Communications - language and brevity therein.

Communication has been on my attention radar since a while now. I have begun to understand that conservation education-awareness that I am currently immersed with, hinges as much on communication as it does on ‘love and empathy for nature’. The recent workshop we at Samrakshan had on ‘Organizational Development’ strengthened my belief as also raised my curiosity on significance of communication in the varied roles I play in life.

In an interesting conversation I recently had with a friend, based on her experience at a workshop she had then recently been a part of, she stated awareness of language and brevity in presenting as being issues that we lack in and which make our communications less effective. At the onset I fully agreed with both being hindrances towards communications; lack of awareness of language and near absence of brevity. Pondering over later on the reasons for these and my mind went on a small hike.

For most of us English, at best, is a second language. More so in the India that exists beyond the metro cities that we have. Can we do justice to a subject and its associated nuances while dealing in a language we are not good at? Universities do prescribe English as tool for disseminating various subjects but we put in a far greater time with family members, with friends, in various modes of transport, at tea and pan stalls where I understand even if English does occur its extent is fairly restricted. But most of our trainings, workshops, meetings and writing (including this post!) are in English. Or, is it that we do not know the language since we do not read or not read enough. This reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a very senior personality. Amidst a discussion on the importance of Conservation Education he said the biggest threat we in India faced was not loss of natural values but an entire generation, which we had spawned, that was averse to reading! Gurcharan Das’ article in Times of India talks of absence, in India, of not only public reading rooms and libraries but also that of a culture ~ reading culture.

Many incidents come to fore where I wished the ‘other party’ would write less and also those where the ‘other party’ went on talking so long that I lost connect with the talk. I am pretty sure I inflict myself similarly at times on friends and acquaintances! Being brief too is something I can go long on! I have often wondered why many of us espouse lengthy communications and feel something amiss or rude when we are a party to short communication? Is it a way of showing power or dominance for us when we go on long or repeat ourselves (lot of our politicians and teachers would fall in this category ~) or is it an idea that has been indoctrinated into us or is it the low levels of awareness and confidence levels that make us go long! During times of academic examinations the lengthiest answers I wrote to were to questions that I was least familiar with!

Looking at the issue from the lens of our efforts in Saiha while language merits a larger and critical deliberation brevity too deserves a second look. We have had this tendency many a times to repeat ourselves and at others to go on for very long. We need to be dynamic, in our communications, to the responses generated from the ‘body language’ of our participants. Towards this the interest levels of the participants in the topic being discussed, the connect our mode of communication has established with participants and the attention span of the participants all will have a role. We are surely not getting through any conservation messages through to a participant who falls asleep during what is supposed to be an interactive session!

Marinha i shall be brief in thanking you too for making me ponder !