Teri toh…. - 1

Warning: Suggested profanities. Reader’s discretion is advised

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I was kind of very quite boy in my childhood. Anybody who knows me now will not agree but I am just compensating for those quite years. So as I was telling, I was a very quite boy, the silent types who never talked. Not that I was of the very studious kind but I was average in study, struggling to get decent grades. I would attend school, come home in time, play at the right time and the best was never utter a bad word which means I never swore at that time.

I would never swear and the most I could go was “Nalayak” and “saala” which were quite tame. Once when my classmate and I had a fight, I had used the “Bas****” and I had felt so guilty about it. Indian swears words were out of question as it was considered to be very low class in our convent school.

I went to convent school and some of my classmates were Christians. Although not all but some of them were part of the hip crowd and swearing just came naturally to them. It was not as if the non-Christian crowd was not swearing. They did swear but in Hindi or Marathi but swearing in English was so cool. It was the time when we only saw English action movies. When we saw “Die Hard” Bruce Willis had uttered “F**k” so many time that we lost count of number of times the word was uttered in the movie but on the good side the movie rocked.

It was always fascinating for me to utter those English swear words and I could never bring myself to utter those words. So I detested from using any kind of bad words when till I was studying. My vocabulary swearing had increased to more than 4-5 words but never of the serious proportion. My first job was as a teacher and hence there was no way I could use foul language.

Everything changed when I joined my present company. The first year I was high on the job. Living on the edge, squeezing time lines, changing schedules, pushing customer and the need to still complete the job on time, I pushed myself. I was not alone. The whole team worked under stress but then I slowly understood that the stress was somewhat like an addiction but then it was stress after all.

Juggling a number of tasks at the same time was no easy task but most of us did manage. The trick was simple. If a customer/user is irritating, just come to the room, give him the choicest explicative and then look at the next call. In the evening when the work load was less and there was breathing space, we would sit around and discuss that day’s call, this time mostly laughing at the call.

Swearing at the user behind their back was a fantastic stress buster. Swearing at each other without feeling any emotions in it was another way to tell that I support you. I guess its one of male-bounding thing. I slowly became more comfortable with swearing and learnt quite late in my life.

When two different male individual meet for the first time, they are at their best self, mouthing pleasantries. The moment one of them swears, the ice is broken. A comfort level is achieved. This cannot be true for all male relations like in say boss and employee or between an elder person and a younger person.

I remember we had a senior manager who had been working many years in the company. He was one cool individual with a lot of authority and commanded respect. When I first met him, it was kind of really an atmosphere of officality around him. I noticed that my seniors were more comfortable around him although they were much junior in designation to him. When I observed them, it seems that he joked with them and swore freely in front of them. It seems that they considered him to be one of them and not a senior manager.

Swearing by a senior manager is a very tight rope walk. The more high you climb the more swearing you have to control. Higher the post and you have to turn from mass to class. Excessive swearing can bring you down in the eyes of your junior. Its not a full proof technique but it works most of the time. After all its easy to communicate to someone who speaks your language.

Having a room for our department means major to excessive use of swear words. We had a small window to our room which had a sliding glass door. Users would speak through the window and did not come in the room as there was a lot of magnetic media lying around. The window was to remain close when there was no users at the window. Normally during office hours of 9-5, there were users every time so it was rare that the window was close in that time.

However when the tempers soared, the crisis reached a boiling point and when it was time for a free-to-all-fights, that was the time when the window would remain closed. That was the time when nothing was left to imagination. The choicest and the most entertaining words would come out. A normal discussion could turn up into a war and then as soon as it started, it would die down. Sometimes me and my colleagues were involved and the noise would be so much that our boss sitting outside would have to come in.

I took to swearing like a fish would take to swimming but then again I did not swear at home or on presence of elders who were offended by swearing. Humans have a imaginary switch which adjusts according to the people around. So even though I can swear to the most highest level, I can switch to normal language in a formal environment. But that still does not guarantee an accidental slip and a bad word. Earlier I use to look embarrassed. Now, I simply take it in normal conversation.

Sometimes I swear just for the heck of it. Having a swearing duel with a colleague is much fun too. “Y” and I use to swear at each other just like we would greet each other every morning. After a swearing round we would return to normal conversation. No guilt feeling, nothing.

Its true, I swear and for some it may not be the most appropriate thing to do. I am not particularly proud of it but I am not ashamed of it either. I swear without any morality to think of. I swear not because I like it but most probably I don’t think about it much. It’s a part of me. I can kick the habit but as long as it does not harm others or me, I don’t see any wrong in it. If others think its wrong, I am not going to argue about it but please don’t make me feel guilty. My parents did not swear but I started swearing at work. Not in school, not in college but at work. Call it peer pressure or whatever, I accept the fact that I swear without making a big ado about it.

And for those who cannot accept, teri toh……….