Garrulous Indians

As per recent news report on ‘talkative Indians,’ our average talking quotient of 500 minutes per month is the highest in the world, with Chinese at 327 and Koreans, Russians and others far behind at 110 minutes and lower! We talk too much and also very loud, assuming the other person to be deaf.

A billion Indians speaking at this rate translates into 6 trillion minutes annually! Now you know why the mobile service providers are laughing all the way to their banks. While today’s mobiles can pick up even a single chirp of a cricket, talk loud we must, whether in a bus, train, plane, cinema hall, lecture, seminar, park wherever.

Against normal etiquette and announcements to do so, we don’t bother to use the vibrator-mode. I have invariably seen a few men (and women) gesturing with a raised finger, expressing ‘just-one-minute,’ even after the safety announcement. That is when the cabin crew’s exasperated look of ‘oh-will -you-ever-shut-up’ becomes worth watching!

In our early morning walks, we see a young lady whom we have named ‘bent-head-girl,’ who, while talking on her mobile would be running simultaneously; it is an everyday scene. Once we saw her without her mobile; but her head was still inclined to the left!

How many two-wheeler riders do it with a crooked head and mobile hidden inside the helmet, for safety from police; or in their palm if there is no police visible. Just as it is dicey to drink and drive, so it is risky to speak and drive, but we want everyone around us to know our actions past and proposed, through our loud conversations, more so through mobile.

During my tour of Tower of London, the beefeater warden asked all visitors to switch off mobiles; almost all did it immediately; but within a minute, I heard a mobile ringing full blast and a Marwari couple started talking on loudspeaker mode! I felt so ashamed to see a country-cousin behave like this that I gave him a dirty look. They moved just slightly away, still shouting thus disturbing the tour.

A colleague of mine is not only incorrigibly garrulous; he also suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome. Once he was getting a root canal treatment done when a friend saw him and exclaimed: ‘For once, you can’t talk’. The hapless chap couldn’t say anything with the drill in his mouth. I think most such loud-mouthed mobile-talkers should be under a dentist’s drill permanently!