Skip to main content

Me with my foot in my mouth




My foot has this uncanny proclivity to get into my mouth whenever I am at a social event.  That’s why I took much effort to teach my feet to walk away from social events altogether.  Some heels were born to cool themselves in the cosiness of solipsism (or should I say sole-ipsism?). 

Source: Clarity Solutions
I have kept me to myself for nearly two decades now.  Like Ogden Nash’s Born Spectator, I stay far away from the field of action and watch with admiration socialites performing various acrobatics in order to win their much deserved accolades.  When it comes to the battle between the ego and prudence, the latter wins hands down in my case.

A few years ago, when I was in Delhi, a blogger from Indiblogger connection, a lady who wasn’t very active as a blogger, organised a bloggers’ meet in Delhi and sent me a personal invitation.  I was rather surprised because never in my blog anywhere at any time had I shown any interest in such meetings.  But I decided to conceal my surprise as well as keep my foot away from my mouth.  I gave her the excuse of a prior engagement.  Within 24 hours, the good lady changed the date of the meeting and offered to hold it any day that was convenient for me.  I knew something was seriously wrong. 

One of the blights I had to fight again and again in my life, without much success, is keeping benefactors away from my doorstep.  They came in hoards especially when I lived in Shillong, a small town with all the inconveniences of a village with none of its benefits.  Most of them benefactors were keen on making me religious.  The more they tried, the more I hated religion.  Eventually I quit the countryside benefactors of Shillong and found my shelter in the anonymity of Delhi’s vastness.  When a blogger who never even commented once in my space insisted on having me at a bloggers’ meet, I knew that benefactors were at it again. 

I now live in a small village in Kerala.  Mercifully the benefactors have left me alone until now.  It’s not easy to play the benefactor-game in too small a village where people know each other too well.  Too many games will reveal the identity of the godfather who pays the benefactors.  The village thus keeps me safely away from benefactors. 

Probably, I wouldn’t have detested the society if it were not for the benefactors and their godfather.  I have seen a lot of people who are comfortable with both their feet in their mouth.  Maybe, it’s not my foot that is the real problem.  Maybe, I’m bored with the benefactors who never revealed any trace of imagination. 

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 176: #CityEvent





Comments

  1. Pranju chakrapaniJuly 3, 2017 at 12:22 PM

    The favourite part in the Catcher in the rye was when Holden meets his English teacher at the end. I liked the teacher very much.

    He said something to Holden regarding how it is essential to identify the capacity of one's brain to sink in the information. I relate so much with that thought.

    To not put foot in the mouth is the sign of realizing that capacity. It is after all a matter of personal happiness and if we find it through solipsism then it is equally okay :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2017 at 1:41 PM

      Holden's creator, Salinger, chose to quit the society. Holden will be a social misfit whatever he does, whatever his counsellor may do.

      Our personal happiness need have nothing much to do with the society. In fact, the society is more likely to make us unhappy. I keep my cheer by being as far away from society as possible.

      Delete
  2. Roma Gupta SinhaJuly 3, 2017 at 1:07 PM

    Sometimes I behave this weird too. Has it got something to do with us writers??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2017 at 1:43 PM

      Writers are weird. But there are writers who walk that tightrope between personal weirdness and social adjustment quite easily. Some of us are condemned to be weirdos, perhaps :)

      Delete
  3. DominicJuly 3, 2017 at 6:58 PM

    Why are you so pessimistic about society? Why should the society make one unhappy? Many are the minds that draw their inspiration and subsistence from the society.
    If man is expected to be a social animal, some modicum of pretense and subjugation of one's ego will go a long way in making the social intercourse (with apologies to CBFC) 'happy' and enjoyable!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2017 at 7:36 PM

      You said it! And it made me write the next post. The ecstasies of social intercourse are the prerogative of God's chosen people.

      Delete
  4. Purba chakrabortyJuly 3, 2017 at 7:29 PM

    I can relate to this post as I have also landed myself in such foot-in-my-mouth situations a couple of times. It was great reading this post, Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2017 at 7:34 PM

      Most welcome, Purba. Maybe, we the foot-in-the-mouth people should form an association for our welfare :)

      Delete
  5. Gomati SekharJuly 4, 2017 at 10:21 AM

    Like always, enjoyed reading your blog. Looking forward to the next.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
122 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so...
39 comments
Read more

Goodbye, Little Ones

They were born under my care, tiny throbs of life, eyes still shut to the world. They grew up under my constant care. I changed their bed and the sheets regularly making sure they were always warm and comfortable. When one of them didn’t open her eyes after a fortnight of her birth, I rang up my cousin who is a vet and got the appropriate prescription that gave her the light of day in just two days. I watched each one of them stumble through their first steps. Today they were adopted. I personally took them to their new home, a tiny house of a family that belongs to the class that India calls BPL [Below Poverty Line]. I didn’t know them at all until I stopped my car a little away from their small house, at the nearest spot my car could possibly reach. They lived in another village altogether, some 15 km from mine. Sometimes 15 km can make a world of difference. A man who looked as old as me had come to my house in the late afternoon. “I’d like to adopt your kittens,” he said. He...
6 comments
Read more