Every morning when I leave for work I meet this cute little boy aged about seven in the lift. His name is Pratish. Like all school children in India he has this huge back pack the weight of which makes him bend. He is a boy with a tiny, slim frame but full of enthusiasm. Today it was raining heavily and being a Friday I was dragging myself to work. I asked the little boy if he was bored to go to school and he said “not really”. I prodded him a bit more to accept my reasoning that it is too hard to work when it’s raining heavily and you could have a cozy sleep. He reluctantly agreed with a shy smile.
Coming to the topic that I am writing about, this little boy’s mannerism floors me. In India I am not used men holding the door for a woman or making way for women. Young Pratish is an exception; he holds the lift door for me with all the weight he is carrying for me. I try not to make him hold, but he refuses to budge. This makes me wonder if manners are a result of nature or nurture.
I have come across many men well educated, and so called cultured type, not many of whom will do what young Pratish does. The same men go out of way when it comes to their family or friends but with strangers they are at their rowdy best.
Bang opposite where I stay there is a bus stop. Every morning I see men and woman waiting for the bus. The minute the bus arrives men start pushing and they do not stop even from pushing woman. These are the educated middle class of India. Among this crowd is a guy who stays in my very apartment complex who has an impeccable style, talks well, and is a loving husband and a father. The wait at the bus stop makes him lock all his manners in a safe vault. He is the first to push everyone in his way not bothering to see who he has pushed out. If I were to dissect his behavior I think the way he has been nurtured has defined how he treats his wife and kids. His nature which is animal behavior is in full display at the bus stop.
It is also said behavior is also linked to environment and to make an objective comparison of behavior one has to ensure the environment is the same. This is true from my driving experience in Bombay and in the US. In the US the road manners are impeccable and every one follows the rules. However there too I saw an exception where Bombay style driving manners were in full display. Near my office a narrow road led to a free way entrance. After five in the evening the road was choked with cars trying to get to the free way. To add to the chaos was a gas station just near the entrance of the free way.
At times I had to wait at the signal for 20 minutes or more despite having a green signal, because of the block. People tried all tricks up their sleeves to get ahead of others and all traffic etiquettes were down in the dumps. The interesting fact is that just 15 feet away from this mess, people would graciously give me way when I tried to enter the road from my office compound where there was not much traffic. So at a distance of 15 feet two kinds of behavior is on display. The people are the same, time of the day is the same, and the only difference is the environment, which in this case is the traffic.
Nurtured behavior is a result of training whereas nature is what we are born with. Nurturing can help shape an individual, the nature remains within, in latent form and never leaves a person. Nature raises its head when the environment changes, the same environment in which one was nurtured.
I would love to believe that for Pratish holding the door for a woman is his nature and not a result of nurture.
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