Communication gap

Having chosen the communications stream in my bachelor of technology curriculum at iit-m, I am expected by laypersons in family and friends to know everything about anything connected to 'communications', much to my dismayed bewilderment. I only find solace in the assumption that most other engineers also probably share the same fate... well i guess at least electrical engineers do (or so I hope). The other day ma told me that the cordless phone we'd been using at home for the last umpteen years had suddenly gone kaput and that I was expected to open it up and set it right. Hullo ! How am i to know about the internal circuitry of a 80's model panasonic ? "Oh come on, you're supposed to be an electrical engineer... communications ! pah! ", quips my younger sister. Yeah yeah whatever.

Anyway, I'm writing this to talk about a different kind of communication:our day-to-day real life interaction with other people. On the phone, chatting on the net, or in person, the one thing that characterizes person-to-person communication most strongly is 'language'. Very often we find each other the culprits of a 'communication gap'. Its a such a teensie weensie most inconspicious thingy most of the time that we don't even realise when its happened. I don't. An unintentional ellipsis, the wrong tone, an incomplete sentence, incorrect use of a word, mixture of two or more languages, wrong interpretation or a combo of any of these can often have disatrous consequences. Examples abound from daily life (if you're between 18 and 25 years and you live with your parents then you know what i mean).

I feel a major source of hinderance to smooth interpersonal comm. are the languages we use. No matter how competent the speaker and how receptive the listener, the quality of a conversation is, after all, limited by the efficiency of the language(s) invoked. English and hindi, unfortunately fair quite hopelessly i think.. and a combination of the two can even prove to be fatal. Sanskrit has been recognised by scholars to be a very precise and efficient language. About a decade ago, a German computer magazine claimed Sanskrit to be the 'most scientific' language and the 'most suitable among human languages to be used as a computer programming language'. Hmm.. probably why the ancient peoples had fewer feuds among themselves too.


The father smiled to see his child
Come running to his side.
"Please tell me, Daddy, what is meant
By that word 'sex'", she cried.

He looked aghast at this sweet girl -
She was but eight years old;
Too young, he thought and innocent
To break this childhood mould.

She should be playing with her dolls
Or other toys she had
Instead of asking questions such
As this one of her Dad.

With openness and honesty
An inborn family trait,
This Dad explained the facts of life
Quite candidly and straight.

His discourse finished, thankfully,
He kissed her on the cheek;
No word she'd uttered all the while,
But now began to speak:

"I didn't think my question was
A matter so complex,
For Mum just said to tell you lunch
Is ready in two secs."


Suggested listening: 'Communication breakdown' - Led Zeppelin