Maturity, it isn't just age...

Picture this. You are in a meeting with your own colleagues and two of the team members from the vendor team to discuss a critical showstopper for a go live. The topic was discussed multiple times in the recent past with no solution sighted in the horizon.

The situation rapidly escalates with discussions spiralling. Temperature levels in the meeting room rises with sparks of arguments flying high. After a lot of deliberations, an agreement on the way forward is reached.

A day later, when you catch up internally, you have a major realisation. While one of the two team members from the vendor side, who was equally senior, was boiling and reacting, the other was handling the situation in a calm and composed manner, topped with a subtle smile. Though his conversations were cut through many times, he remained patient. He even changed his strategy mid-way through to buy time by promising to stop talking exactly after ten seconds. De-escalation was definitely his cup of tea.

Colleagues like these serve as a constant reminder that professional maturity is not just about the age. It is a skill that we need to gain and grow over a period of time in our career.

Some get it, others remain a pain, you know where...

 

Power of One!

I was having a discussion with George, a colleague who was quite active with the chapter of Toast Masters Club in our company. He was telling me how good it was to be a part of the club and how it helped him as well as many others. The Art of Public Speaking is definitely an essential skill which I truly believe will help all of us and will always be associated to good leadership. Toast Masters Club I believe is a good medium to achieve this.

While the discussions were on I couldn’t help but be reminded of an incident that happened many years back. My memories took me to the compartment of a running train in the sweet 1990s. I vaguely recollect that as a return journey home to Changanacherry from somewhere in the North of Kerala. I would’ve never imagined at that time about a conversation I’ll have almost 25 years later about Toast Masters Club. If not for anything else, one word from the name of the Club was quite applicable at that moment in the compartment. I was indeed toasting my dad, mom and brother truly living up to the term motormouth!

Looking at the scene that happened three decades back I could really empathize with my folks. It must have been nothing less than a torture for them to keep listening to the endless rambling in the confinement of a compartment. The train kept moving, stations after stations passed, only the discourse never stopped. Poor beings, they must have felt imprisoned in a locomotive in motion with no way out but accept the destiny with the only hope of reaching the final destination which was another three hours away.

Dad was one in the family who was known for finding the way out even in the adverse of situations. He did find one in this case as well! He tried all possible ways of tempting me to keep my mouth shut. Offers of many kinds poured in including an additional plate of the deliciously cold Vada that you only get in Indian Railway. Nothing seemed to have worked.

He was losing out on all possible options to entice a 9 year old with an offer that he couldn’t refuse. But finally he did come up with one which apparently worked like magic. History was written in gold that the final deal for which I succumbed made me completely seal my mouth all the way from Thrissur to Changanacherry, a formidable distance of 160 Kilometres which took more than three hours! I heard that part of the train experienced Nirvana during those precious moments.

The offer ladies and gentlemen was a fresh currency note of One Indian Rupee!

The Second Chance

‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ is a recent Malayalam movie that got released starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Biju Menon. Soon after the movie got released, a controversy started doing rounds about one of the scenes in the movie. This is the scene where Koshi, the character played by Prithviraj slaps his wife.

Later when a journalist questioned Prithvi on him going back on an earlier promise he made, of never acting in scenes that are outrageous to a woman, he made a very interesting remark. He mentioned that this was the only way to factually represent a problem that exists in our society today even when the parties involved are highly educated. What was even more fascinating was the statement that followed. He said ‘Kannamma’ the character who is the wife of ‘Ayyappan’ hailing from a lesser educated background would’ve walked out of the marriage if it ever happened to her.

You might have guessed where I’m heading to, with this narration. If the guess is that I’ll be touching upon the importance of giving due respect to the women, then guess again! It isn’t that the topic is less important. On the contrary it is one of the most critical topics to be discussed in any forum that talks about relationships. But enough and more has been said about it. Hence I want to focus on the possibility of a second chance each one is capable of giving the other in a relationship.

