Have always been thinking that how much people listen to you is directly proportional to how irreverent you are about issues. I guess it is a vicarious pleasure. There are things that you want to do and want to say, but something stops you from saying that and when someone else does that, you either feel happy about the fact that your thoughts have been echoed or the fact that someone at last gets to say what you always wanted to say.
It is mainly because we are too strait-laced to speak out our mind. I read somewhere that no one ever says that a new born infant looks like a monkey. In fact many of them look so. It is only after a week or two they have some features that get prominent differentiating it from a monkey. But all of us say the baby looks cute. No I am not saying that you tell the parents that their new born looks like a monkey. You don’t even confess that to your partner. Really funny!
There are always two things that are expressed. First is what your mind tells you and the next is what the social compulsions make your tongue to say. Few years back, when I was referring about a girl at office to one of my friends, he acted as if he has heard the name for the first time. In fact that lady is cynosure of many eyes at office and I was surprised that he hasn’t noticed her so far. And then told myself, maybe I am afflicted with a chronic disease of getting to know about all good looking women. Later I learnt that when he had a chance to speak with that girl, he had some 3 years of common history to share and lot many common friends. This guy had known about her all along, but simply feigned ignorance. Now tell me, why on earth you would act like that?
That brings up the point of this blog. Saying something honest has become irreverence. When I keep telling what strikes my mind and am pretty sure that it is the same way majority population of the earth would feel, I say that. And I become an irreverent speaker while everyone squirms in their seat when they hear but imagine themselves saying it. Kamal Haasan tells this dialogue in a movie ‘I think it is better to study and go to an exam than visiting a temple and attending the exam’. Absolutely true! No one stops from going to the temple, but then you should first study. Now people think it is an atheist statement. God is an examiner, yes! But not for your answer papers in a 10th standard board exam!
So, I was rather surprised when I listened to another dialogue from the movie ‘Man of the Year’, when Jack Menken says this to Tom Dobbs “Everyone's going to be writing about how honest you are and how straightforward. I just hope your honesty doesn't undercut your irreverence”.
Actually it is the other way round. Honesty never undercuts irreverence, it accentuates that. If you are honest, you tell what you feel and that invariably becomes an irreverent statement. Because half the world is made up of liars.
It is mainly because we are too strait-laced to speak out our mind. I read somewhere that no one ever says that a new born infant looks like a monkey. In fact many of them look so. It is only after a week or two they have some features that get prominent differentiating it from a monkey. But all of us say the baby looks cute. No I am not saying that you tell the parents that their new born looks like a monkey. You don’t even confess that to your partner. Really funny!
There are always two things that are expressed. First is what your mind tells you and the next is what the social compulsions make your tongue to say. Few years back, when I was referring about a girl at office to one of my friends, he acted as if he has heard the name for the first time. In fact that lady is cynosure of many eyes at office and I was surprised that he hasn’t noticed her so far. And then told myself, maybe I am afflicted with a chronic disease of getting to know about all good looking women. Later I learnt that when he had a chance to speak with that girl, he had some 3 years of common history to share and lot many common friends. This guy had known about her all along, but simply feigned ignorance. Now tell me, why on earth you would act like that?
That brings up the point of this blog. Saying something honest has become irreverence. When I keep telling what strikes my mind and am pretty sure that it is the same way majority population of the earth would feel, I say that. And I become an irreverent speaker while everyone squirms in their seat when they hear but imagine themselves saying it. Kamal Haasan tells this dialogue in a movie ‘I think it is better to study and go to an exam than visiting a temple and attending the exam’. Absolutely true! No one stops from going to the temple, but then you should first study. Now people think it is an atheist statement. God is an examiner, yes! But not for your answer papers in a 10th standard board exam!
So, I was rather surprised when I listened to another dialogue from the movie ‘Man of the Year’, when Jack Menken says this to Tom Dobbs “Everyone's going to be writing about how honest you are and how straightforward. I just hope your honesty doesn't undercut your irreverence”.
Actually it is the other way round. Honesty never undercuts irreverence, it accentuates that. If you are honest, you tell what you feel and that invariably becomes an irreverent statement. Because half the world is made up of liars.
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