Excuse Me!

There are certain English, rather colonial practices, that we have blindly embraced over decades in our day-to-day manner without actually understanding their fundamental meaning, application and/or usefulness. I am not here talking about the custom of left-hand drive (not that we do not enjoy driving on the opposite lane), or the long wait in vain for the zebras for whom we have created crossings on our city streets, or the educational method that the British have long abandoned. My trepidation is with the ease with which we seemed to have picked up 'Excuse Me', as if the person who be so fortunate to allow the two words to reach his/her inner ear, has to move out of the way, be ready to serve the His/Her Highness, and feel terribly guilty.

You all must have noticed how two persons can actually continue a fight with one saying simply, 'Excuse me!” and the other retorting back with also an 'Excuse me!”. Bystanders bored with the argument going nowhere will often encourage the two by adding, 'Why the mouth when the hand is there?' (Please read: haath thakte mukh keno?)

Let us first discover some of the umpteen ways in which the most misquoted of phrases can be used, so that we may conclude with how they are being misused by the misguided or the haughty.

At Jessore airport only the other day, a police constable was seen holding an umbrella trying desperately to give some shade over a lady in the guise of a VIP (Very Irritating Person) while all the other passengers (ladies, children and the elderly included) had made the same fifty-yard or so walk from the terminal to the aircraft bareheaded. Excuse me! It was not even raining.

These days reading the inscriptions on the rear of a city bus in khod Dhaka is in itself an educational experience; written proof of how much you do not know. Following was I this battered one along Mirpur Road, and there it was written on its tail in Bangla: “Abide by traffic rules”. Wow! Such respect for law. Fair enough. You could not help but be impressed. Excuse me! That very bus did not have a single backlight.

Songs are pirated, films are remade (polite way of saying 'copied'), parts of buildings are imitated, designed dresses are plagiarised, academic documents are stolen by thieves who have sadly chosen teaching as their fraudulent business… Excuse me! These phonies are convinced that all is fair in love and lokshan.

The availability of online reading as well as the success of the 'save paper' campaign has persuaded some readers to stop subscribing to newspapers, although holding the world's events in your palm is never quite the same as spreading them with your two hands. But the search and browse, the copy and paste, and the save and share options are extremely convenient. Excuse me! Are we here not talking about newspapers, papers?

There are times when we do not pay the government enough kudos. Five of their senior-most officers were first discovered to have falsely attained freedom-fighter certificates to remain an extra year or more in service. For what moho who knows? To serve mankind, obviously. You people are so critical. Now there are seven more, whose FF certificates are also being investigated. The government had earlier in good faith extended the retirement age of freedom fighters working in the administration. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), which many have severally questioned as being inert, and the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs had boldly recommended legal action for misconduct against the five officials which could lead to their losing jobs for committing criminal offence. Departmental proceedings to take punitive action are ongoing. These are the 'powerhouses' that run a government, and therefore in taking the first action the government has done a good job. Excuse me! But then there are proven cases of public university teachers, who have resorted to fraud, lies and forged signature for their own promotion. Hello ACC?

You sneeze in the presence of an audience. Excuse me!
You accidentally bump into some body. Excuse me!
You draw the attention of someone. Excuse me!
These are the good ways of using the English phrase, and somehow the Bangla parallel 'maaf korben' has not gone well with the public imagination. What! Will I seek forgiveness for blowing my nose, or for pushing someone a yard off his path, or to help someone? Perhaps we do not realise that in saying it in English we are also seeking forgiveness, pardon me if you will.

I told you there was a lack of understanding of some of the popular foreign phrases. It is nowhere more evident than when we use the same polite expression in the most offensive way. Saying 'excuse me' does not give one the right to have his own way, and the feeling that one has uttered the magic words and all is forgiven and granted.
Some people will use 'excuse me' like a vehicle horn. As they charge through a group of people on the pavement, in the office, or at a party, they will keep on uttering 'kabaddi, kabaddi', sorry, 'excuse me, excuse me'. You are not surprised, I know. Indeed they get to pass without any hindrance, for they have misused the phrase that was originally meant to express, 'I am sorry', 'If you will please have mercy on me', 'I should not have done it'….
At a shopping mall on the eve of Eid-ul-Adha, yes! only the other day, I was about to be served by the gentleman who keeps outside handbags in a pigeon hole in exchange of a token, which by the way is a carrier of all hand-transmitted diseases.

This, the keeping of the bag for a dirty token, is because the shop owner suspects we could be smuggling his goods out, free. Excuse me! I am no thief. But, yes, some of us must have stashed more than a receipt and paid-for merchandises in a bag to irk and alert the management. My contemplation on thievery and innocence is suddenly broken.

Barks a lady from behind me, 'Excuse me! Excuse me!' as she thrusts an infected paper token to under the serving employee's nose, expressing without saying a single word that she was the prettiest thing in that mega-shop (hah!) and that she expected and deserved to be served before anyone else, even if those were the only two English words she knew. And would you believe it? Yes, you would. Much to my chagrin in silence for two seconds, after which I did mumble a couple of irate phrases loud enough for her not fathom the content in the haste of the moment, but sufficiently expressive  to get a confused return glare. Was she pretty? I was not looking, promise. In the chaotic situation the serving gentlemen had actually succumbed to her skin-deep beauty and yap, and had indeed handed over her bag before giving me a numbered token that carried over a dozen communicable maladies, including 'excuse me'. Excuse me! Was not I there before her? Was not I to be served first? Was she not supposed to wait? Who taught her English? But, her 'Excuse me' stole the show.