He has really rocked the boat..

Kejriwal’s relentless anticorruption campaign rocked the boat for the UPA government

Better English communication skills seldom come by accident. Either the environment gives them to you over years of your childhood or you acquire them through conscious effort and training.

For those interested in conscious effort, there is BodhiSutra Blog. Here in this post, we will discuss the phrase, “Rock the boat”.

Suppose you are travelling in a boat with a lot of people. The boat is in the middle of the river. Now, all of a sudden you get a mischievous idea and begin rocking the boat from side to side. People start tumbling over each other, kids would start screaming and everybody would become afraid that they might topple over and fall into the river.

That’s the core of rocking the boat. When something is going on smoothly, you shake it up completely and cause a lot of disturbance. It is creating disturbance where things are fine, at least apparently, and no one wants a disturbance.

Let’s take some examples:

1. There were corruption charges but the media was silent, the opposition party was silent and it appeared as if all was well when Arvind Kejriwal decided to rock the boat. Within a couple of days questions were being raised not just about the ruling party but also about the opposition silence.
2. Everyone was fed up with the behavior of the manager but no one wanted to rock the boat. One day, when it became too much for me, I went and told my boss that I couldn’t work with the manager, Mr Gupta.
3. People don’t want to rock the boat because they are afraid of being seen as the troublemaker. However, someone has to standup and raise his voice against the injustice.

Use this phrase to describe the action of disturbing the apple cart. Some more examples:

1. No one wants to rock the boat, but I have no other option. I can’t see my hard earned money stolen by crooks like this.
2.  Young people these days are much more confident and not really afraid to rock the boat.