Something to Talk About

Communication is the first thing anyone learns about. Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words and really start talking, the harder it becomes to know what to say or ask for what we really need.

Based on this statement, I will say that I was born with a knack for communicating. I thought I could easily and verbally "communicate" everything and to everyone with minimal ease. I later learnt that I was termed as the “chatter box” of the group. I have never been called "BBC world service", which I assume is worse than being called a chatterbox.

As a chatterbox, I was also termed to be a ‘good talker’ in comparison to a ‘good listener’. A good talker in my opinion never has time to judge people; in fact, they never get to learn enough about the other person to judge them in the first place. So I was possibly floozy but amiable, vacuous but gregarious, funny but not a comedian and definitely full of fun and laughter. As a young chatterbox, I always found it easy to make friends wherever I went, I was liked and accepted more effortlessly and I was always loved by elders (and no, I was never their secret agents spying on the young ones). I was like Tweety chirping away mindless talk.

And than I grew up and learnt that communication is a two-way process!

With age and maturity I have discovered that being tweety is not always appreciated. We don’t have time to say everything or anything at all (in some cases) to everyone. As I transgressed from the active form of a talker to a more passive listener I have started noticing things about people I never did before. I learnt the word empathy as compared to sympathy and discovered that it was more rewarding.

And just as suddenly, I realized I had set standards for myself on the basis of chatter levels which I never did before. Indeed, there are some things, if said unconsciously that could sound “rude”, “mean”, “unfeeling” and “nonsensical” to the recipient which we never had to worry about when we were kids. Let the world suffer, what did we care? I also developed a sixth sense about when to say what and under what situations and it all boils down to respect for others. So no longer are those days here when a mild comment such as "why do you always braid your hair, you do not look cool" has been replaced with "your braids are beautiful, but you will look better if you leave your hair loose". Besides, time has become extremely precocious and any instant to empathize or listen, leave alone talk is increasing becoming difficult.

From my point of view, I call it “growing up”. No more do I mindlessly walk into a room and scream ”helloooo” anymore unless I am ready for a few surprise stares. Meanwhile, elders are not so comfortable with silence, they prefer chittar chatter and transparency. It’s also not so easy anymore to make friends when you prefer being a stoic “listener” for the better period of time. In fact, some people are most definitely intimidated with silence and eye contact no matter what.

And than, somewhere along the way, a little obstacle to communication called the “ego” too has crept up sneaking. Ego, I have learnt, is a word that expresses a wish to be appreciated as a person with values. As I see it now, I realize that people with very less ego in them are freer with words than a person with more of that lethal stuff but that could differ from person to person. It’s just a matter of choice and balance, self confidence, skills in communication and knowledge. With experience, I have finally realized that “Communication is definitely a tool, once learnt can be quite an important aspect of our life, it can portray to others about what we are and what they mean to us and it's wholly up to us to decide what or how to communicate."

Painting a Wall

Here is a favorite psychological test that I use as an ice breaking session. I don't quite remember where I learnt it from.

Imagine you have a room where the paint has gone off in small patches on the wall. Provided you have enough money to paint the wall, which of the three things would you do immediately?

a) Wait and than paint the entire wall

b) Paint only that small portion of the wall where the paint has gone off for the meanwhile

c) Place a picture on that part of the wall where the paint has gone off.

The responses I had come across were varied but the interpretation never failed to entertain the participants. The interpretation of the answers bore reference to a person’s memory and how they remembered people, places, events and incidents. For example, a person who would paint an entire wall is a person who can completely forget a certain event, person or incident in comparison to the person who would never forget if they placed a picture on the wall.

The above test is just a game and has no claims on being authentic. But, in truth, we as mere human beings do tend to forget things or simply do not remember certain occasions unless we refresh our brain with insights. Sometimes we suffer from temporary amnesia too. People forget to be happy, sad, interested, disinterested etc, unless they continually pursue or think of the object of interest otherwise known as classical conditioning, as that of Ivan Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate when a bell was rung.

Two days back, another photograph cropped up at home and it took me several minutes to actually reach instant recollection. I was surprised that I didn't remember where the picture was taken or even the identity of the people in the picture. How could I have possibly forgotten about the day, event, place and people in the picture? I was stupified and totally amazed, especially since it was a picture taken on the day I left Bangalore and I had sworn that it will be a day that will remain a memory as long as I lived. It's just been a few years now, but not only had I blanked the entire scene out but it was difficult for me to even recognize the brief encounter with the well wishers in the photograph.

