I could hear them from 4-5 rows away, a bunch of excited girls, or rather for the more finicky amongst you, young women in their early twenties, off on a journey somewhere. They were an animated lot, chattering and laughing. I smiled hearing them, remembering my own days of travel with friends decades back. We had been a noisy gang on trips between home and hostel during college days. These young women had boarded the train from the same station as I had. The slightly elevated decibel level of voice and sudden spurts of laughter were making heads turn now and then, I noted. No, it was not noise loud enough to be troublesome to anyone, or so I thought.
The moment the train started, my glasses were on my nose and my nose itself, deep inside a book. The Girl Who Played With Fire was someone whom you did not mess with. She demanded your undivided attention and you gave it to her more than willingly, at least I did. But in spite, a snatch of conversation happening somewhere n my vicinity penetrated my concentration enough to make my ears prick up suddenly, forgetting the arsonist who held me captive till then. Someone from the row behind mine was complaining to the Ticket Examiner. What I could surmise from the bit I heard was just that something had been said about the gang of girls who were in high spirits, probably in a holiday mood. Since I had missed the initial parts of the conversation, sweet Carolyn (I hope the spelling is right? Or is it Caroline?), fellow passenger sitting next to me, filled me in on the missed details.
It seems a couple of Stuffed Shirts (my opinion, not that of sweet Carolyn) seated in the row behind found the noise pollution of the chattering magpies aka young women in a holiday mood, rather disturbing. They wanted the Ticket Examiner to intervene and do something about it, meaning put a damn stop to it.
“What can I possibly do?” the TE countered. He seemed sympathetic to the cause of the Stuffed Shirts, for he added, “IT girls!” in an exasperated tone that seemed to suggest what else anyone could expect from such as them. Emancipated young women, who earned just as much as their male counterparts and having as much or more fun. It looked like that scenario was not going down too well with a section of my fellow travellers.
“They will get down at Alleppey,” the TE said in a conciliatory tone even as he walked away.
This incident set me thinking. It was a day train, the joyous chatter only mildly higher in volume. It was quite obvious that the girls were excited about going somewhere together. And yet, some people felt it was not right that they be noisy in their happiness. WHY is it that a gaggle of happy and carefree young women enjoying life such an anathema to our society? No, please don’t tell me that it is because our culture says that ‘girls should be seen and not heard’, which in some way is believed to enhance their character and as a result lift our society itself to some higher plane or that the Stuffed Shirts of society blindly believed it to be true. My ‘why’ is directed at the part about girls/women only being ‘seen and not heard’. WHY should girls be seen and not heard? Why exactly are we (or a sizeable number of us) still holding on to this baseless and nonsensical belief?
Tell me once again, for I seem to have never got it, not in more than half a century of my life, just HOW raised voices of young women are bad for the health of our society or culture for that matter? I have heard that an opera singer’s piercing voice can shatter glass. Are we supposed to believe that raised voices of women even in laughter, would splinter culture to bits and bring society to naught? Is the eagerness to protect this oh-so-fragile culture the reason the stalwarts of society insist that its female population pussyfoot around and be silent all their lives? Of course that begs the question as to why we need or are bent on preserving a culture that cannot withstand a good open throated laughter or even some rude or high-spirited expletives from the female half of its population. Shouldn’t a culture that is worthy be able to absorb sound bytes from both the genders and still be able to stand on its own feet?
Since I could not deduce the age of the complainants, I also wondered whether this could be an old versus young thing. The majority of older people delight in finding fault with a younger generation’s high spirits, equating it with ‘rowdiness’, conveniently forgetting their own youthful days. It has got something to do with selective amnesia that sets in at adulthood and worsens with age.
But…
There is another reason. I have found that by and large we (Humans? Indians? Mallus? Take your pick) detest others being happy, especially women and among women, especially those that have gone against the norm. Instead of the joy of others bringing joy to your own self, happy people are looked at with scepticism. Our culture delights in frowning at happiness and saying, “This is all temporary, it is not going to last!” Now quite frankly, WHAT good does THAT statement do?! And yet we find so many cautioning us against being too happy. They warn us, “This will surely end in tears!” Oh really?!! And you think your warning is going to make things better? Or perhaps if we pretend we are not happy, bad luck and tears will leave us alone?
I hate the morose lot who delight in being cynics and predicting dire consequences instead of letting the happy ones simply be. What perverse pleasure do people get from pricking the balloon of happiness of others is simply beyond me.
