Let's Redefine Manners

“Now sweetheart, let’s revise this. What will you say to every one of your guests as they leave?”
“Thank you for coming. I really enjoyed your company.”
“Good girl.”
“But dad…”
“No buts.”
“It’s my birthday party. Why do I have to invite the entire neighbourhood? I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have fun with the Mathur brats. They’ll mess up my toys any chance they get.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to be polite to our guests. Now let’s do this again. This time, do it with a smile.”

I gave him a forced smile and then stretched it all the way to stress upon the fact that it’s mighty fake.

My dad, as we were growing up, always told us how important it was to keep up appearances, maintain relationships, avoid slander at any cost and always be accommodating and respectful.

It is an important time-honoured lesson to teach your kids as they’re growing up. Manners are of utmost significance. They’re a mirror to good upbringing. They’re the one thing that you can depend on to bail you out of most social crises you encounter in your adult life — and, mind you, there’ll be situations aplenty where they’d give you a fighting chance to win.

As Indians, as an inherent part of our culture, we’re just taught to suck it up and be respectful. To mince our words. To open our houses to uninvited guests. To share our small plate of food. To never say ‘No’ to elders, and if it’s absolutely necessary, to soft-cushion the impact of it. To run errands against our will for the pados waali aunty, even though our schedules may be running as crazy as that of a political candidate during elections.

I have grown up keeping this valued, sometimes stifling, lesson in the back of my mind. And it is only now, as an adult raising a child of my own in the big city, that I have to say with gloomy realization: It is time to toss this universally accepted, age-old attachment to manners in the trash.

It’s not because I think my parents were wrong. It’s just that I don’t necessarily think that manners are awfully significant in today’s context. My parents lived in quaint townships most of their lives, with their own circle of people who’d be ready to bail them out of life-altering emergencies (or help them babysit while they enjoy a movie date). They had job security for life, a good work-life balance with no tweets to answer and no self-perceived social media pressures, giving them enough time in hand to volunteer for charity work, social obligations and cultural events. More importantly, getting from point A to B in the towns we lived never took more than fifteen minutes, unless we were visiting another city. Time hardly came into the equation when we had to step out of the house. The only thing that we had to worry about was to be fashionably late cos getting held up by traffic was a rarity.

We had house-parties over the weekend spent playing dark room and Pictionary with our friends, while our parents swayed to the sound of oldies, roaring laughter emerging from the living room as we tried to keep as quiet and still as possible, in the backdrop of large, lavish spreads of home-cooked buffets and shandies. You get the picture. Of course, come Monday and our dads would be dutifully back to their eight-to-five jobs and our mums would be back to their gruelling groundhog days of clearing the aftermath of hosting parties and making mundane life happy and easy for us — while also finding enough breathing space to gossip about Mr.Sharma’s sleazy drunken comment and Mrs. Roy scandalously “smoking with the men”.

What a wonderful, upbeat thing it was to grow in a small township. No wonder we have such good manners.

Cut to today. You live in a big city. You’re a parent who’s constantly racing against time to get your kid to school punctually. You hop on in the elevator of your high-rise building and some random guy holds it up cos his wife’s probably forgotten to pack pickles in his lunch box and she is sorting the choicest ones for him as her morning endearment to him…while we continue to wait. Another girl, probably an alien, is new to the concept of ‘no-network in elevators’ and starts to get really nasal and high-pitched with her Helloooos (which briefly takes you back to Adele’s version of it). When you finally make it to the bottom, as the doors open, anxious disaster survivors (I can only assume) are storming in before you can get out. You fight the urge to tread on their feet with your pointy heels. Anyway, you head out and the first thing you’re greeted by to start your conceivably uneventful commute is a giant stash of dog poop parked right in your walkway. Suddenly, the day is not so uneventful. Now, you’re an avatar in a game involving jumping over puddles, suspicious piles of gunk and in-your-face garbage dumps. As a mandatory Monsoon-level skill in Mumbai, you’re also required to twirl with your kid in your arms to avoid speeding car splashes over your kid’s crisp, clean uniform. You save your hot breath of fire, your choicest cuss words, for His Highness the rickshaw driver who averts his face like an angry wife on hearing where you’d like him to take you. But since you’re taught some restraint on your part, you start with basic manners 101, notching it up to kind pleas, and then in vain you try to reason with him. But hey, how do you even reason with a guy playing deaf? So out comes a stream of words you’d heard through your school cafeteria and road rages for his benefit.

Anyway, you drop your kid to school. Of course, you have been delayed by unforeseen forces and your caffeine urge is now soaring to the skies. So you think, what the hell, I’ll stop for some coffee. Your local barista comes immediately to mind with his “come hither” expressions. You get there, heaving and expectant, but what do you see? There’s a huge line. But you try to empathize. I mean you’re part of the crowd, right? People need coffee to get their motors up and running. So you stand in the queue. When you’re one person away from the counter, the young boy in front of you decides he can’t tear himself away from early morning social media traffic even to place his order. Come on, he’s very important in the virtual world unlike you. So he continues tapping away and smirking to himself. The seemingly miffed barista, who may just wind up accidentally spitting in your coffee instead of his, tries to rush with his order with pointed questions. You’re a well-mannered person. So you look the other way and give the boy a break. But the person behind you is now persistently nudging you to move further, constantly shoving you with their leather bag. Apparently, now it’s your fault that the line is not moving. You give them a nasty stare and a bonus grunt and continue on the journey to chase your golden caramel latte.

Phew…You’ve dropped your kid to school, against all odds, you've had a great cup of coffee, and now you’re back home. You've got that “what do I do next” sort of vibe going on. You gobble down your breakfast cereal with vitamins. And just when you’re settling down to use your precious me-time to do your own work, the bell rings. It’s the neighbour. Well, of course. You’re a stay-at-home mom and you can spare some time for chai and gossip. You nod curtly through the conversations and give monosyllabic answers. Not hint enough. So then you say you really should be getting back to work. “What work?” “Oh, the writing.” “How do you find time for hobbies,” comes the curious afterthought. You explain how it’s not a hobby and that it really is your work. “Well, so are you paid for it?” You’re not one to exaggerate so you’re forced to tell them you’re not. And suddenly, even though, your neighbour’s giving you a pitiful look of understanding, you’re really, really angry. But thankfully, good manners come to the rescue. You bite your lip and shrug your shoulders.

Now here’s the thing. I want my kid to be well-behaved. I do think it is important to reward kindness with gracious words, love with affectionate smiles and thoughtfulness with gratitude. I want them to follow the manual of good upbringing as we did. But I'm not a big fan of it. I don’t hold good manners above keeping your level of sanity or holding your ground. I don’t want them growing up to accept things and keep silent in good manners. I don’t want them to say they’re OK when they clearly aren't.

I don’t want them to be afraid of saying ‘No’ in the guise of not wanting to hurt sentiments, especially when it is imperative to say it. When manners come in the way of honesty, I think in the long run, it’s better to say bitter truths rather than not saying anything at all. Manners may be necessary in a lot of contexts, probably in also learning the art of shaping words that cannot be taken back, but I don’t think they’re the primal end we should be striving for in our kids for this time and age that comes with its own quirky stress inducers and self-proclaimed achievement indices.

So, kids of this generation, here’s a new clause to the manners lesson you have learned in school and at home. Good manners breed good manners. Most of the time. But watch out for assholery and douchebaggery. If you find them, f*** good manners.