Filter Coffee # 305

On Chutzpah

Bengaluru

FC 304 was warmly acknowledged. Some of the comments were:

• Golf mate Santosh: “I have experienced this many times but never knew there was a formal label, ‘dark patterns’, for it. My recent experience was subscribing to a platform called ‘Genius’ on the ET Money App. They sent a notification before taking the money from your account (RBI guidelines, I guess), but I could not unsubscribe or contact them. Remember subscribing to the Wall Street Journal a few years back. They had an unsubscribe button along with the notification. Wonder why our regulations do not insist on something similar!”

• Subahu Desai: “Pras, very apt and covers all the snares and traps laid out in the urban jungle, which we innocently or out of avariciousness walk into.”

• K B R Murthy: “The service representative undercutting the company baffles me. Is this very common? Marketing guys should find a way to overcome this by suitably incentivising the customer to deal directly with the company.”

😏 Chutzpah

This Hebrew word, pronounced ‘hutspa’, means many things depending on the context. The context that reminded me of this word is this: I was driving Reva, my little electric car, when I saw someone crossing the road while talking on the phone. As I braked, he walked straight onto my car and hugged the bonnet, not seeing where he was going. He recovered from this mild encounter and pushed his face against the window and yelled at me.

“Who gave you a licence to drive? Can’t you see where you are going?” When I just shrugged my shoulders, he glared at me and walked off, gesticulating and resuming the conversation. I admired the temerity and alacrity with which he accused me and said to myself, “The guy has chutzpah.”

The word Chutzpah is like a chameleon, meaning many things, taking colour from the context. In the encounter I cited, the guy displayed shameless audacity, and that was his chutzpah. The ability to turn the tables on you requires chutzpah. Putting you on the defensive is a chutzpah-driven trait. Brazen and bold assertions require chutzpah. Like the candidate who applied for a job, and at the interview he is asked why he should be considered. He says with an air of confidence, “Sir, though I may not have the qualification and experience, you should hire me anyway, because I’m smarter than others and I can do the job better than anyone else.”

His cockiness was his chutzpah. Did he get the job? Well, that depended on whether the interviewer had the chutzpah to hire him.

Some people may ask you to do something which you realise later was quite cheeky. Like in a movie, a heist takes place, and the robber then goes to the teller and says that he wants to open an account and deposit the money. One may think he is foolish. But he is displaying the kind of chutzpah that says he has the nerve to do the unthinkable.

Audacity is a synonym of chutzpah. Like an executive dials the CEO directly and tells him he is quitting unless he is promoted and given a raise by the end of the day. Maybe he had another job in his pocket and wanted to leverage that, but his hedging was his chutzpah.

Arrogance, wilful disobedience, and shameless audacity are examples of negative chutzpah, whereas being confident, brazen and daring can be positive chutzpah. Can a person tell one from the other? Depends on who and in what context the chutzpah plays out. Just to make the point, if someone came and told you that he can outclass you in a debate, he no doubt displays chutzpah, which can turn out to be just bravado, a negative chutzpah, if he made no headway in the debate.

The behaviour of a person making overtures and propositioning a lady can easily be characterised as negative chutzpah, and it may well be a reason to call him out. If the lady is all by herself and no one to support her, she should have the chutzpah to escalate the issue, not just take the aggressor to task but to make it clear to all that such aggression has no place in any set-up. Violating norms and overstepping boundaries are a clear display of negative chutzpah.

Being just confident about achieving something is not exactly chutzpah because confidence manifests after all the impeding factors are assessed. Like if a student is confident of a centile score, it speaks of his preparedness. Climbing Everest is not everyone’s dream. Those who do, prepare for days, and yet they have to have this chutzpah to venture out knowing the perils of a snowstorm or any other peril lurking along the way.

In my school days, I never heard of this word. Still, now, after having known and understood its meaning and its nuanced usage, I can relate it to an ordinary situation that occurred during a train journey from Mysore to Mumbai, a long and arduous journey of more than 24 hours in those days. As the train chugged along towards the interchange at Guntakal in Andhra Pradesh, the TTE (Travelling Ticket Examiner, so called as he too travelled on that train) came to the compartment where we were seated. We were busy munching on some snacks when he sat in front of us to check on our tickets. My aunt, who was travelling with us, offered him a piece of coconut burfi (an Indian sweet), which he savoured and asked for another piece. My aunt wasn’t too happy, though a woman feels flattered with a repeat request. She reluctantly parted with another piece. After relishing it, the TTE, with a poker face, told my aunt, “Madam, I have to drink coffee, so please give some savoury stuff.” You should have seen my aunt’s face. Now, my readers, that’s the kind of chutzpah the TTE displayed. That makes me wonder if looking the gift horse in the mouth is a kind of chutzpah?

We all may have faced such situations that made us exclaim, “What nerve!?” Here are a few that come to my mind:

• “Oh! Thanks for the T-shirt, but next time please remember I don’t like pockets.”

• “Thanks for giving me the alarm clock. Timely, but where are the battery cells?”

• “Thanks for giving me a ride, but do you mind making a slight deviation to drop me off in front of my office?”

• “I enjoyed my stay at your place. You may want to change the mattress; it sags.”

Dear Readers, if you recall such instances, please write in.

If one ignores the negative meanings assigned to the word, chutzpah can be a good quality to have if its inherent energy is harnessed for productive outcomes. Some aggression, an urge to excel, being inquisitive, adventurous, proactive, and fearless are all productive aspects of chutzpah and ought to be cherished and nourished.

Compare all of this to the situations in this link: 🔗10 Indian Instances Of ‘Chutzpah’ That Deserve A Slow Clap - ScoopWhoop (Readers not familiar with Hindi, please excuse)

Before concluding, let me share the classic definition given by Leo Rosten:

“Chutzpah is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”

That’s it my dear readers. I don’t have the chutzpah to write more on chutzpah. Until next week, take care and be safe. Ciao!