My Hate List

Although I like what A.R.Rahman says about loving everybody, there are certain instances, certain people that you’ve just got to hate. You need some Eminem too sometimes. I absolutely love the new Bournville ad; the gushing, sickly-sweet girl gets gobbled up by a Venus flytrap because she’s too bloody sweet. Bournville is “not so sweet”. So right.

This hate list below is not in any particular order, I hate them all equally. Although, there are some that make me go absolutely ballistic. 1 and 3 would fall in that category.

        1.   Men who harass women drivers: This is a particularly despicable group of people. There are a whole lot of shameless men who do this – auto drivers, smart-ass bike riders, call-taxi drivers and even the jobless bystanders on the road all of whom take it upon themselves to teach the woman driver how to drive. They deride her, provide annoyingly patronizing advice, intimidate and harass her. I had a harrowing experience once when I had unknowingly turned into a road that just narrowed down after a point and there was no way I could go further.  

      I had to back out the whole way and there was this smart-ass auto driver who said “Why don’t you get a driver if you don’t know how to drive?” I glared at him but kept my big mouth shut. The locality was such. Everyone, even the women glared at me and passed rude comments. There was one old SOB on a moped who kept tracking me all the way back giving me unnecessary advice and blocking my way. Bloody moron! I am a good driver, much better than many men drivers and backing out of that hellhole amidst that mob is no mean task. 

      I would have loved to have the kick, punch functionality that we had in “Need for speed”. I really       wished there was some 108 for women. But these issues are always so petty, aren’t they. If you         take it to a police station, you’ll just get more advice anyway. 

     Women drivers – It’s up to you to look after yourselves. Always lock your doors the minute you          enter the car and never roll down your windows or get out of the car for anything. Always have          your phone and wallet handy. If in a situation, just drive away.

2.     Auto (rickshaw) drivers: I hate those bastards. I told you this is a hate-list, what language did you expect? If you want sweet gentle stuff, head over to the recipe tab, even there I can’t promise much. I know there is that tiny miniscule fraction of genuinely good auto drivers, but I am influenced by the auto drivers that I’ve met and all of them are the same shit. I am not talking about their rash driving or the exorbitant rates that they quote. I can tolerate that. It’s the whining they do just when you are near your destination, complaining about how far inside the place is and that they would have never agreed to the fare if they knew the real place. Do they expect everyone to stay in Anna Nagar, mudhal Theru, mudhal veedu (the first house on the first street)? And they never want to go where you want to go. R.A Puram – no, T.Nagar – no, Ashok Nagar – no, West Mambalam - never.

3.      Eve-teasers – That is the most inappropriate, euphemistic name for these assholes. These shameless assholes are everywhere. On the road, in shops, buses, railway stations. In fact buses and railway stations are rife with these slimy creatures. These crowded places are ideal for them to get away with their disgusting acts – saying rude, obscene stuff, pushing, pinching, bumping into. My advice to women is – MAKE SOME NOISE. Shout out and make a fuss. Refuse to let the matter go. Honour, my foot. What honour are your preserving by silently undergoing this shit? Create trouble, refuse to adjust, complain to the authorities, publicize through Facebook and other social networking sites, file anonymous complaints on online police/women’s commission websites. Just don’t let go. Most of these assholes get away because our women never retaliate. It’s time to do just that. Don’t ever think it’s too petty. Put fear into the minds of these assholes. The nice men, who are silent witnesses to these incidents, stop being just nice and start acting. Support the lady in distress.

4.     Rude/Unhelpful Customer Service – I hate having to call customer care. It is painful enough having to listen to that IVR and punch in 1-999999 which includes your account number, card number, i-pin,e-pin,p-pin, date of birth and 10^th board exam marks and when you finally get through to a customer care representative on your 6^th attempt, he says you are on the wrong path (this is just stolen credit-cards not fraudulent transactions) and transfers you back to the main menu. Your last half an hour’s work down the drain, you’ll have to start from scratch. When you finally get through to the correct customer pain executive, he/she is a rude, grumpy prick who irrespective of what you ask, recites the same lines over and over, the last few times through clenched teeth. And they record these conversations for training purposes. They train their employees to avoid, delay, insult and mislead customers so that customers will eventually stop calling. What an idea, Appuchi.

5.     Smart-ass shortcut seekers – You can see this particular species of people all around you – the ones who walk right past the queue because he knows the clerk’s maid-servant personally, the ones who suddenly, innocently cut into the queue and act as if they’d always been there, the ones who huff and puff behind you as your items are being billed indicating that they’re really un-happy that you’ve bought so much - the indecent fools, the ones who’ll squeeze past you when you are making a u-turn, or backing out, morons who park their vehicles as if all of the world is their own parking lot with no thought to anybody else and people (mostly driver driven cars and call taxis) who’ll get down only at the entrance to stores even if it is in the middle of the most mind bogglingly congested areas - Panagal park, Pondy Bazaar.

I am sure all of you’ll have a list like this. What’s on yours? I’d love to hear.