ANTICS

 ANTICS

Well, too often we find men /boys who either take delight of certain behaviour or assume that people around are just idiotic novices incapable of judging their demeanour. Too often they ‘present’ themselves in places of historic value or tourism interest. They make their presence felt by speaking loud; also they liberally let off boisterous laughter with the singular purpose of ‘being noticed or heard’. They invariably are young men who have not completed the degree course. Well-dressed, they are mistaken for persons of good background and tempt the tourists to invite them to guide their visit to monuments or historic places in the vicinity. Such a call makes an impact of delight on them; they look for such occasions to familiarize themselves with members of opposite gender in the group more as a thrill than for any clandestine design.  

They -by virtue of familiarity to all business houses in the area make it a point to advise the visitors to look for items exclusive to the place as memento or as souvenir to be passed onto friends back home. In making such appeals to the visitors they are judicious enough, not to inadvertently suggest any motive behind.

Once they clinch a deal with the visitor, they would get highly energized running around in frenzy of sorts , looking for an Autorickshaw or Taxi to ferry them to places in a bid to shorten travel time between places of interest.; they would make it appear that they have arranged the most competitive facility.

At the place of interest -say some monument or a pilgrim spot, they would quickly catch hold of a ‘local devil’ too familiar with the place, history and critical features -generally overlooked for want of precise guidance. Our hero who initiated the deal would ensure that the local expert does not demand any dole, so that the visitor is at peace with the hero. Certainly, our hero would part with some money to the devil, lest he should suffer a quarantine in future visits.  That over, the tourists would now crave for a good place to eat [lunch]. Ascertaining the requirement [the kind of food- vegetarian or otherwise] our man takes  them to a good place but would excuse himself from joining them for lunch; it would leave a huge impact on the visitors of our man’s culture [totally cast to the winds whenever he finds a new group at the railway junction]. Again in the post lunch time he takes them around for a brief shopping and prevails on the shopkeeper to give the best concession to his ‘guests’. [One more win for our hero as of being very helpful]. Well about 40 minutes before their train is due to arrive he puts the guests back to the right platform to alight the train. He manages to make some good money by showing himself affable and not showing signs taking advantage.   Antics help to draw attention; thereafter restraint holds the key to success.

Prof. K. Raman