How often have you ended up in a situation where you misbehaved with your partner to an extent that you made him or her feel that it is not worth living with you anymore? The affected party in such situations have two options ahead. The easier option will be to decide that your partner is not worth to share your life with even for another day. Quite a few take this decision and find the ‘easy way out’ of the relationship. But I really want to talk about the others who take up the more challenging option and lead themselves as well as their partner to a more meaningful life in future.

Option two is where you give a second chance to the one who inflicted pain in you. Definitions can be very relative when it comes to severity of mistakes committed to you by your partner. A slap on a face could be an unpardonable offence for someone whereas for others it is pardonable once if they see hope at the end of the tunnel.

Most of the couples in their early years of relationship are truly in a state of ignorance about each other. You will really know someone only when you start sharing the same roof. This state of ignorance, especially during the initial days, leads to behaviours that may easily be misunderstood as non-compatibility by both parties. This is where a second chance stands crucial. It is absolutely essential to realize that these initial misunderstandings, if amicably resolved on time, will lead to something very beautiful.

Still doubtful? Ask this question to any of your loved ones who had been married for a few years. During the initial years of marriage were there incidents that made them believe that they had to call it quits? Ask them if they could even imagine taking the first option and if so what would’ve happened? I am pretty sure the answer will be all the beautiful moments they experienced together as a couple till date happened only because either of them gave a second chance to the other.

Giving a second chance to your partner isn’t a bad thing but it is equally important that the recipient learns to respect this decision. It requires mutual effort to ensure that the second chance is utilized in its right spirit and more importantly understand that there isn’t a third chance!

May you have the grace to provide a second chance to a loved one, if required and the ability to accept the fact that you are now given an opportunity to make things better! 

A WhatsApp Horror Story!

Alex was in a naughty mood when he saw a few messages in his family WhatsApp group. He has a cousin brother who keeps posting messages that lean heavily towards sarcasm directed at wives. Alex generally refrains from commenting on them. As a matter of fact he is a staunch advocate for gender equality especially in families. Nisha, his wife, was quite proud of her husband for this nature of his.

For some weird reason that day was to be different. God only knows what made him post a comment on one such messages which was definitely uncalled for. He soon got a shocker when the usually silent women members of his family started reacting one after the other! There was an avalanche of messages. One of the cousins even left the group! That was a favourite cousin sister of Nisha.

His shock soon gave way to horror when he saw a notification on the WhatsApp group. It said, “Nisha is typing...” and then all of a sudden it appeared on the screen:

This message was deleted

A ghostly silence followed…

Good Enough? Not Enough!

It has been a year and a half since our last vacation. Reasons were multiple, for not able to travel somewhere since our last trip. What mattered most was that we finally decided where to go and started planning for the trip. Since the trip was planned for a couple of weeks, two hands were not enough for the preparation. Hence my wife and I both started getting things arranged such as hotel bookings, train bookings, sight-seeing tours etc.   

As we started with the activities related to the trip, we noticed an interesting phenomenon. Most of the times when I come up with an option which I thought was the best after an ‘extensive’ research, was not found good enough by my sweetheart. Many a times I returned the favour too. Our differences in opinion at times reached a pinnacle that we almost dropped the vacation plan!

Couple of weeks into the planning we now realize that those indifference got us much better deals and a great value for our hard earned money. We were fighting for a just cause and not just for a cause!

A trip planning is just one such example were you’ll observe this behaviour in the life of many couples. When it comes to spending money on something that is required for the family, there is a possibility for us to think that what we searched and found the best-in-the-world offer whereas if we extend our search a bit more, we could possibly get an even better deal. For the majority of us who are constrained with a limited set of financial resources, it is important that we develop a mind-set that gives real value for our money.

The indifference between the couples do not just bring the best, out of the deals for the family. Believe it or not, it also leads to couples discovering each other more. The very reason why one does not agree with the other is because of the fact that they’ve not really understood each other to the extent of knowing what their better half needs. Hence such indifference should not be perceived as a negative experience, instead is a step that takes the family forward together. Imagine the surprise and the happiness thereof when you discover a whole new nature hidden deep inside your partner!

