Flaunt

Ten years ago, I conducted a three day residential camp for college students. I had to go home in the night. I would leave after 10pm and return early next morning before 6am for the outdoor session. My colleagues would stay back.

In the morning, when everyone assembled, I asked who had stepped out of the campus at night. Everyone denied the transgression. Eventually I pulled up two boys for violating the basic rule. They confessed that they had erred.

Years later, one of the youth came up to me and asked me who had squealed about them going out in the night. I smiled and told him, ‘You!’

I had found out through a Facebook photo and status put by him. He had flaunted what he was doing. He was young and brash and probably did not think that I may see his post as I was not on his friend list on Facebook.

The boys were young. But grown-ups too brag about what they consider to be their feats of breaking the rules. The ostentatious display seeks to provoke envy or admiration or to show defiance. But the fall is in the flaunting!

In the lockdown, we find people showing off how they have slipped out to walk, meet, celebrate, indulge and do things which are prohibited. Though they may have treaded into action gingerly, once the act is done, they want to flaunt it. The slip shows and it is revealed by the owner on social media.

Thanks to your tendency to flaunt…

The world knows your shady jaunt!

~ Pravin K Sabnis