The ‘Hmm’ moments

“Evolution is, undoubtedly, an intriguing concept. Apart from the mind-numbing terminologies and plethora of dates, what it really claims is that it took us thousands of years to get out of a cave, just to enter into new cemented one; to transform from an untamed wild animal to a modern social puppet, fighting for acceptability; to balance out on two legs instead of four, just so we can fall on our asses, and, lastly, to inculcate some advanced form of communicative methods (both verbal and written), just so we can go back to ‘hmm’-ification of our regular conversations.

Human behaviour is surreal and, sometimes, beyond the understanding of humans themselves. The years of evolution taught us to convey ourselves to other fellow beings, not just our needs but deeply buried sentiments too, with the help of better symbolism and numerous languages. But, now look where we are, as if back to stone age. The reactions again turned to ‘hmm’, ‘ohh’, ‘huhh’, duhh’, ‘phew’,’hurr’, ‘ahem’, ‘argh’. In short, hmm’-ification of our daily chats. All those scripts and texts written by our ancestors seem futile as now we returned to making nonsensical sounds.

Burdening our larynx for nothing—“

Metro guy stopped hitting the innocent keys of his laptop as he was interrupted by a middle-aged, shabbily dressed man sitting proudly beside him (getting a seat in metro is always a matter of pride). He shifted his eyes from the bright laptop screen to a relatively dull, yet curious face sitting on his right.

“Hmm?” the metro guy plainly responded.

“Bhaiya ye HP ka laptop hai? Achha lag rha he...features kya he?” the stranger kept asking without waiting for answer.  

“Hmm”, replied the metro guy irritatingly. (Isn’t it amazing that one can use the same sound to both pose a question and offer an answer?)

“Mere maasi ke ladke ke paas bhi yahi model he shayad...”, he continued with his rubbish story and somehow ended up giving up the detailed information about his grandmother’s surgery, property rates in his areas, and criminal background of his political candidate.

Metro guy always figured that there are usually two kinds of people riding with you- those fellow travellers who don’t give a damn about your existence, and then there are people who think that it’s ‘Share-everything-with-a-stranger Day’. And his instincts said that the constantly buzzing person, like a guilty in confession box, belongs to the latter kind.

But our guy faced every question with a strong ‘ohh’ and ‘hmm’.

Apparently, the curiosity to express ourselves has severely diminished. We are active in social media but lagging behind in actual social interactions. What we now share is not emotions, but emoticons. The essence of real conversations is slowly withering away with the options of ‘What’s app’ and ‘Hike’.

Isn’t it true, hmm?