While it is really helpful to discover each other more as a couple, it is equally important not to overdo this. You should ideally know where the limit is and draw the line accordingly. It is a useful common sense to know that a rubber band while can be stretched, will snap at some point. Many times this common sense is what will help you know the extent of discovery you should try to make. Just like a rubber band, you as a couple should learn to stretch each other without affecting the elasticity of your relationship.

The philosophy of ‘Good Enough? Not Enough!’ should really be applied with a genuine interest between the partners with the sole objective of bringing good for the family. There is a very high possibility for egos to work out during this conflict. It is equally important to apply the principle that for a relationship to really become beautiful you should keep an open mind to listen to the other side of the story. Learn to accept the fact that, what you thought as best for the family may not always be the case. This simple act of acceptance alone will take you a long way into the future as a family whose marriage was indeed made in heaven!

May you be fortunate enough to be blessed with the power of acceptance which probably is one of the most pivotal and beneficial skills to attain in a married life.

God bless!

Political Signs

The recent Assembly election in the state of Karnataka was labelled as a major political drama. When election result got announced, the party that is in power in the Parliament became the single largest party though they still didn’t have majority in the Assembly. Two of the next biggest parties formed a coalition post-election and claimed the right to form the government since, together, they have majority in the Assembly.

The plot thickened with Governor of the state applying his discretionary power and invited the ruling party to form the government giving fifteen days to prove majority. A Chief Minister was sworn in as well on the same day tasked with the challenge of proving majority. The opposition parties filed a case at the Supreme Court and got the duration offered by the Governor reduced to four days. The climax of the drama unfolded with the one-day-wonder Chief Minister resigning after failing to prove majority in the Assembly for his party! As I write this, the erstwhile opposition was invited by Governor to form the government and it is now their turn to prove majority in the next four days.

So what is the moral of the story and what has a family with a husband and wife got to learn from this political debacle? The most important take away from the whole story is that you should know when to accept your defeat and exit gracefully. Else you’ll make yourself go through twists and turns finally forcing you, against your own will, to accept a humiliating end.

I’m pretty sure that many of us relate quite well to the parties mentioned in the story above. We may have situations in life where we know that we’ve lost the battle, yet our ego wouldn’t allow us to accept the defeat. Instead we’ll cling on to the invisible ray of hope looking ahead to the future which ironically has got dooms-day written all over it.

Even when we are fully aware not to push our luck any further, we continue to deploy all possible means with a vicious intention of achieving the impossible at any cost. This will even include reaching out to someone to vouch for us, all the while knowing that it is completely unethical to do so.

What we purposefully do is to turn a blind eye on the reality itself. We blatantly ignore fact that our attempt to cover up our mistakes is seen and understood by the significant other in our life. The truth is played right in front of their eyes just like in a movie theatre and there is no merit in trying to close your eyes and assume that others are equally blind!

The most right thing to do is to accept your mistake or defeat at the earliest. It isn’t easy, but being open to your dear ones about your downfalls will help you to recover from the losses faster than you think. What we need to keep in our mind is that we are not fighting an election battle here. The one from whom you are trying to keep a secret is not your political rival. He or she is your partner for life. A coalition that needs to be secured with the divine thread of love and trust. Doubt has no place here.

An equally important learning from our story is that, during situations like these, it is important you sort these out among yourselves than involving an external influencer. These most often backfire as you saw in the story.

It may seem quite strange that India being the largest democracy, we find our political parties playing all sorts of games that eventually turns out to be digging the grave for this great democratic nation. At least what we could make use of is such lessons these politicians teach us without they even being aware of it. More importantly apply them in our daily lives to ensure that we learn to live our life to the fullest.

May the good God bless you with the foresight to know when to stop and accept a defeat so as to recuperate from your loss and rise from the ashes as the legendary Phoenix bird! 

For a change, may the signs of politics be a leading light for better life!

Flashback Funda

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Apr 2018

The scene reminded you of day one of battle of Kurukshetra. The royal family was at war. The only difference compared to Kurukshetra is that, the opponents are the king and the queen themselves. Both are ready with their army fully equipped with weapons. Infantry, cavalry and artillery are all summoned. Even the mightiest of the weapons including ‘Brahmastra’ will be available to be deployed if required. Both the king and the queen are fuming with rage. A mighty war is about to begin!

