely put off and I did not understand, I pay Rs 100 for a cup of coffee and I am not even served enough water . In fact irrespective of the order, should water not be the first to come on your table?

All mugged up lines of the waiter in english in the background of music could do no good to me as the warmth and the smile was completely missing and I was still thirsty!

So this was The Coffee Shop ……….. and that was The Coffee House !

But I still enjoy my coffee………. !!