Threads of connectivity

Something wonderful happened on December 19th. Thirty-two years after passing out of school, the class of '76 of Railway Mixed High School, Madurai had a re-union.

To me, it was a miracle. I had studied there between 1972 and 1975, leaving half-way during Class X. I had not met any of my former classmates since then, and my earlier attempts to keep in touch through letters petered out soon. Thirty odd years later, out of the blue, one friend calls up, and soon it is an avalanche of phone calls, mails, and messages. It was as if a door had opened, and they were all back in my life. It still is a wonder to me how they found me, for I did not expect them to remember me at all!

It was wonderful to go for the reunion and meet everyone, especially because we were all looking so different! Almost everyone had grown(in girth!) but some of the "boys" were un-recognizable!! We had so much fun laughing at the "Then & Now" slide show and catching up with the lost years.Suddenly, it was as if we had re-discovered a lost slice of our own selves.

I have often read about the inter-connectedness of things in the universe - that we are all connected in so many ways by invisible threads of connectivity. The reunion brought this to me very forcefully. Looking around at the happy faces and listening to each one's story, I realized the truth of John Donne's assertion - "No man is an island". Each one of us there was connected to each other through our common experiences in our old school, experiences that had shaped us and guided us through life and brought us back together.

The forgotten art of listening!

Very often, I am exasperated by people I talk to. 

Most Indians have never been taught to listen, and are not sensitive or open to another person's point of view. I don't know if it is because of our numbers, and the terrible urge to get our opinion across,  but very often ordinary conversations end up becoming slanging matches. Argument and discussion is the hallmark of civilisation, but somehow here, it becomes difficult especially as we become locked into our own positions.

 If this is the case in drawing room conversations, it is even more loud and vehement on our televisions. One of the funniest(!) and pointless programmes I have seen on TV is NDTV's 'The Big Fight'. It starts off well enough, the panelists are people who are suited to address the particular topic, but almost from the beginning, it becomes a Babel of voices, as each panelist starts interrupting, arguing, shouting and generally making a noise. When the show was hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai, he added to the madness by cutting in and loudly making his point. I always wonder what they achieve at the end of it. No one has bothered to listen to the others, or even considered another aspect of the question they were debating.

Sometimes, this can be quite hilarious. I have a friend, and on the rare occasions I visit her, I am confused. Both my friend and her mother will start talking to me simultaneously, often on two different subjects! My brain goes into double-quick processing mode, and I somehow have to find the right answers to their observations! Exhausting, to say the least.

I now find this trait everywhere, on TV, and even in the blogosphere. Everybody has a point of view, everybody wants to make their voices heard, and in the process, they end up shouting or screeching. Why? Why can't we take the time to listen? If only we could listen, we would be able to understand each other. Then we would know and understand that there is really no difference between us, only a difference in perception.

When we listen, really listen, we go beyond the words, to the feelings and emotions hidden deep beneath the words, and understand that there can be another reality. And that it is not really very different from ours.