All of a sudden comes a sage cutting right through the battalions that are all set to fire their weapons at each other. He is carrying a huge canvas on which he projects one after the other, every single moment of happiness the king and queen spent together. Right from the days before they became one, through their courtship, into their lovely marriage and their beautiful children, all unravels in front of their eyes.

The fuming faces slowly reains the lost emotion of love. With every passing image, the anger that was deep down got pushed aside by the soft and gentle feelings. By the time the projection ended the king and the queen were looking at each other in their eyes. They reached out and hugged each other not realizing that their army of millions have been replaced with a beautiful bed of red roses!

Now, bring the above scene to your homes. Replace the king and the queen with you and your sweetheart. An argument or two led the both of you to face each other to be battle ready. Your arsenal is prepared automatically with all the reasoning in the world to sling mud at each other. You even kept the secret Brahmastra ready, the one complaint that you’ve been hiding deep down in your mind which you never bothered to open up and speak with your partner.

So who is the sage that comes in between? That’s none other than your emotional intelligence that you need to apply in such a situation. Take a step back and probably with some efforts try to bring into your mind all those beautiful moments that you spent with your loved one till date. One after the other let your mind be in a slideshow mode that projects all the awesome memories you cherish.

Voila! You’ll be surprised to know that you no longer are in a mood to fight. What is even better is that you have found a way to work around the argument that led to the bitter mood earlier. This is nothing but the ‘flashback funda’!

We live in a world filled with a lot negative emotions. It is quite natural that we could get influenced by many of them in our daily lives. Knowingly or otherwise these come up between you and your sweetheart on a daily basis. Many a times these lead to arguments and eventually an exchange of heated words or a complete silence for a duration that’s not known.

When we are mentally ‘at a state of war’ it is quite difficult to think of alternate options to bring back the peace in our lives. That’s exactly why we need to put our minds through an exercise that is guaranteed to work wonders. Your momentary anger could be nothing compared to the magnitude of happiness you experienced till date in your life. It is important not to let that anger spoil the value of happiness you invested in your relationship.

Who doesn’t like to look at an album filled with wonderful images from the past? These are moments that we preserved for future. These are the slices of life that we want to go back and live again. That’s exactly what flashback funda proposes to you. When you are at a point where you think life is not fair, bring back your memories and remind yourself, this is just a passing phase. Life had been fair to you indeed and that exactly is the reason you enjoy what you have now.

May you have the wisdom to press the pause button on an imminent ‘war’ and the prudence to bring back to your minds the moments of celebration from the past. This is guaranteed to sustain the peace in our families and allow us to enjoy our life the way it should be.

God bless!

Multi-million lottery!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Nov 2017

“Getting a good partner is like winning a lottery. Ensure that you pray really hard to win such a lottery”. I remember my mom advising me long back about the importance of prayer to win the greatest lottery in life! Looking back after being married for almost 8 years I totally agree with my mom. I would like to make a significant addition to her statement though. It is not just enough to win the lottery but is equally important that you win it every day of your life and keep praying for this to happen.

There is a major difference between someone who wins a regular lottery as against a person who wins the ‘matrimonial lottery’. The first one becomes rich overnight whereas the next one will become rich over a period of time, only if he or she works on it. If you choose not to work on your matrimonial lottery you might end up in the same boat as the guy who won a multi-million lottery one day but lost the ticket the next day!

Here are some of the tips that may help you win the lottery in married life. As the case always is, there is no concept of ‘one-size-fit-for-all’ in marriages. Hence you need to find what works out well for you and design your winning strategy accordingly.

Listening Vs Hearing: Listen to your spouse and you are an instant lottery winner! Ensure that you focus your full attention when your dear ones speak to you. If you are doing something really critical do inform them about it but more importantly tell them what time will you be able to have the conversation they wanted to have and remember to have it. Listening is an active task whereas hearing is merely passive.