This brings to mind something that happened almost 29 years back. The L & M had to leave for his work place a month after our marriage, while I had to stay back. Those were days of snail mail. We used to write to each other each and every day. Saturdays were no-letter days since the next day was a postal holiday. One day while returning from watching a movie with the MIL, we met a friend of hers. In the course of the conversation that followed, the MIL told her how we, the newlywed couple, wrote to each other daily. The old lady looked at me for a whole minute, a cynical smile plastered on her face and then said,
“Ithokke puthu modi alle?!” (Loose translation, it is the enthusiasm of early days)
Catch you writing to each other ten years from now, or even two years, her sly smile said as clearly as if she had enunciated each word. I know some “kind” souls who’d take up cudgels on behalf of such people as her (You know who you are my friend). They are only talking about their own experience, they explain. Oh really? So these old ladies have ‘experienced’ that the initial enthusiasm wears off in marriage? Is this the way to prepare a new entrant to be practical in her expectations? WHY predict doom only when confronted with someone else’s happiness? The only answer that makes itself obvious to me is envy of youth and their happiness. Perhaps the Stuffed Shirts in the train fell in the category of those who envied the youth their exuberance.
Anyways, the L & M and I proved the cynical old lady wrong. A quarter century later, we were still writing letters to each other every single day that we spent apart, except Saturdays of course. 😉
PGW said:
Yup, a bunch of stuffed shirts who probably can’t find much to smile or laugh about in their own lives, will always look at other happy people with envy and anger. It’s the crab mentality, try to pull down others who are getting out of the bucket of misery.
shail said:
I have encountered quite a few who fall in this category. They can’t/won’t be happy and won’t let others be.
mithil293 said:
Although I agree with all the points you stated, I don’t like people making noise when I travel to work(even boys). Its just the distraction that I don’t like .. and then there is traffic. But agree with the your post about old people.
shail said:
Yup, it is disturbing if fellow travellers make a lot of noise. But this time I did feel it was not way too much, just a lot of laughing and some excited chatter of people in a holiday mood. I wondered more so because these same people would not say a word when the pilgrims get in and make an awful lot of noise. Their chants are really loud, but not a word from the passengers 🙂
Btw, guess this is your first time here? Welcome to Shail’s Nest.
pixie said:
yea.. stuffed shirts they are!! I have had this told to me plenty of times!! Keep quiet.. don’t laugh out loud.. dont jump, dont run and most annoying of all – act you age or act married!! Gah!
its good that the girls didnt let themselves be bothered by it!!
Enjoy, laugh, live life to the fullest! That’s my motto! 😀
And the letters are so sweet! 🙂
shail said:
Thanks Pixie 🙂 Its best to ignore stuffed shirts 😉
R's Mom said:
Awww! the letters are so adorable…big hugs to both of you for that 🙂
Errr…I had a similar experience…my junior and I were travelling back from Ahmedabad to Baroda one late afternoon by train. She and I had a learnt a new varnam and we wanted to write it down before we forgot the steps. So both of us were furiously discussing, animating the mudras the expressions, etc etc when one uncle shouted at us loudly ‘Shut up both of you, always going jabber jabber jabber, you are disturbing us’
and we were not even loud you know..
We both were shocked nad just shut up…and I was in college first year and my junior was in class 10 😦
I wish I had the courage to tell HIM to shut up instead!
Amit said:
All he needed was a display of your middle finger.
I think at that age, when someone talks to us like this, we are too shocked to respond. But I am sure you will shout back if someone does that to you now. I do. 🙂
shail said:
@R’s Mom. OMG, I am shocked as well reading this. How could he say that? And why couldn’t he ask you both to talk softly in a polite way? I am so angry reading this.
Ruchira said:
God some people just cant be happy in another’s happiness .. Grouchy lot !
I take the Delhi Chandigrah shatabdi often and in summer its filled with youngsters going up to the hills .. They usually end up making a lot of noise … I find myself enjoying their fun !
shail said:
That’s it. I too enjoy watching others have fun. The grouchy lot are probably jealous! 😛
sos said:
Ah! reading this triggered certain memories :
-Like being told by my teacher in class when i was 13/14 – girls should not laugh loudly or open their mouth and laugh. Even if they find it funny, they should just give a shy smile and move away (from men i guess?!). These kind of behavioral attitudes is what we pass on.
– Once our school took us for some day tour and of course there was one bus for the boys and one for the girls ( It does not matter if there are more empty seats in one bus). As the boy’s bus had a very surly teacher, they did not make any noise but since she was not on our bus, the girls sang loudly and shouted a lot because we were not in school. But that pissed off some of the teacher so much that they scolded us all so badly and like how could girls be so loud when the guys were so quiet and they all came down hard on us.
I have found such lame controlling behaviour in towns and how tthe most common comments are Is she even a woman? A woman should be docile, shy and not talk loudly or express herself but clearly she is not a woman.
This is just a mode of controlling women to be robots who cook, clean, look after husbands and in laws and are child bearers, not thinking expressing humans.
shail said:
I hear you loud and clear! And yes, this is a sure way of controlling women.
Kamikaze said:
A fine observation from everyday happenings. I had a smile on my face reading this. I am glad such things don’t deter the happy people from being happy…happiness does not need endorsement 😀
shail said:
Of course it does not need endorsement Cat. How is you? Long time!
