COMMUNICATION GAP
The Information technological revolution marked a great watershed in the history of human civilization. With the world turning into a 'global village', our ability to facilitate ever quickened communication over great distances practically knows no bounds. In such a scenario, let's spare a thought for the millions still languishing in the midst of unavailability of much needed (at times life saving) information.
With every passing day, I am losing faith in our one ability that's supposed to set us above and apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. The abject failure of our verbal language to get across a message to people belonging to different backgrounds ranging from not only age but also geography and culture, has recently been brought to my notice. The privileged few are vested with enormous powers and responsibilities to spread information but the "gap" is day by day widening.
We all have perhaps, experienced the 'generation gap' in our lives, and thought to ourselves (atleast I have) that things would be different when we grow old. Boy, was I in for a surprise or what when I heard my 5 year old niece talk about "boyfriends". Geez, I didn't know what the term meant when I was five. To this my father responded, "You still don't, right!" while I mumbled under my breath, "Oh, You wish, dad (least theoretically I know) ". Anyways, so this proud father turns to his son and tells him the story about the young shepherd boy who often lied about the arrival of a wolf and the day the wolf did come, the villagers didn't pay heed. The boy's reply as to the moral of the story acts as a warning to us all that we cannot afford to take anything for granted any more. He (21st century mindset) found a major problem with the story itself. "The boy shouldn't have been asked to watch the sheep in the first place because child labour is prohibited", he reasoned. Another boy (in Punjab) told his teacher that he was in a quandary ever since he heard the story. "When the boy would lie, everyone would come to help him but the one time he told the truth, nobody came. So, tell me Sir, whether I should lie or tell the truth?", was his innocent question.
A senior curator voiced his desire to prepare a film to dispel the highly prevalent unscientific practice of blaming the mother for the birth of a girl child. The neurons in my brain immediately got busy. When we asked a communication expert to help us brainstorm, he brought out the fact that we had failed the people even before we began. He narrated the following anecdotes which drew hearty laugthers at first but were followed by a quiet realisation of our superficial ways of helping the so called 'under-privileged'.
With every passing day, I am losing faith in our one ability that's supposed to set us above and apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. The abject failure of our verbal language to get across a message to people belonging to different backgrounds ranging from not only age but also geography and culture, has recently been brought to my notice. The privileged few are vested with enormous powers and responsibilities to spread information but the "gap" is day by day widening.
We all have perhaps, experienced the 'generation gap' in our lives, and thought to ourselves (atleast I have) that things would be different when we grow old. Boy, was I in for a surprise or what when I heard my 5 year old niece talk about "boyfriends". Geez, I didn't know what the term meant when I was five. To this my father responded, "You still don't, right!" while I mumbled under my breath, "Oh, You wish, dad (least theoretically I know) ". Anyways, so this proud father turns to his son and tells him the story about the young shepherd boy who often lied about the arrival of a wolf and the day the wolf did come, the villagers didn't pay heed. The boy's reply as to the moral of the story acts as a warning to us all that we cannot afford to take anything for granted any more. He (21st century mindset) found a major problem with the story itself. "The boy shouldn't have been asked to watch the sheep in the first place because child labour is prohibited", he reasoned. Another boy (in Punjab) told his teacher that he was in a quandary ever since he heard the story. "When the boy would lie, everyone would come to help him but the one time he told the truth, nobody came. So, tell me Sir, whether I should lie or tell the truth?", was his innocent question.
A senior curator voiced his desire to prepare a film to dispel the highly prevalent unscientific practice of blaming the mother for the birth of a girl child. The neurons in my brain immediately got busy. When we asked a communication expert to help us brainstorm, he brought out the fact that we had failed the people even before we began. He narrated the following anecdotes which drew hearty laugthers at first but were followed by a quiet realisation of our superficial ways of helping the so called 'under-privileged'.
- Polar Pvt. Ltd - A famous fan and condom manufacturer in India, went to a village to spread AIDS awareness and prevention. They demonstrated condom usage by using the nearby fence to simulate you know what. Upon returning to validate their efforts, they were greeted by a fence decorated with their invaluable gift to the villagers.
- A quiet village in Andhra Pradesh was shown a video on how to prevent many diseases by simply covering their food. Upon asking about what was the message learnt, at first, no one cared to respond. At last, an elderly man replied, "Saheb, we don't have such a problem because such huge flies are not found in our village at all." This is a special case where even visual communication failed miserably as the close-up shot of the flies was grossly misunderstood by the unassuming villagers.
To the former Director of Doordarshan (now almost forgotten India's National television channel) Abhijeet Das Gupta, goes the credit of opening my eyes to the "real world". He ever so subtlely shattered all my previously cherished ways of being and behaving. He, in fact, is also the only person who has left me in complete awe after the very first meeting.
It is amazing how we (read I) go about our ways of doing things, not caring enough to ensure that the message is received as intended. Shouldn't we invest due time considering the nuances of our faculty of speech?
posted by optimism at 3:37 PM
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