All jobs in a human set-up are equally essential. In a similar way different inter-connected components of a machine are indispensable for making it a running mechanism. The high-salaried, socially-dignified and commonly-acknowledged jobs attract everyone, and everyone’s attention. But some jobs, rather ‘dirty jobs’, as they’re called, are there performed in the societies by the people who’re engaged to remove the muck out of the places where it’s dumped or found. Or to undergo most perilous pieces of work at oil rigs, farmlands, morgues, coal mines and other places where insects and pests are found and got killed by these terminators: ‘engaged-dirty-workers’. The ‘dirty jobs’, although not attracting anyone and anyone’s attention, for obvious reasons, are well within the knowledge of all in this age of IT. Admittedly, they make the lives of all of us safer, better, cleaner and happier, even though for pittances. All jobs, tidy or untidy, small or big, are consciously adopted by people for an honourable living and all being fairly important deserve respect by all.
But, there are some non-occupational ‘dirty jobs’, as we dare to call them, not consciously adopted by people but which, over a period of time, being repeatedly done by them, quite subconsciously, become inseparable part of their human nature. And, these ‘dirty jobs’ manifest in the shape of certain mannerisms or gestures or features of their possessors that attract attention of others. Unlike that of regular occupational dirty jobs, these dirty mannerisms, many in number, do not earn a respect or a livelihood but, disgust, dislike, distance, (sometimes) embarrassment and even puking or nauseating by those who face-to-face observe these being done by their ‘awful workers’.
So, how distasteful the view is when a man unknowingly for a good spell of time sticks his pointed finger inside his nostrils searching to collect and scoop out dried-nasal-mucus on his fingertips, flattening and rounding it, unbreakably, into tiny dark balls with his fingertips , and, then, furtively, laying the balls aside, as if a rat dropping beside him. Or when the nasal-mucus hasn’t dried as yet, but is still green and viscous, the man at job feeling frustrated as he can’t make the balls of the mucus-hot-jelly and so, to avoid any possible embarrassment by a sharp-eyed observer sitting nigh to him, he decides to paste it secretly on his clothes inside, as if a brigand concealing his plunder under the ground.
It’s equally unhygienic and disturbing to see a man after taking meals chewing and stirring the remnant-gobbet inside his mouth with his tongue-spoon and crusher-teeth as if relishing his aftertaste like a cow chewing cud before directing it to her second stomach. Or he may, without rinsing the mouth, be seen chewing and tasting food-debris, not removing it, after meals, that (food-debris) often doesn’t miss the occasion to kiss the plaque and tartar set on his teeth.
A pretty woman’s shallow sigh, in an awkwardly stylish manner, escaping her mouth in an unexpected bad breath may be sufficient to dissuade her suitors.
A very ‘healthy’ man may be seen having assumed the habit of ‘deliberately’ belching out breath, or farting, intermittently or for awhile, invariably as foul as the mannerism itself, amidst people in a ceremonial or a non-ceremonial gathering or, otherwise, during any common social sitting or rendezvous in any restaurant or room or elsewhere, without putting a hand on his mouth, or holding up fumes slipping through tailpipe. Failure to stop leakage of flatus or expulsion of fart is just the same as failure to close the gate of an old fortress to stallions fast running towards it from inside. And, once the stallions find their way out, it’s just like a still-perfumed-atmosphere getting shaken and saturated by impregnating eddies of pong, rotten smell, from which everyone, thus, wants to go away, just as the people run away for safety when fired upon from all directions or when a grenade thrown in the marketplace suddenly explodes.
A careless man, even if tired or bored, is found burping or yawning idiotically, without covering his mouth with his hand, just as an alligator opening its huge mouth to let in a swarm of filthy blowflies, allured by its horrible smell, to get tasted down in its single swallow. A brainless man eating and chewing paan, playfully and joyfully, is seen spitting out on everything in public places, minus public faces for public wrath, that come his way, as if a filthy croaking crow defecating on shiny clothes and hairstyle of a dandy youngman. A man tossed up and down in a whirl of emotion or aggression often slobbers at others making them protect their beautiful faces against a sudden dirty, bitty drizzle or spritz of soda, or to parry incoming punches towards their faces.
An oafish man is, often, found chomping and crunching food in a clumsy manner like a cheetah devouring its prey under its powerful paws and piercing teeth. Or one may find such a boorish eater with leaping hands onto the tablecloth or dining table for eating first as though, with a ravenous appetite of many days, he’s likely to die of hunger, if not given or taken food first to kill his killing appetite. Then, a stupid drinker slurps tea or coffee or soup or even plain water, making upsetting sounds while drinking, just as a horse or a monkey uses its tongue and nose to make ugly noises.
A heedless man is seen intermittently spouting out or spitting through gap of his incisors, as though a sparrow, sitting and hopping on a wire above, releasing creamy poop intermittently on pedestrians walking down on the pavement below. A fit young man, without any respiratory issues, is seen habitually dredging out ‘residual’ sputum or phlegm from the harbor of his throat and, then, gulping it down it, like hot tasty jelly with a loud click of tongue. Or he may be seen forcing wheezing of an old man upon himself by performing a skilled-spitter addicted to the use of a spittoon to which he directs huge quantity of phlegm and sputum pulled up by him mercilessly from their resting base.
Note: The piece is not intended to hurt the feelings of any person who for age or some health problem does some of these mannerisms. But object is to highlight them with a tinge of humour so that their attention is drawn to the disturbing and disgusting effect they have for others.