When I was in Indonesia, I learnt to my pleasant surprise that Indonesian Bahasa language had lot of Sanskrit/Urdu words in its vocablury. So Griha, Kursi, Raja, Bhumi, Puja, Surya, takdir, hakikat etc were the sort of words through which I professed mastery over that language. Not to forget proper nouns like Ramayana, Rama too.
But then there were some words which left me in splits. Imagine asking someone if they wanted susu in the tea. I meant milk....you get the drift. Initially I would mention these to my hosts with glee and a smirk but I soon realised that my humour was their pain. There were such instances in middle east too. While it was all right to smirk and enjoy these things amongst a closed group of Indians I soon became sensitised enough not to mention it as a humorous anecdote to the host citizens.
I also realised that almost every culture or country has its own share of people who were always the butt of jokes. Like in India we have the sardarji jokes or even madrasi ones, Egyptians for example have jokes about the Saeeds who lived in lower delta region of the Nile. And we hardly think twice before we crack a joke at their expense. Pass it off as sense of humour.
Yes, sense of humour. Passing it off as "learning to laugh on yourself". Just try doing that. If someone cracks a joke at your name or your community will you laugh it off? And that's what I saw this afternoon. Someone had put up a picture on FB of a Doctor whose surname is Chutia. Yes that's right and before you get incredulous let me tell you that Chutia (pronounced as Sutia) is a common surname in Assam. It is a community. It happens to be a derogatory slang in another language but for this particular community the name is their badge of honour.
So what do we do? Ask these people to develop a sense of humour? Tell them to bear and grin, as the sardars and the blondes have been doing for ages? Now let me ask you a question. What if Mehta or Kapoor or daCunha or Khan turns out to be a slang in another language. Will you accept that gracefully and develop a sense of humour?
And that's where as marketers we need to be sensitive. We should not be misusing our freedom of speech or the ubiquitous sense of humour to hurt someone. Nowadays with ideas becoming scarce, there is a tendency to look at short cut executions. Definitely humour works. But not after hurting someone else.
We do need to learn to laugh at ourselves. But have we done that? Before we poke fun at a particular community because they are going with the family to the bitch or cast the turbaned community as brainless because we want to invoke a few laughs, put yourself in their shoes and wonder how you would have reacted?
Have you developed your sense of humour enough, to laugh at jokes that ridicule you? If no, then why do you expect others to be more tolerant than you?
But then there were some words which left me in splits. Imagine asking someone if they wanted susu in the tea. I meant milk....you get the drift. Initially I would mention these to my hosts with glee and a smirk but I soon realised that my humour was their pain. There were such instances in middle east too. While it was all right to smirk and enjoy these things amongst a closed group of Indians I soon became sensitised enough not to mention it as a humorous anecdote to the host citizens.
I also realised that almost every culture or country has its own share of people who were always the butt of jokes. Like in India we have the sardarji jokes or even madrasi ones, Egyptians for example have jokes about the Saeeds who lived in lower delta region of the Nile. And we hardly think twice before we crack a joke at their expense. Pass it off as sense of humour.
Yes, sense of humour. Passing it off as "learning to laugh on yourself". Just try doing that. If someone cracks a joke at your name or your community will you laugh it off? And that's what I saw this afternoon. Someone had put up a picture on FB of a Doctor whose surname is Chutia. Yes that's right and before you get incredulous let me tell you that Chutia (pronounced as Sutia) is a common surname in Assam. It is a community. It happens to be a derogatory slang in another language but for this particular community the name is their badge of honour.
So what do we do? Ask these people to develop a sense of humour? Tell them to bear and grin, as the sardars and the blondes have been doing for ages? Now let me ask you a question. What if Mehta or Kapoor or daCunha or Khan turns out to be a slang in another language. Will you accept that gracefully and develop a sense of humour?
And that's where as marketers we need to be sensitive. We should not be misusing our freedom of speech or the ubiquitous sense of humour to hurt someone. Nowadays with ideas becoming scarce, there is a tendency to look at short cut executions. Definitely humour works. But not after hurting someone else.
We do need to learn to laugh at ourselves. But have we done that? Before we poke fun at a particular community because they are going with the family to the bitch or cast the turbaned community as brainless because we want to invoke a few laughs, put yourself in their shoes and wonder how you would have reacted?
Have you developed your sense of humour enough, to laugh at jokes that ridicule you? If no, then why do you expect others to be more tolerant than you?
