Imagine a situation where a bunch
of young people are waiting for their pick-up vehicle at a common place.
Underlying assumption is that they don’t know each other and have the same
purpose of waiting for their cab/bus/train. In today’s era, if you picture it,
you can visualize a culturally diverse group of youngsters dressed in all
possible colours, with their ear phones plugged in and preciously starring into
their mobile phones. For all you know, they might be playing candy crush (curse
that game!).
Now let’s introduce some fun!
What if all the mobile phones/IPods/iPhones/tabs/all
electronic devices were seized??? Or it just vanishes or just a new rule which prohibits
the usage of electronic devices. Possible Impossibility! But just for the sake
of fun, let’s visualize this scenario.
Now that they don’t have anything
to stare at or act busy with, I really wish to know what they’d do?! My guess
is some would be staring/looking at the sky or probably birds, some, making out
shapes from the clouds, some, inspecting their footwear, some, playing ‘statue’
and others, some other weird things. AWKWARDNESS all the way! That would be a
funny scene. Really! All of this just to avoid acknowledging the presence of
each other.
We all have been there and know
how uncomfortable it is to stand next to a stranger. What saves us all is our
smart phone. We’d rather read a boring piece of news on our mobile than chat up
with a complete stranger. Because they’ve a smart phone which has the same
boring news and how’d I forget FB and of course the very famous candy crush!
Everyone is out of touch with
being naturally social and friendship happens only when we have an obvious
common thing like school, college or work. But it actually takes very little
effort to turn our head to the other person, make eye contact, smile and say hello!
If someone does that to me, I’m not going to be rude and turn my head away
unless he/she seems to be threat. But then there are why’s and But’s! Endless
loop of just questions and no answers!
If only you know how interesting
a conversation with a stranger can be! I’ve chatted with whom I travel regularly,
cab drivers, the cleaning lady at work, house-keeping lady at hostel, watchman,
night security, fresh school pass outs, random strangers and many more. Everyone
has some amazing stories to share. What’s
so cool about this is they acknowledge you and always wave a smile! It’s
contagious! If someone seems sombre, I’ll pass on my smile to them. It makes me
happy!
‘Stranger’ is a word that has life
only till a ‘hello’ gets exchanged. Then the word gets replaced by
‘fellow-citizen’, ‘co-passenger’, ‘neighbour’, even ‘Bro’! Already, we’ve
people sharing posts on FB that says ‘I’m glad I had a childhood before
technology took over’. Technology hasn’t taken over; we’ve just lost our social
sense. It’s ok if people give you weird looks when you start a conversation.
They may even feel intimidated first but later they’ll be happy to have made
small talks, at the least. This is because we are basically social animals. We
all want to wave ‘hi’ and smile a greeting but we just don’t do it because it’s
no more practised. That’s the plain simple reason and not because technology
has taken over. We just need something to blame things on.
The next time you’re waiting for
your bus, you see that stranger whom you see every day, wave a hello or just
smile, because they too want to. First step is always the toughest rather most awkward
in this case but the next day they’ll call out to you and you can happily put
away your mobile and engage in a good and definitely interesting conversation!