According to science, trauma is one of the reasons we intend to blank out events or people. Transient ischemic attack happens when a sudden and brief blockage of blood flow to the brain takes place. In non scientific terms, that could possibly be when in rare cases under pressure and stress I would open the door of the fridge or enter a room in a rush and wonder what I needed to do that for. I guess, when I look back to that momentous day, other than remembering that I had teared up when I was handing over my apartment keys, there was, otherwise no major trauma. But I had somehow, blanked out the entire evening prior to my departure from Bangalore without conscious effort. Did I never think about it later? Is that strange and unfeeling on my behalf, or mere indifference? I admit, life has rated high on the speedometer after I got back, but I was shaken with surprise over a mere photograph that jumped up at me and yelled silently, "remember"!

Last year, in an official training, including a Neuro Linguistic Program we were taught how to black out traumatic events in life to perform better at work if required. It was an interesting fun workshop. We were asked to close our eyes and visualize the place, event, and people in it. Than, we had to change the picture in our minds accordingly for example, if it was night, we were asked to imagine it being day thereby totally “redressing” the event or incident and saving the “new image” in our memory cells. We were paired up in groups and we all had fun trying to make each other forget events. I don’t know if it really works but the morale of the story is that one time or the other in life, we all move on, we get busy with other things and the past fades if we allow it to just somehow disappear into the distance. The only reason we hold on is because we consciously want to or we have horded pictures to remind us of "the day", "the time" and "the moment". Similarly if you always want to remember it....go ahead "Snap Away" and keep the picture in a nice album or write a journal, a letter or a tribute. If not, destroy it and chances are, unless someone refers to it, you won't remember until one fine day you pick your brain and voila!... or perhaps, you pick your brain and.....nothing! It has happened to me, it could happen to you too.

“Pain. You just have to ride it out. Hope it goes away on its own. Hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions and no easy answers. You just have to breathe deep and wait for it to subside. You just have to fight through it because you can’t outrun it. But sometimes the pain gets you when you least expect it, than it’s up to you to see the glass half full and trudge on, stronger than you ever expected yourself to be.” – Meredith, Gray Anatomy

Footprints on the Sand

Goa Dec 1997: I came across this photograph yesterday during reshuffling of things at home. The best thing about having your house painted is that things roll out from shelves you didn’t know existed. Extremely amused, I brought it to work this morning and showed it to my colleagues with a smile and said "This is how I looked like all those years ago, I weighed 38.5kg and I needed a belt to hold up those purple jeans, how many of you can bet that I cannot go back to this form again?" There were a few giggles, more comments and finally a bet placed. So, armed with motivation of winning I am actually rejoining the gym again from today, all expenses paid. Visuals really work! Who cares if I win the bet or not, at least the carousal has started spinning.

One thing you don’t know about the beautiful mud cottage in the picture: It didn't have any bathroom doors, so I will never forget how two of us were woken up in the middle of the night and we were driven out of the cottage to sit outside while the third one had to go.

One thing I want to really do: Meet up some day with Barsha and Rageshwari in the picture. I lost contact, the last I heard of them was that Barsha is probably doing her Phd in some part of the world and Rajeshwari is a doctor in some other part of the world. If anyone knows them, I will pay a handsome reunion fee.

Some things never change: I absolutely had no idea where I was headed 10yrs ago and I still don’t know now. What I do know are some of my achievements. As I tick them off I realize that I never even planned some of the nicer achievements along the way…nor did I envision the surprise accolades.

- Best youngest teacher award at the age of 19yrs with price money of Tk 5,000. I figured back than that it was probably because the kids loved me so much because I was their size. I loved them, I treated them like adults and they studied harder and scored better. Till today, I couldn’t bring myself to spending that cheque.

- Silver medal in Wado, blue belt which was a big laugh because I was kicked out once during the competition for hyperventilating.

- Youngest assist manager at Citibank, bangalore. This was a real surprise, all I had to do was work 7 days a week for more than 18hrs a day to escape boredom of returning to an empty apartment back when I lived on my own.

- Got selected amongst 2,000 candidates in an audition to participate on a program on MTV and StarPlus in 2000. I wasn’t really interested in the audition, I just wanted to see what the real Veejays and hosts looked like in person.

- Second place at an intercollegiate essay competition on the topic “Mathematics in the new Millenium”. The funniest thing is that I was forced to enter the competition because someone else called in sick. I hate Mathematics, I had flunked a few times in it and I don’t even remember what I wrote in the essay that day.

