The other day I was having dinner with my children and grand children at a restaurant.The waiter was taking his own time to bring the order. While everyone was feeling restless, I decided to act. I shouted at the waiter who was passing by and admonished him for delaying our order. In turn, I got admonished by my children.
While my son was
trying to wave his hands and asking me
to take it easy, my daughter was gritting her teeth when she whispered, ‘Don’t shout,
appa’
I realized that I
had performed an act of indiscretion. It
is also known as; imprudence, rashness, thoughtlessness, etc. All of us indulge in acts of indiscretion
some time or the other in life.
I have a friend who
is notorious for making indiscreet remarks about people, often in the garb of cracking a joke, invariably hurting those people and
sometimes leading to embarrassing
situations.
Once, at an office
party, I was having a serious conversation with a friend about another
colleague who was having problems on his family front. We were joined by another friend midway. Within a few minutes he said loudly, ‘Oh, you
are talking about Ram whose wife has run away with his driver’. It was a totally uncalled for and indiscreet remark.
I felt most embarrassed when I realized that others nearby had stopped
their conversation and were staring at us.
Comparing one
sibling with another, shouting at children infront of their friends, pulling up
a staff member in front of his colleagues,
cracking a joke in a group when it is involved in a serious discussion, the
list of indiscrete acts performed by people is endless.
I think as we grow
old, the number of indiscrete acts we indulge in also grows. Sometimes it could be because of the choice of words we
use, the manner in which we speak or simply by forgetting to follow
established norms. Your children are
your best critics in this respect. Today`s children waste no time in pointing
out your indiscretions where as during
our younger days we just had to suffer silently because we never had the
courage to speak up to our parents.
The most common form
of indiscretion that old people, especially old men, indulge is in `passing wind` with a loud noise,
nonchalantly in public . They are least concerned about the embarrassment
they might be causing to the people around them particularly their near and dear ones in the crowd. The interesting point is such people are not
even aware that they are performing an indiscreet act.
There are a few, however, who grin sheepishly after performing the act, when
people around stare at them.
Some readers might
even accuse me of being indiscrete for writing
about this common phenomenon. Why
can`t I write about a topic which never
fails to tickle the funny bone in people. Khushwant Singh the nonagenarian
author, has devoted three full pages to `Farting` ( There, I said it explicitly!)
in one one of his novels, making his readers laugh their guts out. If some
readers of this piece are smiling, I
know they will pardon me for this act of
indiscretion.
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