Honesty: This is one skill that is important in all walks of life, more so in marriage. The moment you say ‘I do’ you are promising each other to share your life in all its honesty. Think about this. If you are all alone in a room and facing the mirror, will you ever be able to tell a lie to your reflection that you see on the mirror? Let us remind ourselves that our spouse is our reflection in a married life. Hence for you to look good in the mirror ensure that you are honest to yourself and your spouse. Who knows, you may even stand a chance to double the prize money of your lottery with this!

Teamwork: There is hardly a substitute for this, being a husband and wife. The most beautiful families are where the partners work as a team. There is enough and more to do in a family on a regular basis. Short, mid and long term plans keep driving the life forward. The only way you could ensure happiness of achieving these goals are by holding the hands together and helping each other. The moment you decide to do things your own way, you risk the possibility of losing the lottery ticket.

Prayer Power: This is the closest we’ll get to experience the supernatural power in our family that drives the whole universe. These are the days when each one of us are quite busy in our own worlds carrying out significant tasks, at least that’s what we think ourselves. The time spent together for prayer is when you bring a synergy in everyone. Nothing short of miracles will happen in our lives the moment we decide to spent time together to pray. This by itself, needless to say, is winning a lottery!

Love: A simple four letter word. We can’t possibly imagine the power that this word holds within. It is an all-encompassing feeling that can be stated as the glue that connects everyone in the family. Learn and remind ourselves to apply this feeling in everything we do daily. Believe it or not, this is something we forget accidently or conveniently a few years into married life. This is even more significant with your family getting bigger with kids taking up a considerable part of your time.

What I’ve listed above are just a few sample tips. Give yourselves some time to think about these. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to come up with hundreds more like these which will enable you to win that multi-million lottery every other day. Keep in your mind that this is one lottery that brings you luck only if you work for it.

May the good God bless you to figure out the ways to win the matrimonial lottery and more importantly to keep winning every other day in your life! 

So near, yet so far

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Sep 2017

I still remember the letter box on our gate back home, as one of the most cherished sights during my school days. The walk to the box to find if there was a letter in it was always been filled with mixed emotions. It was a heart wrenching feeling to see an empty letter box. On the other hand, the feeling was unexplainable when the box was not empty and the happiness multiplied if there were letters from dear ones.

Many of the letters may have been posted weeks before with updates about events that happened even months back. All these may probably sound strange today to a new generation of kids who may find it difficult to relate to the depth of emotions attached to a piece of paper found or missing in a metal box filled with details of something that happened sometime in the past!

Years went by and we now have technology that enables us to know and see events as and when they unfold. Anything less than a live update is considered stale news these days. News channels and social media thrive on ‘breaking news’ or latest updates. A swipe to refresh the updates on an app is all what is required to see the most recent post. It is quite interesting to observe that the emotions related to seeing or not seeing a letter in a letter box can be related to an update found or missing on a social media app.

These apps today allow you to reach out to your dear ones as you wish and no news will have to wait for days or months to be shared with people whom you care. Any event can now be broadcasted live using these apps. If not a live streaming, we at least sent quick updates in the form of pictures or videos as soon as it happens. An update screams itself on our phones in the form of an alert which when selected unveils the latest news from the sender.

For people like me, who have seen the best of both worlds, old and new, somehow get this feeling at times that an update I’ve received as an ‘inland letter’ or an ‘airmail’ carried more love and warmth than the updates through the present day social media. Even when the former gave me an update about something that happened in a dear one’s life sometime in the distant past I distinctly remember the genuine love and warmth I experienced reading that as against the most recent update through one of the modern day apps.

Though it is practically not easy to replicate that beautiful experience from the past, my wife and I decided to do something similar this time during the summer vacation. Fortunately we got a few days extra to plan and execute the idea as well. We decided to take some time from our vacation days and visit our dear ones at their homes and spend some quality time with them. It will be an understatement if I say, the feeling of love we experienced was nothing compared to the hundreds of messages exchanged over WhatsApp or Facebook with the same people!