- 1st place at a dance competition. For starters, I signed in because I liked the stage and thought of doing something on it and decided to choose dancing. So I went to a custume lending store and finally found someting that fit me. It was a glittery bejeweled gown with a huge bejeweled Turban. I looked like Tipu sultan’s sister with no idea which way I was gyrating on stage. I guess my mom's advice “dress so well during a dance performance that people don’t notice what you do on stage” worked. For the record, I never attended a dance class in my life!

- Having my nephew Marfiq smile at me every time he sees me. I don’t know how that’s an achievement but he might like reading his name out on my achievement list when he grows up.

10yrs back I was always broke. I am still always broke (not literally of course) and happy. I actually want to go and say “Thank You” to that cottage owner for giving us complimentary breakfast because he figured we ran out on cash the day we left that cottage in Goa.

“The best things happen to you when you least expect it”

Women's Day, Old Friends and Rules

This women’s day was special. It was all about breaking the rules of courtesy. Instead of being with a group of people attending a musical program, my school friend Sabrina, I and Farhana ran off to having a quiet dinner instead at a Korean restaurant followed by juicy updates on our lives.

Sabrina and I go back a long way, back to the days of my long braids and round spectacles, reminiscent of pitter patter of mischief. Breaking rules is not quite that fun anymore as it used to be back in school. The most memorable moments with Sabrina would be when we went on a trip to Colombo to attend a wedding or when about we all stayed over at her place and at midnight decided to go on a rickshaw ride. Worst was when we actually tipped the rickshaw puller to allow us to peddle the rickshaw. We managed it quite well too. Now, at this place, something like having five teenage girls out on the streets at night, one peddling a rickshaw while the other four are on it, is simply not done, and 15yrs back, it was even more dangerous than it could possibly be now.

I will never forget it when we got locked out later and one of us actually tried to climb the windows to reach Sabrina’s second floor apartment and wake up the maids to let us in.

Scary!!!!!! What were we thinking of?!

Did someone ever predict that the most notorious bunch from school could possibly turn out to be the most successful? I will get to see Sabrina next year with possibly more degrees tucked in her belt and more successes career-wise. Atta way, girl!

"The thing about life and its rules is that the things you will remember best are the things you were not supposed to do but you did them anyways. " - Meredith; Grey Anatomy

Love From An Angle

Juliet was an idiot, for starters, she falls for the one guy she knows she cannot have than she blames fate for her own bad decision. Some explains that when fate comes into play, choice sometimes goes out the window. At a young age I have learnt that love, like life is about taking choices and fate has nothing to do with it. Everyone thinks it’s so romantic, Romeo and Juliet, and how sad. But, if Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison and go to sleep in a mausoleum, she deserved whatever she got. - Meredith, Grey’ Anatomy.

Here is a one way of viewing the concept of 'love" to a few people in Bangladesh. Love to some, if you had noticed carefully, might be a result of frustration, peer pressure and loneliness and have no resemblance to the real concept of unconditional love that exists within people in normal life. Even a decade ago, it was a taboo to even think of forming bonds of mild friendship resembling romance, let alone actually fall in love and have a relationship.

Recently, with the evolution of technology and global outlook, romance has gained popularity status. In the few cases, it can be seen that young children, even at playgroup or kindergarten are calling out “I love you” because they saw it on TV and think it’s cool. Some teenagers throng around, looking for someone to fulfill their different levels of loneliness by having someone to shoulder psychological depressions, family turmoil and personal troubles, not to mention assist them with assignments. Some young adults marry to benefit their family lineage and have another shoulder that would replace more loneliness piled up from emotional baggage of their teenage past, mere responsibility, pressure and stress and some people existing in the elder generation, tend to fall in love with younger people to satisfy a strange desire to feel younger.

So if Shakespeare were alive today and lived in this strange part of Bangladesh in the lives of these people; would he have written a revised format of the famous love story “Romeo and Juliet” and named it "Babul Ar Rohima Keno Kandlo", specialized just for these special cases where 'love' apparently exists? And, in the end, would Rohima have drank a bottle of poison or poisoned Babul instead?

A Real Treasure

Today my nephew Marfiq turns 1yr old at noon. Here's a happy birthday wish for him!

It's your first birthday, Marfiq, with one candle on your cake; As we all stare in wonder at each new move you make I wish great joy, happiness and success in every small step you take henceforth. You have arrived into our lives with pleasure and we look forward to seeing how you progress and grow from the cute and tiny infant you were one year ago.

Marfiq Fact File: He is accomplished: He started attending school at the age of 3 months; He is intelligent: His first favorite toy is a book; He is sensitive: He won't even look at you if he senses that you don't like him; He's first audible sound: ba ba; He's present favarite word: Dao Dao Dao; He is fated as: the first baby in the family; He is always with his: mom; His dad: Sings to him.

