Rage Over Nothing?

On the evening of July 14, two men walked into Select Darbar Restaurant in Minalur, Wadakkanchery, and ordered chilli chicken. It arrived garnished with lemon, as usual. The two complained the lemon pieces were dry and accused the staff of reusing old ones. Fresh lemon was brought out. They kept arguing anyway.

“The hotel owner had to step in to stop things from escalating,” recalls Ashar H, a front-office staff member. The two men eventually left without eating. “We thought the issue ended there,” he says.

It hadn’t. The pair returned with five others, picked a fresh quarrel outside the restaurant, and one of them grabbed Ashar by the neck and shoved him backwards. He suffered bruises to his neck. The hotel owner was struck with a cricket bat and lost teeth; he is now undergoing root canal treatment. “It appears they came here determined to create trouble out of nothing,” Ashar says, still trying to make sense of what triggered it.

Days later, a group of tourists from Palakkad, driving back from Munnar, stopped for dinner at a hotel in Adimali. They had pre-booked Al-Faham chicken. Some felt the portion was smaller than expected. The disagreement turned physical, ending in property damage and a police complaint, a fitting end to what had otherwise been an uneventful trip.

These are not isolated cases. Kerala has, in recent months, seen a recurring pattern of disputes erupting from strikingly minor provocations: A refusal to serve pappadam a second time at a wedding reception, delays in food service, smaller-than-expected portions. Most are settled with an apology or a compromise.

Some end in police cases, assault, damaged property. At least one has ended in death— a 52-year-old man in Malappuram died after a brawl broke out over eggs. Witness statements indicate the clash began when two customers asked for five eggs each from a shop that had only six in stock. The shopkeeper offered to divide the eggs equally between them; neither agreed, and the dispute escalated into violence.

At first glance, the triggers appear absurd. But mental health experts and social scientists say the lemon, the ice cream or the eggs are rarely the real issue. Instead, they expose deeper frustrations that find expression through seemingly trivial confrontations.

“The immediate trigger is often insignificant,” says Dr Anton Paulson, assistant professor of psychiatry at Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. “Anger usually builds over time through stress, emotional strain, financial worries, relationship problems or poor emotional regulation. A minor incident simply becomes the point where everything spills over.” He says people also tend to redirect frustration towards those who are least threatening, a psychological phenomenon known as displacement. Restaurant staff, shopkeepers, delivery workers and other frontline service employees often become easy targets because they are accessible and unlikely to retaliate.

Food itself may also play a role. “The brain regions associated with hunger and anger are closely connected,” Paulson explains. “Hunger can make people more vulnerable to irritability.”

A recent case in Kollam illustrates how quickly this can spiral. During a wedding reception, guests from the bride’s side were told the ice cream had run out. A group tried to snatch the remaining box from catering staff. The scuffle escalated into a full brawl; the bride reportedly fainted amid the commotion.

Police officers say behaviour often changes dramatically once people become part of a crowd. “Mobs function differently,” says Muraleedharan V S, station house officer of Wadakkancherry police station, who investigated the lemon assault case. “Individuals try to assert themselves or impress others in the group. At that moment, they rarely think about the consequences of their actions.”

Psychologists, meanwhile, point to another shift—declining patience in an age of instant gratification.

According to Kochi-based consultant psychologist Dr Sindhu Ajith, technology has fundamentally altered people’s expectations. “Today, almost everything is available instantly. When people become accustomed to immediate responses, they find it harder to accept delays, inconvenience or even hearing the word ‘no’. Emotional reactions begin to override rational thinking.”

But the reasons may extend beyond individual psychology. Sociologists believe Kerala’s changing social fabric has quietly weakened many of the emotional buffers that once helped people deal with frustration.

“In the past, people rarely faced personal crises alone,” says Bushra Begum, associate professor of sociology at the University of Kerala. “Relatives, neighbours and friends often intervened, sometimes without even being asked. While that could intrude into personal space, it also created strong support systems and a sense of accountability.”

As families become smaller and society more individualistic, those informal support networks have steadily weakened, she says. People often carry unresolved stress without trusted circles to share it with, making public spaces an outlet for pent-up frustration.

The transformation, says social anthropologist Anil Gopi of Mahatma Gandhi University, is also changing how people relate to one another. “Earlier, children grew up within closely connected communities where grandparents, relatives and neighbours all played active roles in their lives. Those relationships fostered empathy and responsibility towards others,” he says. “Today, migration, technology and changing lifestyles have made society far more individualistic. People increasingly grow up with weaker community ties and fewer opportunities to share emotional burdens.”

Bushra says institutions have not adapted quickly enough to these social changes. “As society becomes more individualistic, support systems such as counselling services, social care and community mental health infrastructure have not expanded at the same pace,” she says. “People are expected to cope on their own even when they lack the resources to do so. Until the system catches up with how individualistic we’ve become, we’ll keep seeing incidents like these.”

END OF ARTICLE