Indiscretion

 Not every question deserves an answer, they say. How very apt, most students would concede, right? Beyond the examination hall, too, there are questions that hardly deserve any answer. In our blog today, let us explore a few such oddities. Please feel free to add a few of your own.

Have you ever travelled on a long distance train? Well, the metro or the local or the intercity journey is indeed short for such inquiries, actually inquisitions. The plane is too chic. These days, who travels in state transport buses? If at all used, the night engulfs all the passengers in to deep sleep quite soon. So such firing is hardly possible during such travels.

The second class long distance railway travel is unique though, absolutely one of its kind. Whatever might be the time of boarding the train, your co-passengers are sure to find some occasion or the other to salvo questions after questions at you.

You get in to the bogey. After a few queries here and there, a request to move and to adjust, you finally locate the berth. You settle down, relax a little after the hectic entry. You are about to open the book you would like to complete during the long journey. That very second booms the first question, 'where you going?'. If you take a split second extra to answer, the question is repeated most helpfully, the person pitying your lethargy in answering as if you are a dimwit.

You answer that question. A mistake actually. You should have pretended to be deaf-n-dumb. Well, you are bad at acting! Be ready then for a firing squad, " Are you working?", "in which school?" "How much do they pay you?" "Are you married?" "What does 'he' do?" "How many issues?" "Not even one? Who has a problem? You or he?"

The series goes on and on. Your reluctance to answer is no guarantee that your privacy  will be spared. Well, your personal life has to be an open book, unlike the one you are dying to read!

Why do not people understand that  personal questions are a no-no? Why do not they take a hint that you are NOT interested in sharing with them unnecessary information, right? 

The other day in the bank, that great personal assistant allotted by the bank was  hell-bent on finding out the exact amount of the salary paid to me, even when such details were absolutely unnecessary. When his probing questions became too insistent, despite my telling him in different direct and indirect ways that my C.A. manages all the deductions et al, my suspicion that somthing similar to stalking on behalf of  someone was happening started getting solidified.

Once, some time not so very long ago,  he was too curious about the minor amount paid by a literary magazine. Prompt I found an opportunity to clarify that people chat too much instead of reading which makes life a tightrope walk for publishers, and as a result for authors! Curiosity, never a weakness of the female of the species alone, does not kill the cat(ty questions)!

Pratima@"A prudent question," they say, "is one half of wisdom." And the imprudent? Better to leave it unanswered!!!