Build Your Own Castle

At the end of the day faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It’s like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than you dreamed. The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And it’s not so important happy ever after, just that it’s happy right now. See once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you, and once in a while people may even take your breath away.

- Meredith Grey Quotes from Grey Anatomy

Today, an HR manager and a friend took my breath away for sure while we were having lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Suddenly, she commented on how she felt I could achieve and accomplish so much more if I only tried. I regarded her abrupt compliment with interest. It was a statement, it was an encouragement and it was an observation of my worth. I opened my mouth to comment, closed it and opened it again and than gave up trying to be a fish. She meant well, but the fact is, I am quite happy and content where I am unless a wind blows me away. So I smiled, said thank you and drank my soup.

The thing is, we all have a blueprint of the castle we all eventually want to build, somewhere along the story of building it, if changes are required to form a better looking castle than ideas are always welcome. But if we ever give our blueprint to another person not related to us, chances are, our castle will look way different than what we initially wanted it to be. It might look better, or it might look worse, but the bottom line is, it will not look or feel completely like our castle.

So, I believe we should have faith in ourselves, to build a castle or a number of castles, because no matter what it might look like in the end, it’s ours and we are the king or queen who owns it and there is no happiness that can surpass that feeling. So build your castles, albeit slowly but don’t give your blueprint away.

It’s Called Teamwork

Teamwork is very necessary for a good and successful work force. Last Wednesday, 28th of Feb, teamwork flashed through the veins of my colleagues at my company.

They all rescued a six pound chocolate Tia Maria cake for my colleague, Trisha's farewell party, which toppled and fell from the table and broke into half, with one half landing atop the other.

Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong, it will”

The rescue operation lasted for more than half an hour where more than a dozen colleagues “forked” the destitute cake into an upright position with just a little destruction evident on its upturned surface in the final result. The cream was almost intact after the jubilant and successful rescue operation team had finished their work with such dexterity.

While I held on to a fork, I realized that even a soft cake if handled with skill, diligence and tender care can survive a massive fall.

Now, the root to the rescue was not the cake itself but the person it was meant for. Trisha had indeed created quite an impact with her amiable nature, shining face and ever beaming smile in the six months she was with us. I wonder how many of us can actually do that? I silently applauded her for making a choice of persuing a higher education over a good job, no matter how comfortable and attached to it she had become in the short while she was here, or how much we all loved her to be with us. We will surely miss her but we wish her joy and good luck.

On the flip side, here is food for thought: "LOVE YOUR JOB, BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY, BCOZ U NEVER KNOW WHEN THE COMPANY WILL STOP LOVING YOU" - Narayana Murthy

Fire in the City

While I worked at my workstation in my new office building yesterday, I saw distant smoke rising up in the horizon and helicopters circling around. That was surely not what my colleagues predicted for me to see through those huge glass windows. Unfortunately, I got more than coconut trees to see for once and hopefully I wished, not ever again.

According to the daily news, three people died and at least 50 were injured as a devastating fire swept through the 11-storey Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation (BSEC) Bhaban in the city's Karwan Bazar yesterday morning.. ..

Major Siddique, who went all the way up to the roof around 2:45pm, told The Daily Star that the building itself had a number of fire hazards. Only one staircase and faulty fire extinguishers--all raised the spectre of higher death toll.

This should ring alarm bells in the minds of most office goers. I am no different. Needless to say, the city does have more than just a few buildings with possible hazards just waiting to happen. After an over-bridge collapsed on a car near New Market a few years ago, there was terror in me whenever I would pass under any over bridge in town.

Than, we have the numerous builders building apartments all around the city. No offense meant to them but my dad, who is a civil engineer, had come across a case where there was no fire or earthquake plans made during erection of the monstrosity with disaster waiting to happen.

Now, I am sure there are countries with similar cases around the world. But for a person like me, getting into a lift in a new building is fast turning into an ordeal. It’s a phase I would like to get over. Is the government going to ever find a solution?

Reflections

Who am I today?" I ask, and I wonder if I even know. I know the past has shaped me now, even though the past was long ago.

The little moments form a blur. The times both happy and sad, all the people I once knew and the things I used to have.

They all helped me to become where, what and who I am now, because everything has influenced me, I'm not sure exactly how.

But I'm thankful for the memories, even of the people I've never really met. For the people I miss, the people I love, and even the people I'd like to forget.

For these memories have helped me grow. They've made me calm, yet strong. And now there's a story to my life that they've been writing all along.

So, thank you for the memories. Without them, I don't know who I'd be - because somewhere among these memories are the things that define me..