Kamikaze said:
Cat is be good. Cat is be assisting Mr.Ghosh blackmail the martians to let ’em land otherwise ze us will invade ’em, by Zeus! So cat is be caught up… and now cat reporting to ze nest… *gives a military style salute to ze Lady*
shail said:
*salutes back* 😀
And Pepper the kitteh says to say, ‘Cat, yous better hop over n’ takes a look’ 😀
magiceye said:
Unfortunately these stuffed shirts are our law makers and enforcers today… sad!
shail said:
Yeah, its sad.
Ash said:
What a nice post …. and good observation…
I totally agree with the statement “by and large we (Humans? Indians? Mallus? Take your pick) detest others being happy, especially women and among women, especially those that have gone against the norm.” …. I think its because there is a seething jealousy among most of us, in this patriarchal society …. among men who feel that women should remain in second place to them…. and among women who wish that THEY were so empowered, but are not.
shail said:
Absolutely!
Thank you Ash 🙂
dipesh majumdar said:
It’s good to be happy and joyful, but definitely not by intruding into others’ domain of privacy and tranquility. It is quite common for us to feel jealous when other’s prosper or are happy… but then that also drives the self to bring oneself at par with other’s prosperity… in other words jealousy is good sometimes when looked at with the right attitude. Old people sometimes may frown at young generation… well at such times I can’t help but pity them because they couldn’t enjoy so much in their times… time then was different. The husband would go out to earn bread leaving the wife with all household work in a joint family and he would return late night… there were no scopes of going to cinema together or spending some time together… that was kind of looked down upon. I actually feel sorry for them and naturally their desires that remained suppressed for vent out in the form of frustrated remarks when the see the younger generation enjoying and having fun. That’s life and there is always the other part of a story… both sides of the coin if seen properly… life seems to be quite balanced and justified. One tends to feel less surprised and more at peace and calm.
shail said:
I don’t agree that jealousy is good or even necessary. If someone does well in life, you can be inspired by it and change your life too. Why is it necessary to feel jealous? For example, if someone has published a book, and I want to do the same, why should I be jealous of them? I’d take that as an inspiration and plan to bring out my own book.
Not all frustrated people take it out on others. In fact most of the old people lived the same life. Only some make observations. Anyways, these were NOT old people. 🙂
Aa's Mom said:
stuffed shirts who envy true happiness..you said it right! We should pity them and move on with our lives!!
Aa's Mom said:
Just saw that you were on Facebook. Have liked your page!
shail said:
Indeed 😉 But when I heard them I decided I was gonna blog about them 😉
Thanks for liking my FB page 😉
bhagwad said:
Several things here. I just know that if it were men making that much noise, there wouldn’t have been complaints. A bunch of women being happy is clearly offensive to many people who feel they should sit quietly.
Still, it was good that the complaint was made in a civilized manner without intruding on the girls rudely by themselves.
Finally, people in public transportation really shouldn’t make too much noise – men or women, it doesn’t matter. It’s ok in the day time when everyone is awake, but if it gets late then silence is pretty much expected. From what you say, these girls weren’t making so much noise late at night so everything seems ok 🙂
shail said:
Yeah, it was day time, monring in fact and the start of the journey. So there was the usual ‘excited to be together’ sort of chatter 🙂 I am sure the complainants thought the TTE would do the dirty work for them 😉
Priya Sreeram (@priyasreeram) said:
nice post –
shail said:
Thanks Priya 🙂
Lindy Lee said:
Like you, Shail, when I see young girls giggling & acting silly, having fun talking, I’m prompted to recall my own behavior over a period of years between the ages of 5 to 20. As a matter of fact, I am part of a group of 8 girls like the girls you describe in this post. None of us live close to each other any more, some out of state. We communicate by cards, letters, tele & email, quite often. It’s been approx. 50 years since our really-silly-girl days but when we get together and actually see each other, we still tend to get rather loud with joy, even in public…
shail said:
I can so relate to that Lindy 🙂 Joy is always wonderful to behold. And when it reminds you of how you were young once, it actually makes you happier. 🙂
Mom of A and a said:
Hi, linked this post to my latest post but am not sure whether I am supposed to complete any other type of formality! Do let me know if I’m missing something!
shail said:
Linking is fine. No other formality 🙂
Vivek said:
You are right. Most people cannot bear the joy and exuberance of others. However it is not so gender specific as I have experienced it myself. But of course instead of getting cowed i asked the stuffed shirts to shove the stuffing to other parts.
shail said:
Hmm… but women do get raised eyebrows and disapproving looks more than the men, since many of the men (and women) who think its okay for men to enjoy life look askance at women daring to do so. 🙂
Mypunchingbag said:
Putting a dampner on other peoples’ happiness and excitement is a specialty some people do have! One caustic comment from them, and the excitement goes nose-diving down!
shail said:
I have had that happen to me too many times. Even now at times I unknowingly succumb to the dampners and have to remind myself, No more of that nonsense. 🙂
Pingback: What I've been reading this week #1 - Indian American Mom
shail said:
Thanks for the share 🙂
wanderlustathome said:
Sour grapes!