Castor oil and communication!

In the Malayalam - Tamil patois which we Kerala Iyers use, the word Avanakkennai (castor oil) is used to describe a colourless person. I wonder why as this oil has such a strong, almost pungent smell.

That brings to me some bad memories of childhood. In our homes, when we were small, castor oil was used as a purgative and we used to dread Saturday mornings. Using a specially designed spoon called a 'potti', castor oil was forcibly thrust into our innards to send us to the potty. The smell itself was enough to make one throw up. Don't know if that is the reason colourless folk are called avanakkennai -as the Iyer mind who coined this term probably felt that such people were purged of all exciting traits!

But how does castor oil connect to communication?

There are many stories in our family about the communication skills of previous generations. This one is about my father's mother, known in the family as Thrissur Ammai. Somewhere in the 1930s, she was taken to Kashi on a pilgrimage before spending many days with her son at Delhi. One day, her sons heard her having a loud conversation with the lady next door. They were intrigued because Thrissur Ammai knew only Malayalam and Tamil, whereas the neighbour knew only Hindi and Sindhi. They peeked out of the door and found the two ladies conversing animatedly in a mix of sign language and their respective mother tongues. For instance, sign language to ask how many children and to answer the question, then miming mustaches to ask how many boys and doing ditto for braiding hair to ask how many girls and so on. As long as my grandmother was in Delhi - maybe about a couple of months - both the old ladies became good friends and would have hours long conversations without knowing a word of each other's tongue. If that isn't communication, I don't know what is.

Actually, communication was in Thrissur Ammai's genes. A legendary story in the family relates to her mother's visit to Mumbai, then Bombay, about a century ago. An elderly lady from a conservative social group moving out of her comfort zone is daunting enough today. She went to be with her son then working in Bombay, for probably a family need like the birth of a child. She was transported from the spacious surroundings of a small town in Kerala to the raucous environs of matchbox-like apartments in a burgeoning metropolis. She settled down and then realised that she needed castor oil for the weekly purge of her grandchildren. She was intrepid enough to find her way to the nearest kirana store to buy it. She didn't know a word of Hindi, Marathi or Gujarati but came back with what she wanted. She asked the sheth in our argot, which obviously he didn't understand. He gathered she needed some type of oil and pointed to the various oils in stock. Finally, my great grandmother decided to unleash the one Hindi phrase she knew. She said 'chota chokra', mimed a small child, then mimed drinking, making the noise 'durrrr', pointed to her own posterior and made the appropriate noise for a loose bowel movement. Mission accomplished - she got her precious castor oil, amid laughter all around !

When I made the transition from a career of two decades in the corporate world to the academic world, it was stories like this in the family which inspired and motivated me. Considering that I survived in academia for another two decades, I probably wasn't all that bad !

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Gravity - what goes up must come down !

 A couple of decades ago, I was on cloud nine. I was in a corporate assignment which I was enjoying and where I was doing well. In fact, I had even joked to a colleague that I would like to retire from that company. Not only was I doing well, I was even expecting the next promotion which would take me to a new plane. Did this happen ? No - you guessed right.

The villain's thugs were waiting around the corner  in the form of management consultants and sandbagged my corporate dreams in the guise of a magic word - restructuring. The small company , part of a large group, where I had been working became virtually overnight a division of a larger unrelated company in the group and my dreams got grounded quite soon. Nothing unusual about this story, you would say, except that for me, it set in motion a chain of events which gave my career second wind as a teacher in a B-school. That is another story, however.

My thrust here is on the arrogance and hubris which sets in when one starts doing well. A young cricketer has a stupendous performance in a couple of matches and starts thinking like Chris Gayle that he is 'Universe Boss!'  while a film star has a super-hit and starts strutting around like a peacock, a politician wins a few elections for his party and thinks the electorate will tolerate any of his shenanigans or the CEO of a successful company feels he or she is totally indispensable before reality sets in. How often have we seen all of this happen? But people think they are immune and then get surprised when events overtake them. Sometimes it is almost hurtful to see the impact of these events.