It was a reiteration that human beings are designed as social animals. For us, meeting and spending time with people gives us the much needed motivation to take our life forward. There are quite a few things we learn by interacting with similar social beings around us. I strongly believe that all these and many more may not be achievable through the modern day apps though we have given them a pet name ‘social media’!

If you’ve been one like me where you think social media indeed is helping you being in touch, try meeting these people in real life. Spend a few minutes with them. You’ll be surprised to see the difference these interactions bring in your life as well as theirs! These are the good things our previous generation tried teaching us but have slowly gone into the oblivion as we’re living in those times when people are digitally so near yet emotionally so far apart!

May you realize this fact sooner than later and may you be able to plan your next visit to your dear ones at the earliest to experience the bliss of being social in its true sense.

God bless!

When God answers…

Raphael was seated at the chair kept for him at the dining table next to God Himself. It was breakfast time though that was not what he was there for. He had a small notepad with him in which he is expected to quickly note down what gets dictated from the Almighty.

The first set of requests taken was from Alice. God started granting one by one. In between He asked Mother Mary to pass on the bottle of jam. While applying the jam on to a slice of bread, He continued to grant a few other wishes as well for Alice. But a couple of them fell through when He was reaching out for the jam bottle. Alice had asked for these during her usual prayer time, but she took a quick break in between to check if there was enough jam left for the next day morning breakfast.

Paul's requests turned out to be next. This was a big one with requests for promotions, job change and what not. God was almost half way through His breakfast by then. He started granting Paul's wishes one after the other. It came to the promotion bit and that's when Gabriel walked in with a message that needed His attention. By the time He was done with the interrupting message, Paul's request for promotion was lost somewhere. Interestingly Paul while asking God for these had got a call in between which he answered before continuing with rest of the prayers.

Donna, Peter, Sylvia and Robert; each one of them had their own set of requests that got delivered to the Almighty. Most of them got answered. A few got misplaced in between. Those were the exact ones that were requested to God while each one of them was busy doing something else in between the prayers.

Focus, when you talk to Him. He listens, always.  

Irritometer!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Dec 2014

I’m pretty sure you must have heard or used any of the different types of meters you see around in your life, Thermometer, Speedometer etc. All these are meant to do some calculation and provide you with a result. Ever heard of a thing called Irritometer? This is something which you wouldn’t have seen, but is definitely working within you, but ironically you do not realize it.

Picture this. You are having a conversation with someone you love and care about. The ultimate aim of the conversation is to take a decision on an important topic which affects you both. Thoughts get exchanged; pros and cons get discussed; at times with differences cropping up here and there. The air gets tensed when the differences do not seem to get resolved. If you let the conversation continue in the same pace it’ll soon lead to heated exchanges between the two. This obviously will result in unintentional words spoken by either or both. These could probably hurt the ego and might lead to bigger issues and perhaps fights as well. Rest is history.

Now let us rewind a bit. Go back to the point where you start seeing the differences crop up in your conversation. You’ll begin to get a feeling of the air getting tensed. That’s the exact moment when the Irritometer in you gets kick started. You can sense the needle of the meter slowly coming to life. The Irritometer starts to calculate the level of irritation which results from a tensed conversation which touches upon the borders of ego clash.

Just like most of the meters, you could visualize the Irritometer indicating a low level of irritation initially, slowly moving towards a medium level and shoots up to a high level when it is guaranteed that all hell will break loose. It is absolutely important for you to know when this meter kick starts its operation so that you are aware of a potential danger ahead if the situation is not brought under control.

It doesn’t take much of an effort to listen to the Irritometer in you. It is a naturally given gift to all of us to realize when you start getting irritated. Many a times you will also know when a dear one gets irritated as well. The most prudent thing to do at that moment is to try not to aggravate the situation. There are people who realize this moment of irritation but do nothing to make things better. They just add fuel to the fire by letting the Irritometer switch to the next level.

We need to realize that it is part of a wonderful plan by our Creator that we all are designed with this amazing spiritual instrument, Irritometer. The instrument that allows you to sense the mood changes of your loved ones and lets you take the most logical action so as not to make matters worse. But the Creator has left the use of the tool and the follow-up actions to our discretion. It is one of the biggest responsibilities we need to undertake to ensure that we listen to the call of this meter and act accordingly.

