Respect!

As a youngest member of our family I have to follow all the instructions and also obey the orders passed by my parents:-). One of those is to be their chauffer. Since we moved to Bangalore from our hometown, which is 200 kms away from here, my parents never miss or never want to miss any of their relative’s weddings. It is their chance to mingle with their buddies and relatives who live far away.

Recently I accompanied my father to one of his best friend’s son’s wedding. It was very hard and perhaps an embarrassing moment for me since I barely knew any one at that wedding. The only person familiar to me was my father, of-course.

My father was very delighted to meet his good old friends from his hometown. The conversation started with a very obvious and curious question Hegide saar bengloor lifu? (How is Bangalore life, sir?). Without any hesitation my father replied nammoor maatu ee ooralli illa saar (This city is never better than our hometown). He loves his hometown and given a chance he would prefer to go back.

After finishing my dinner in less than four and a half minutes, which is very unusual of me, I walked out of the wedding hall to be comfortably seated on my bike. While I was waiting for my father to come back, I saw a person smoking cigarette. He was in his early forties. All of a sudden he went and hid behind a car. I was confused to see what he was trying to do.

All the while he was also watching me watch him. A couple of minutes later he came out smiling and even though I did not start any conversation with him, he went on to explain what he was doing. He said my elder brother was passing by; I went aside to hide so that he should not see me smoking. Out of curiosity I asked whether his brother knew about this habit of his or not? Laughingly he said his brother knows it very well but it is the respect which stops from smoking in front of him. It brought a pleasant smile on my rather grim face.

Not long ago, I read an article which mentioned about some foreign countries where the traffic comes to a halt or slows down when an elderly citizen is crossing the road. The author was trying to highlight the differences in culture. I would say we Indians are not far behind.