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Why are we turning into rude Bengalis?

IN BLACK & WHITE

Published : Tuesday, 17 January, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 467
Syed Badrul Ahsan
Are we as a nation turning increasingly rude? Time was when the Bengali was a model of decency and absolutely impeccable behaviour. You need to go back to the 1950s and 1960s, to our grandparents' and parents' generations, to comprehend the difference between then and now. These days, wherever you happen to be in this country, chances are that sightings or the presence of people steeped in politeness will be few or non-existent. Compare the state of the Bengali on this side of the political divide with that of the Bengali on the other side of it. The differences will be obvious. You may not like the comparison. Again, you just might. It is entirely up to you. Let us move on.
What does worry us hugely is the degree to which we in Bangladesh are getting to be increasingly rude. There is something about our behaviour --- and it happens at nearly every level of society --- which makes us concerned. Think of the ministerial vehicle which, in order to skirt around the long tailback before the Prime Minister's Office in Tejgaon, swiftly takes to the right and therefore wrong side of the road without its occupants demonstrating any qualms of conscience. You do not expect ministers to break rules, for they are expected to be people who we can point to, for the benefit of our children and grandchildren, as models of good behaviour and inspiration.
When a minister's vehicle suddenly emerges on the side of the road, it is not only the fact that you spot a public representative violating traffic rules. There is too the ungainly sight of the minister's security team rudely ordering drivers who are on their proper side of the road to move away and let the minister pass. You wonder if that should be happening in a democracy. And that is not all. If in recent days you have been to the airport in Dhaka, either to welcome or bid goodbye to someone, you will have been appalled at the degree of chaos which accompanies the rudeness. The chaos comes courtesy of those whose responsibility it is to maintain security at the airport. The rudeness comes from both the security wallahs and general citizens. Here's a glimpse of how it happens to be. The airport authorities seem to be changing rules everyday about who can or cannot go to the airport. When an individual accompanying a friend or family member is told that he has to get down from his vehicle and only the individual flying out can approach the terminal building, you ask yourself if these people really know their jobs. Why do they treat you in such uncouth fashion? For all you know, you do not look like a terrorist or a brigand!
Ah, but there are again the contrasts in behaviour at times, on the basis of the perceived social status of people. Do not be surprised if your car, with you inside, is allowed to go right up to the terminal building, for you appear to be well-settled in life, with that false patrician air about you. Your countenance tells the guards at the gates that you might be knowing English. And who knows? Like so many of your fellow Bengalis, in case you are challenged by men beneath you in their stations in life, you just might explode in righteous English-dripping indignation! So you coast along, right up to the terminal building. As you do, you notice the ugly manner in which other people, because they seem poor and hard-working and have come by CNG-driven three-wheelers to see a father or a son go off to back-breaking employment somewhere in the deserts of the Middle East, are told they cannot come any closer. Discrimination is at work. Where has the idea of social equality gone, the principle you thought you were fighting for in the War of Liberation all those decades ago? And isn't this supposed to be a people's republic?
There is then the matter of rudeness at the bureaucratic level. Government servants (by the way, they resent being called servants) have not yet learnt, possibly because of the system or because of their high notions about themselves, what it is to engage with other people in polite manner. Insignificant bureaucrats, you will notice, make sure that you notice their presence. They may have no business being present at occasions that hardly have anything to do with them, but they are there anyway. Many of these bureaucrats wait to be greeted, to be 'salaamed'. Oh no, they will not greet you. You will greet them and if you are lucky, the only acknowledgement you will get to your 'salaam' is a low grunt. It is interesting, this display of pointless, vacuous power. And those of us not part of the civil service have somehow adopted the attitude, in our own ways, in our approach to those around us. Take it from yours truly: in this huge slum of a capital city, there are journalists who have developed the clear philosophy that officialese ought to be part of behaviour. That is rather dispiriting. Rude journalists are a positive danger to their calling.
The height of our Bengali rudeness comes through on all those so-called talk shows you are pelted with night after dreary night on all those ubiquitous television channels. Everyone has a point of view on everything. Everyone talks and no one listens. As you watch them, chuckling all the time, they seem to have convinced themselves that they have their fingers on every issue under the sun, that it is you, the badly ignorant citizen, who requires to be educated on the ways of the world. Move on to the many live musical shows on television. A good number of artistes suffer from the malady of not acknowledging those whose songs they happen to be revisiting, in their voices, until someone, usually the compere, points out to them the names of the artistes originally behind the songs. The tendency to cheat is there, which is rude. And rudeness comes too when a listener greets an artiste in perfect Bengali, only to have the artiste respond in unnecessary English, 'Thank you so much'. You know then that the artiste wants you to know she knows English. Does it matter? And why must a Bengali speak to another Bengali in a foreign language?
Rudeness shines in all its glory when you spot a student leader travelling out of the capital on a helicopter. It is there when the chief of a political party, any political party, is reassured of his or her exalted position in the party when a chair of an elevated sort, more in the likeness of a throne, is arranged for him or her while the colleagues of the party chiefs have only ordinary chairs to comfort themselves in. And, by the way, have you noticed all those chairs covered in ugly-looking towels in offices? Nowhere but in Bangladesh will you see self-important people making sure that the huge chairs they sit on are draped in longish towels. Why does that happen to be? Make a guess. It is either to preserve the shiny nature of the chair or to prevent the chair from coming in the way of the fine creases on the shirt or suit the occupant of the chair might be attired in. Yes, it is rude, as rude as being asked by people you visit at their homes to leave your shoes at the door as you step inside those homes. Nowhere else in the world will you see visitors and guests expected to step out of their footwear before they enter the sacred precincts of their hosts' living rooms.
But, again, consider yourself lucky, even in this shoe-related business. What if the day comes when you are asked to step out of your clothes before being let into the room where your host and hostess wait for you?r
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Associate Editor, The Daily Observer. E-mail: ahsan.syedbadrul@gmail.com





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