Ensure that you keep an open mind during a conversation, listen to the Irritometer and identify the level at which the meter is on. Take the necessary course of action to ensure that the egos are not hurt by continuing with the factors that irritate you further. The actions that you could take may vary based on the level of relationship you share with your loved ones. For some, it could be a change of topic, for others it could be a simple hug or even a query to the other person asking if you are making them uncomfortable. These and many more can be devised to switch off the Irritometer so that your conversations are back on a smooth track.

We all are gifted with this wonderful skill of knowing what makes your loved ones irritated. May your Irritometers be in perfect working condition and be blessed with the providence of taking the right course of action when the meter kicks in! God bless you!

Secrets of Communication

It was day one of our second year graduation class of Commerce. The professor who was assigned to take the subject Business Law introduced himself as Jacob Thomas with the suffix Jr. There obviously was a senior professor with the same name. Soon after, he started writing on the board and what I saw was the last thing I expected. A man in his late forties teaching a relatively dry subject wrote on the board in such a beautiful manner that I could see an art form unveiling itself! His handwriting was not just impeccable but extremely attractive that after he left the class, none of us even felt like wiping the board.

 

Days passed by and we got further acquainted with the professor and his communication skills. His excellence did not stop with the calligraphy-class of writing but he proved to be truly awesome with his verbal communication as well. Hailing from a small town in the state of Kerala, down south in India, where we hardly had to use English in our daily lives, a sight such as the discourse by our professor was worth attending the class. Not sure if that was the reason for an almost complete attendance during his sessions.

We were fascinated by his ability to speak in fluent English using such words that we had to refer to a dictionary to understand the meaning of some of them at the end of each class. It was even more surprising to hear him say one day that he did his schooling in Malayalam, the vernacular language of our state. For a moment I genuinely wondered about the irony of getting an English medium education and not even capable of communicating even remotely, like this man, who had none of these amenities. A few of us got really interested to know how he managed to pick up this skill and requested him to share his secrets of communication.

He was a soft spoken man with a delightful smile to his credit. He was indeed happy to receive such a request from us and smiling throughout, shared the recipe of his success. These were the pearls of wisdom he shared with us that day which I quite distinctly remember applying in my life, which I honestly believe helped me improve my communication skills.

·         Read an English Newspaper – Helps you develop your vocabulary. Please be careful about the choice you make since there are ones that are published with the sole intention of increasing circulation and not giving due importance to the language. But there are others which genuinely communicate using exemplary language.

·         Listen to English news in radio/TV – During his days there was no television and hence the radio news from BBC was his only source of good English. These days we’ve plenty of options in radio/TV. Again beware of your choice.

·         Make a friend out of your mirror – This is one of the most effective ways to improve your communication. Talk to your mirror just like the way you speak to a friend. Make this a habit and you’ll see how your ‘friend’ helps you better your communication.

·         Read a lot – A habit, the worth of which is unimaginable! Develop this hobby. You do not have to focus on a particular topic initially. Start with something that interests you and slowly widen your horizon. You may stumble upon words, about which you are totally clueless. Have a dictionary handy. These days the options are quite simple with smart phones and apps which provide good dictionary services.

·         Write – This is an extremely effective way to improve your language. Start with simple topics. Develop a hobby of diary writing which can be very rewarding. Create a blog. Write about happenings in your life which you could share with the public. Take a shot at writing competitions. You won’t even believe how your communication skills improve over a period of time with this awesome method.

Nothing should stop you from improving yourself. Communication in any form, spoken, written, non-verbal, whichever may it be always has room for improvement. Never stop learning and that’s one secret we need to remind ourselves time and again!

The Push!

Year 2001, first year in the new millennium and I was happily walking towards the terrace of my college hostel in Coimbatore along with a bunch of my friends. We were to attend the flag hoisting ceremony to mark the 54^th year of Mountbatten handing over the baton of power to Nehru.
 

