Rant

I was a very big introvert in school. My sisters and then my mother remain my best friends even now. Never felt the need to socialize at all till my sisters got married and moved away.

That’s when I realized how wrecked a lot of kids are. How sex, drugs, depression, loneliness and vanity plague the world. Cant ever forget the first time I heard a boy say to another in class, ‘Do you even know who I am’! ‘Who do you think you are’! These two statements, the entitlement which comes along and the clout these people walk around with amazed me. Amazes me still. For someone to be so full of themselves! Why is it so important for some to harp on ‘how important they are’, instead of just trying to be good person! Has anyone ever told them that is all this being important might be something only they feel about themselves? I wonder...

Every time since that first time, I try and socialize, I get taken aback by something or the other that someone would say or do, which would make me question the entire human existence. There is always something or the other completely creepy or borderline insane. I’ve once heard a normal, seemingly decent married man say to a married me, “My wife can’t have sex right now, but I really need to check if my privates work properly. Could you please help?”

There was once a colleague, who used to put her mobile phone on speaker to have all her conversations, and then give death stares to anyone, who didn’t keep pin-drop silence around her, instead of simply walking our herself, with the ‘mobile’ phone.

Then there’s all the fake air-kissing, side-hugging, ‘darling’ calling and ‘lets meet for coffee’, kind of flaky superficial lot, who I could never ever understand.

Once, another mother at the pick-up que at school, actually tried to gossip about another’s newborn’s death and felt sorry- although with the glint in her eye for the mother- only when she came to know that it had been a baby boy. I still can’t look that lady in the eye. Makes my skin crawl.

Another one started snapping at me all of a sudden, after months of seemingly normal behavior, when I told her about something that had happened in my daughter’s class. She just kept shouting and insisting ‘that’ thing couldn’t possibly have happened, as it hadn’t happened in her son’s class. Her foolproof reasoning had been all of that.

Then recently, there was another, who claimed to be in the same boat as me…tired of rude and full-of-themselves people. We would exchange hellos sometimes and share our zero-waste tips with one another, while volunteering at the school. But then one day, she started sharing all the faults she had found in me, and seemed to be able to find at least one new one every time we met. Initially I would try and explain to her that the procedures I was following were given to me you the school itself. Every time, I would greet her with a smile, hoping for the lack of the barrage that day at least, she would smile while looking exhausted at the same time, and then say something to the affect of, ‘I’m tired of all this back-biting, stress and negativity yaar’ and then without missing a beat, she would start telling me about how many people hated me, how I was doing everything wrong, how this other lady, a typical Delhi socialite- who happens to have shouted at me, scratched my hand once, stomped on my foot once, harassed me on the phone for four straight days, keeps creating scenes by making up things against me, keeps spewing hate all the time, can’t stop taunting me every opportunity she gets, is an epitome of negativity and is completely repulsive as far as politeness goes- disapproved of my methods while volunteering, how she actually even agreed with that other lady on several points, how this other lady was hurt when I asked her to show her pick-up card- as I do for all other kids of her son’s class- for ‘singling her out’ like that (who has become the other repulsive lady’s best friend and has taken in all her scoffing, taunting, eye-rolling and looking angry like nobody’s business traits), and how the world would be a better place if I just went became the disciple of the lady who happens to be the epitome of negativity. And the whole time, I would continue to try and stay polite, while trying to keep my distance. I keep wondering, when did I ever ask her or anyone else for their opinion! Just because I volunteer at the school, who gives anyone the right to judge me? Instead of finding faults in people or picking on them, why can't we just focus on trying to be helpful and kind? That's at least what I was taught growing up. I ask people to que-up, they complain to the school- happens all the time. But the other lady in question, makes up things, complains about the things I do- which she as doing herself gets downright rude, with eye-rolls, scoffs, neck jerks and everything in between, for God knows what reason and seems to have only one mission in life, ‘fixing me’ and riling everyone around herself against me. So, with this hyper-drama lady, I naturally have been keeping my distance. But the first one, who had claimed to be sick of the drama, keeps bringing just that into my life, over and over again. To a point, where I have had to start going out of my way to avoid her now.

So, to conclude, most people really don’t deserve your company. Sad as that is. Family and books are the only people/things anyone should invest their time in.