My snobbish wrong-doings

Sometimes I wonder whether I am guilty of the vile crime of Intellectual Snobbery. And being acutely aware of this decrepitude, I try my level best not to act like an afflicted. And that consequently leads to me feeling guilty and more aware of my situation, when I lose my guard at times. When I go out for movies with my friends, I cringe when the scmaltzy, the schticky, and the manipulative scenes appear. I look to my snob evil companion at such times looking for his approval to my cringing in disapproval. And when our other friends seem to admire the scenes that we clearly dislike, the 2 of us group together. We form an evil cult - the cultivated "us" against the plebeian "them". And then it strikes me - there I go acting out my role of a braggart again.

For my kind of sensibilities, my tastes define who I am and its my crucible when I am with people of dissimilar tastes. Case in example: My poignant hate for Shah Rukh Khan. Although he is the undisputed Badshah of the Bollywood film industry and his movies have made more money than any other star in Bollywood, the way he hams and portrays himself as look-at-me-I'm-so-smart gets on my nerves. Deep within my heart I know he acts reasonably well, if asked to. That he doesn't, is a sad reflection on the movie making lore of the day. But just because of his seemingly unending popularity, he is a criminal in my eyes. He is a darling of the masses and the suburbia and a person with more elite tastes like me cannot afford to be wooed over by the tastes of the rank and file.

But invariably having at least couple of hits every year, I end up accompanying my friends to watch his movies. And when I tend to critically dissect each and every act of his in the movie (more so because of my apparent distaste), I end up arguing with the majority in the group. And being reduced to a whimpering minority, I end up not arguing as much as I would have wanted to. Consequently I end my argument thinking in my head, "You won't understand. Our tastes are different."

Intellectual snobs like me are a very distinct species. You can spot us in cafes and libraries everywhere, even in the distinctly crassy Starbucks, you will find us hooked up with our laptops, typing away furiously on our keyboards. We will not be dressed very trendy, thats mostly because we do not have well built bodies to show off. So while I recoil inwardly in horror on seeing my naked body in the mirror everyday before getting into the shower, in front of everybody else I will complaining about the apparent "body fascism" that has taken over the entire country. Everyday before going to sleep, I dream that the next morning I will get up sooner rather than later and go pump up some iron at the local gym. But my lazy, fat ass refuses to get off the bed and the WC once I am up in the morning. And then I cry foul when I am not looked at as a prospective good looker when I am out mingling amongst other singles.

It's not that the snobs like me are hooked up to our lappies all day, we can also be heard pom-pomming away about books we’ve never read, drinks we’ve never drunk, drugs we’ve never taken, places we’ve never been to, people we’ve never met and ideas that none of us will ever fully understand. So when one of my other pretentious friends walks in to a restaurant carrying a flier for an 'anarcho-communist' gathering, I get into a long discussion with him about what that odd ball sounding term means. And later I propound the ideals of anarcho-communism over my lesser well-read, well-informed friends.

The number of people like me who exude the suggestion that they are quite cleverer than what they actually are is quite startling. And it doesnt require much to show off to such an extent that people begin believing you. So you need to wear big-cut glasses, wear army-surplus sized clothes, carry lots of stuff in your hands whenever you are travelling, and one of those items need to be a book. If the books are more, the better. And yes, of course, the books cannot be authored by the-frowned-upon-by-literary-snobs writers like Deepak Chopra, Sidney Sheldon, or the M&B variety. The right kind of books are a must to create a favorable impression. Before you decide on what book to carry in your hands, you definitely need to look up on the New York Review of Books or the New Yorker and check out what the critics had to say about the book. For men, the uncut hair and a few days' stubble look goes a long way in creating a snob impression. Whereas for women, dressing up in regional clothes and not the regular shirts and pants goes a long way - so take out your cotton kurtis, sarees, the kimono type dresses, the long flowing salwar kameezes and hit the subways with a big, fat Chekhov in your hand and people will begin to look up to you as the next girl in line for Einstein's throne.

The trappings of intellectual snobbery are many. So while you read seemingly "better" books and watch seemingly "better" movies and go for the praiseworthy plays, art shows, museum visits, you also at times begin to act like a social snob. You begin to correct your friends' accents and pronunciation mistakes. And have long, lengthy discourses over the proper word to use to refer to the "toilet". The "toilet", of course being an irrevocable faux-pas. Heaven have mercy, if someone heard you using such words. Its even more cringeworthy if you use words like 'loo'. A funny anecdote to recount in this regards - So I was meeting my aunt after at least 10 years. The initial blood-relative euphoria gave way in a while for analyzing the ways and means of a distant and long-lost relative. So everything that I spoke out to her, had to be slowly and properly pronounced, else she made me repeat it. She even let me know condescendingly once that my accent is ununderstandable, because it almost sounds like I am speaking in a Gujarati tongue. (Gujarati being a native dialect for the residents of a state called Gujarat in the west of India) Its a different matter altogether that she has never been to Gujarat or had any Gujarati friends or even watched or seen anything remotely Gujarati to know how people in that area talk! After couple of days of aunt-nephew bonding, she took me to the church. As we were waiting for the service to begin, the choir began singing some hymns. And as the choir began singing, I felt the urge to answer nature's call (Please don't try and read any interrelationship between the two - its just coincidence that the two happened almost simultaneously). Over the din of the choir singers, I asked my aunt "Where is the rest room?" She looked at me in an apparently sympathetic look that said, "I know you are from India and have this horrible Gujarati accent which I cannot understand. I am sorry you will have to repeat". I repeated it twice for her. But sadly because the choir singers were creating such a din, and because were seated immediately below the speakers, she could not hear me. In order to make it clearer for her the fourth time, I decided to change the phraseology. And I asked her then "Which way is the TOILET?". I could see her literally shuddering as those harsh, blue-collared words hit her ear drums, registered with her senses and her brain processed a multitude of thoughts. She gave me the directions and then softly held my hands and told me "Please do not use that word 'toilet' around here. Its a very 'Indian' usage. People over here call it the restroom.' As I walked towards the restroom, my head was spinning out of pure fury. How dare she thinks I am not refined enough to fit into her world! Of course I am. That I had to use 'that' word in my purely pressurized state of mind and bowels, is a different story. Ha!

To be continued....