The college principal being the ex-officio warden of our hostel was the one to hoist the flag. The ceremony was done with due reverence in the presence of hundreds of hostel inmates. The hostel building which reminded me of the cellular jail in Andaman, though not exactly in terms of the structure, was capable of accommodating more than 400 students. A learned discourse followed in perfect Tamil when the principal of course highlighted the struggle our forefathers had gone through to get us this freedom which we now enjoy free of cost.

Being my first year in Tamil Nadu and not that proficient in Tamil yet, I experienced the same struggle my forefathers did to perhaps understand the emotional words of wisdom that came out from the veteran principal. Nevertheless since patriotism does not need a language to describe I could still manage to figure out the critical aspects of his speech.

It was customary for someone from the hostel to give a return address after the principal finishes his speech. I was standing right in front of the crowd who had gathered in a circle around the flag pole. I could see a whole bunch of seniors and super seniors standing right behind me and was expecting any one of them to start with their return address.

Those were the days when you were expected to be quite respectful towards your seniors lest invite their wrath which will prove to be pretty difficult to survive in the hostel later. Hence seniors used to be in the limelight for all possible functions and juniors will await a day when their turn will come for taking the centre stage. Such thoughts went through my mind and were probably even thinking of a day when I’ll step forward to give a wonderful speech filled with patriotism uplifting the spirit of the nation and reminding everyone to be thankful to our previous generations for the freedom we enjoy today!

What happened next was not even in my wildest of the dreams! All I remember was feeling a very powerful hand right on my back which pushed me to the centre of the circle where the principal was eagerly awaiting for someone to come forward to give the return address. All these happened in a flash that it took a few seconds for me regain my composure. I could suddenly feel 400 pairs of eyes directly staring at me as if an animal of prey is about to pounce on its victim! All my words that formed the soul stirring speech that was part of my day dream a moment ago seem to have gone into an eternal hiding. I could not even utter a single syllable; forget about natural flowing sentences which have to be contextual as well.

Guess times like these generate a very specific hormone in human body which initially creates an excessive amount of fear which either turns you into a zombie-like mental state or wakes up the Phoenix within you which arises from the ashes of the fear that is burned! Goddess of fortune was with me on that day and out came the very first extempore I delivered in my life till then.

The Phoenix continues its flight till date and I’m happy for that hand-of-God that pushed me to the unknown territories which I explored quite heavily afterwards...

Disliking Like!

I remember Peter, a friend of mine ridiculing me big time when I finally joined Facebook after quite a long resistance to join the bandwagon. I’d been blindly loyal to Orkut and was totally not ready to accept the fact that the world was migrating to FB! Nevertheless, it had to happen and I was pretty happy when it did.

Facebook turned out to be much better in terms of usability and features and not long after I moved to FB I had to relocate physically to Middle East where Orkut anyways was banned. Status updates, photo uploads and a bunch of activities followed. Among all these there is one specific feature I find totally disturbing! The ‘Like’ feature of FB.

I’ve to admit I had been a user of this feature to express my interest for some of the pictures or videos posted by friends or otherwise. I’ve been receiving a few ‘likes’ as well for the photos or status messages I post once a while. I do remember a few months back when I first told my sweetheart I wish there was an option to disable the ‘like’ feature in FB. It was beginning to annoy me since every time I upload a picture or post a message there was a flurry of activity in my account. 9/10 of these will be a ‘like’ by someone among my contacts.

The futility of this activity is what makes me think what exactly is the point? I really wonder if the person who ‘likes’ something really mean it. If they do, why not spent an extra few seconds and say that instead of being a lethargic victim to the technology marathon?! It seems to me more like a routine job being done rather than expressing an earnest opinion.

There have also been instances when the pop ups for ‘like’ gets hurled at you as if it was your mistake to post that status or upload that picture! It felt more like being fired at by a machine gun. I even wonder if these people have devised some sort of an algorithm to generate the likes as soon as an activity appears!

Maybe I’m old fashioned, maybe this is what I am, but I love it when people make an effort to tell you what they liked about something, rather than finish the job because you’ve an option there to do so by the slightest movement of the cursor!

Bottom Line: Communicate; do not constrain!