And How're you doin' today?' It's a question that assails you everywhere you go in America, aeroplane, coffee-shop, bookshop, clothes-chain, bus or ferry. If you've not been here for a while it can jar, this seemingly aggressively intimate enquiry about your life, till you realise it's hard-wired, automatic, and that the person asking the ubiquitous question doesn't actually give a damn.That last point puzzles me just as it puzzles Joshi. I know the other person doesn't give a damn. The other person knows I know s/he doesn't give a damn. The other person's management chain, if any, knows I know the person doesn't give a damn. For that matter, the other person's management chain doesn't give a damn, either.
So why in the hell waste everyone's time and energy on this pointless exercise?
However, that's embittered and grumpy, while Joshi's piece is neither. It's whimsical and amusing, a moment's idle fancy of giving a genuine, truthful response to this meaningless question serving as a jumping-off spot for observations on American and Indian cultures.
Joshi explains why this behavior grates on people like me.
Thinking about it, you realise it's a corraling of the natural, friendly garrulous energy of a people that's getting to you. It's fine to come across chatty people, even those who ask you questions you're not necessarily dying to answer, (after all you're an Indian and part of a society that's not exactly famous for verbal reticence), the problem is with the forced, dutiful quality of the chatter. The difficulty is the drain on what I call one's 'civil energy' where one is forced to be enthusiastically polite for long periods of time and that too repeatedly across a day.Exactly.
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