How Are you? I’m Fine I Say Even If I Am Not
By Roamer
In the USA I learnt that what looks like a question is, in fact, a greeting. And it is not supposed to be answered truthfully except with “I am good” or “I am fine” even if you are not. The women at the Walmart counters, all of them specially trained in saying it with an obviously worked up smile do not wait for your reply. They would be as shocked if you start narrating your tale of woes as the people behind you in the queue.Neither has the time to listen as they have their own.
From ancient days Man always needed a greeting with a sign of recognition (you will not greet a total stranger). From ancient times when those in Europe were unclad barbarians whose only greeting was a grunt, Hindu Indians greeted each other with the name of God, with a Jai Shri Krishna in the Krishna belt of Gujarat around Dwaraka and Ram Ram in the rest of the North. We hardly get an occasion in a day to take the name of Fair and we think it is modernity to waste it with a question in answer to which we have no interest. Lack of interest is a symbol of today.
When I write a new article or blog I have the bad habit of mailing it to scores of people in the (fond) hope that at least one would read them. All of them have been mailed earlier to say STOP in reply mode if they don’t want. And yet one wrote an offensive mail asking that he be not sent any more. He did not read the STOP mail. When U send them l have to touch only two letters. Touching ‘su’ I get all email IDs of people whose names start with ‘su’ from Subhash, Suheel to Subba Rao.
So I asked how some IDs can be deleted. If one cannot delete one contact why not block my email ID? As no one replied and no one blocked me I may stop sending any post . Why write till I die? I thougt that was one way of telling.
But then It dawned: Who cares? Just as they don’t want to really know how you are they don’t want to know if you are alive. This is the world of today.
