Attitude...

Attitude… it’s something that we all need to possess in order to make headway in life… apparently.

Being a prick… it’s something that seems to be a major way for buggers to pass time… certainly.

Before an average Indian kid enters college, or in a few cases the higher standards of some of the… ‘Premiere’ institutions of the country, the word ‘attitude’ has only as much meaning to it, as Webster’s feels justified in providing. After the eagerly awaited transition though… a dictionary definition ceases to suffice… by a long shot.

Your attitude is what defines whether you’ll make ‘the right’ friends, your attitude determines whether your company will be desired by members of the opposite sex… and your attitude will determine whether or not, you will have the exalted position of being ‘cool’. Excuse me while I barf.

In colleges… attitude turns in to ‘atti’, (one of the most infuriating abbreviations I have ever had the misfortune to come across) and is treated as an indicator of your personality. The irony of the situation is… you need to have ‘atti’ so as not to be branded as a pill, while simultaneously not having too much of said ‘atti’ which will incur the displeasure of your peers and seniors alike on being equated with ‘showing off’ or being ‘disrespectful’.

It’s strange… how a word that in all fairness should merely depict how one perceives the world, or deals with it… comes to stand for the behavioral patterns he depicts in mixed company, stressing strongly on something called the ‘coolness quotient’. It’s even stranger… that people divided on virtually every other issue seem united in their recognizing of this… as a major and defining character trait, albeit in utterly different ways.

Speaking from personal experience… I have managed to find myself being considered in several different attitude zones till date… sometimes… in more than one zone at a time.

There are always folk, who’ll look at you and sneer for not being in their league (say because you’d rather to listen to Pink Floyd than Children of Bodom)… while another group would brand you as snooty for preferring Quentin Tarantino over Ramgopal Varma. But… eventually the cause for the lack of match will be thoroughly forgotten, and the reason why you don’t hang out will be simplified to either not having the right attitude, (obviously not in those exact terms) or having it in excess.

What gets to me is… even though the reason that everyone cannot band together, is because of a lack of commonality and like mindedness… it’s all somehow simplified down to a matter of attitude. The worst part is the perpetual narcissistic glow that it’s your attitude that’s perfect… anything more sophisticated is stuck up… and something more down to earth is a sign of being a simpleton.

And because of man’s unique nature… no one is perfect (apart from you of course), and a huge amount groups and social strata get created… as if we needed yet another method of dividing ourselves into smaller fragments.

You only gel with the people with the right attitude (or at least close to it… since the odds of another individual mirroring you is rare)… and disregard the rest. And they cheerfully do the same… and both your groups indulge in the happy slandering of the other one, in your private discussions. And thus in the final years of our adolescence, we attain the maturity of adulthood… splendid!

It’s almost fascinating, the amount of things that attitude stands for today… mostly personal interpretations to suit ones need. (I didn’t want to use the words ‘fallacies’ or ‘perversions’… oh wait! I think I just did!)

A college senior who encounters a freshman… who perhaps is apt at foiling his lame attempts to ‘rag’ him… has ‘too much attitude’. Meaning… that he doesn’t respect his betters (a definition of betters would really come in handy here).

A guy, disliked by his peer may at any moment be accused of ‘showing attitude’. This translates as, his being excessively arrogant, conceited and a show off. He himself… if he hasn’t learned to ‘not care’, may retort with how the initial accuser is a low life… on account of not having the attitude necessary to develop a personality (or some similar pile of nonsensical and presumptuous garbage).

There are so many things that if you do (or even fail to do)… will get you sent below the minimum attitude requirement, or send you skyrocketing past its maximum permissible limit... both stopping you from being part of the group pretentiously considering your actions.

If you play an instrument… a guitar bans you from the company of the low level dwellers, and a harmonium, from that of the high and mighty. If you listen to music… the bands determine where you fall. Your hobbies, your dress… you mode of speaking… your mannerisms… everything combined decides (or lets the morons who surround you decide) if you can join their ranks or not.

It’s tragic really, how the thing that should by all means still stand for… “A person's perspective toward a specified target and way of saying and doing things” is now interpreted by my own generation’s spokespersons as… “The unfortunate social grading system that chooses which bunch of douches you belong to”.