They are competent to find fault in everything and everyone. Present them a mini-replica of Taj Mahal and they would say: “It doesn’t inspire the same love as the real one.” Offer them a rose and they would ignore it and brag about the fragrance of lavender. Tell them you like Dilip Kumar and they would say that Guru Datt was a better actor.

These cynics could be so pervasive that they would quench the optimist in the dull gray clouds of suspicion. They have a keen sense where to stick the knife; they would scorn and berate people without intention or purpose and obviously they lack direction.

Cynics are also masters of sarcasm. They expect you to laugh with them when they poke fun at you. If you don’t they feel you have no sense of humour.

We can’t totally avoid such people. They could prop up as your boss, your subordinate or your colleague; may be your wife or girl friend if you had been insane enough. We may have to accept them how they are and give up the attempts to change them beyond a certain limit. At times cynicism is deadly and infectious. A highly charged cynic can transform a wedding celebration into a “zone of silence” or even into a “tower of silence.”

There had been cynics in the field of art and literature also.

Algernon Swinburne, a famous English poet of 18th century was infuriated when Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote him 'a literary leper and a mere sodomite'. The intense and vitriolic reply of Swinburne is preserved in the archives of English literature:

“ I… am not sufficiently expert in the dialect of the cesspool and dung cart to retort in their own kind on these venerable gentleman – I, whose ears and lips alike are unused to the amenities of conversation embroiled with such fragments of flowery rhetoric as may be fished up by the congenial tongues out of the sewage of Sodom……..”

To diffuse the cynicism and defeat their negativity we have to stand firmly to these bullies, showing concerns for gripers and communicating with them assertively.

We should and must protect ourselves from negativity. We can influence and bring a little bit change in them with little patience and resolve; with acts of compassions, love and kindness. A bully is a bully because he is afraid. Love is letting go for fear.

Best is to keep the cynic at arms length.