Swearing is unladylike

Swearing and use of profanity has long been considered a masculine habit, while women are the experts of euphemism. But Is it acceptable when women switch gender roles

Recently I ventured to go out in Delhi in the evening for a drink. As everybody will tell you, that is a proposition wrought with danger. And I am a boy! And yet, I did. It wasn’t as much the fear of being pickpocket-ed, picked on, eve-teased (Adam-teased ), or any such, it was primarily the fear of having to expose myself to the crassness that is become of Delhi, one that can scar a person’s thoughts near-permanently. And almost as if on cue, it happened.

I was sitting at a high table, sharing it with a couple across, and while the ladies with me went to the bar to fetch drinks (I am equal-opportunity like that), I tried to occupy myself with trying hard to not stare at or eavesdrop on anything that my constitution would later have difficulty dealing with.

But I wasn’t armed enough for before I could get some sort of a defence shield on, the lady next to me blurted out the choicest of Hindi abuses to the guy with her and it was all done in a manner the same way the milkman in the morning delivers the milk to his clients, matter-of-factly with a business-like air but with just a tinge of endearment that builds over time in any social relationship. She was rattling off the abuses as she tried to find some picture on IG (or Snap) but couldn’t locate. Surely said picture wasn’t so crucial to merit language so colourful. But who am I to know.

And yet, to hear a girl abuse so freely made me squirm. To be fair, hearing a boy abuse similarly is equally squirm-worthy but living in Delhi hardens you to certain realities. But to extend this privilege in some contorted form of equality onto women just felt wrong. Any elegance or class that was on that terrace and around the table on that roof that evening simply got up and jumped straight off it, perhaps to never live again.

I love it when women use the term ‘Bro’ among each other affectionately — makes me wonder why we men don’t call each other “sistaahs”, maybe that’s why — but to abuse so fluently and crassly at the same time made me go weak in the knees and not in a nice way.

So I wonder here now, was it close-minded of me to take objection If I somehow survive men abusing so, why can’t women be allowed similar heightened form of expressions I don’t know what the right answer is, all I know is that it felt wrong. And I could be off here but wouldn’t the world be a happier place if we didn’t have to punctuate all our emotions with insults involving family members, body parts, or such like Yes, Utopia.

Strangely though, and I am sure many will fight me down for saying this, it all seems a lot acceptable if uttered in English! Yes, how classist of me and yet I am admitting to such prejudice. Either ways, next time you wish like hurling an abuse, boy or girl, take a deep breath. If that doesn’t work, let if fly. I may judge you for it, but then you can always hurl a few my way and shoo me away. The writer is a lover of wine, song and everything fine