There was this Managing Director of a company I worked in for instance who was a supremely confident, almost brash person, always immaculately suited and booted and who needed a minimum of two lackeys around him - one to carry his papers and one to hold his jacket when he got down to his shirtsleeves to gee up the troops. He had to leave the organisation under a cloud and when I saw him next, after a couple of years I almost didn't notice him. I had been to the temple and saw this middle aged man outside give me a wan smile. It took me a moment to recognise this grizzled, slightly unkempt , diffident person with a three days' stubble and wearing old Hawaii chappals as that super smart MD. Surprise surprise - after the pleasantries, he suddenly announced he had something important to do and shuffled off!

I have seen this so often that when I see this arrogance growing in people I know, I almost get scared because I know I'll soon hear a big thud when that person falls . The arrogance manifests itself in many ways - a feeling that nobody else knows as much or is as capable, a patronising attitude towards others, impatience and irritation, and loud bombastic harangues. Invariably, it sets in motion the reaction of  people at the receiving end trying to bring this person down or sharpening the process of looking for and developing alternatives.

The lines between confidence and over-confidence, over-confidence and arrogance, arrogance and paranoia are very finely drawn and it doesn't take too much time to rev up from the first stage to the last. The other odd aspect about this behaviour is that it is present in people at all levels - not necessarily only in those who are atop the totem-pole.While behaving thus, people forget the force old man Isaac Newton discovered - that of gravity. What goes up doesn't stay up always. It does fall down some time!










         

Of Facebook, fekus and fake news

I belong to a generation which grew up and lived a lot of its productive life before social media started ruling our world. In fact, I was in my late fifties when I took my first step into social media (SM) by joining Facebook and Linkedin.

I do not regret this at all. For one, FB has helped me to connect with long lost cousins and uncles, friends I had in school and college, former colleagues and a large host of young folk who had the misfortune of having had part of their MBA education in my classroom. Social media has also allowed me to pursue some of my interests – I am a part of two groups devoted to Hindi film music and another which consists of fans of P G Wodehouse. It also enables me to connect regularly with a bunch of vicarious sportsmen like myself – those who hardly play any games or sports, but follow national and international sports in a variety of disciplines.

However, one subject I try my best to avoid scrupulously on SM is politics, especially Indian politics – though my resolve to do so gets tested seriously! Having been a Prof for the last two decades, I relish argument and discussion with the proviso that at the end, both parties should remain friends and expand their knowledge. Unfortunately, when strong feelings enter a discussion, accompanied by heat and sound, light and reason make a hurried exit.

By temperament and upbringing, I abhor abuse and violence, even of the verbal variety. SM warriors, on the other hand, are ready to wound, burn and slash for almost pointless objectives. A case in point: a young friend of mine ‘A’ recently made an impassioned FB post on the bestial Kathua gang-rape and murder. Another young friend ‘B’ made an equally impassioned comment, with a different perspective with the use of certain ‘facts’. I had read an article which claimed these ‘facts’ were doctored and mildly introduced this into the discussion and exited the battleground. Battleground indeed because another person unknown to me, ‘C’ joined issue with ‘B’ and the heated, often impolite debate still continues for three days! I have no stomach for such fights at this phase of life. Call me a coward if you want to, but I have severed connections earlier with at least fifty abusive elements at both ends of the political spectrum. It is much worse when specimens of my vintage get into the fray, because they add as seasoning, probable disappointments and bile of many decades of wasted lives!

 The abuse is not only meant for each other – it extends to the leaders of the opposing camp too. I personally hold that leaders should not be referred to as ‘fekus’, ‘pappus’ or chaiwallahs’ on SM, not only in the interests of polite discourse, but also to maintain respect for institutions and offices.  I am not even touching the nadir to which comments on newspaper or news channel websites descend, because the vileness and the vitriol I find there dumbfounds me.

A real casualty of social media is the need for truth and veracity. Photoshopping, distorted perspectives and palpably false news being purveyed with a view to make these viral for limited and vested ends is the latest cottage industry, rapidly burgeoning into a major communication strategy.

So what do we do with this animal called Social Media? Do we ignore it, let it grow untrammeled or regulate it. If the last option is chosen, who does it? These questions, at least at the present juncture, do not have clear-cut answers. The elephant is in the room, but we are still not sure whether to hope it goes away, whether to ride it and see where it goes or whether to use an ’ankush’ on it !

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