We Indians
overwhelm our relatives and friends with affection. Being affectionate to our
dear and near is as important as Elnino is to monsoon; as fast food is to
health; as candle light marches are to affirmative action and as a bride is to
the continuance of a joint family. There is no occasion in which we won’t go
out of our way to indulge in PDA (no it is not Public Display of Affection but
Pungent Display of Affection). Rules, common sense, aptness all these are passé
when we want to indulge in PDA.
Have
you been to a diagnostic centre and found the place overflowing? If you decided
to come later, you are a dummy to this PDA. Just wait and very soon you will
find a battalion storming out of place and only one of them would have come for
blood sugar test. We stretch this PDA beyond limits to the point where even a
stone would seethe with anger, when one our loved ones by quirk of fate get
into an ICU. More important than the patient getting well or other patients
recovering, is our urge to show our faces to the relative in question
(literally!!!), enquire his welfare and most importantly share with him/her our
disastrous tidbits on his/her ailment.
We
love our children so much. We want them to enjoy all that we could not do so in
our younger days and to ensure that we are ready to break any rule in the book.
We want our children to mature fast, stand on their feet at the earliest and
most importantly drive their own vehicles. We believe our under-aged son/daughter
is very capable and the moron who fixed the minimum age limit for driving a
vehicle had no idea of their capabilities. That explains why you find kids who
have barely reached middle school driving a two wheeler? We don’t mind paying
all the fees that is required to be paid, to make our kids an engineer or a
doctor, never mind, even if he or she wants to be a priest or a chef. We love
to adorn our daughters with jewels and let them walk on the street.
We
believe in all conceivable extensions of the adage `families that eat together,
stay together’. This explains why dozen of family/friends walk together on the
road in a horizontal line. After all, family/friends that walk together stay
together. Another extension of this adage is that a family that never misses a
call finds bliss. Now you know, why we answer a call wherever, whenever we
receive it and hardly keep a phone on silent mode. We also believe in
travelling without being separated which explains why five people travel on a
two wheeler or ten in a four wheeler. In a queue, we cannot see any of our
loved ones standing far behind us and we beckon them near us, unmindful of all
the morons standing behind.
When
it comes to celebrations, we go out of way to display grandeur and make the
guests most comfortable. We don’t mind pitching tents bang in middle of the
road for days or for that matter playing music at cacophonic volumes during
unearthly hours. We force food down the throat of a loved one in a function to
prove our affection. We have to burst crackers for every celebration, never
mind the chaos created.
These
are few of the PDA which I can think of. Sky is the limit when it comes to
Indians and PDA.
