Stylised Communication

"Clean up your room in the next five minutes and your time started two minutes ago!" I hollered to my son. My husband a prim and propah gentleman stood at the top of the stairs and asked me what I was exactly doing. "Communicating", I answered in the language that he dabbles in. How I got to him with my verbal communication skills, I patted myself. I saw him shake his head and disappear using his non-verbal communication language.

It was eleven, an hour to go before noon and my daughter had not woken up. Sunday, thats the excuse. "Young lady get up before I get to you" my voice had the perfect tone to scare even the wwf wrestlers away. Her eyes flew open at being greeted with such affection! I am speaking with clarity, the second thumb rule of communication. Leave no space for doubt, to the point, precise and choose your words with care. It proved effective too, she rolled out of bed and straight to her father to complain.

Complain - another form of communication. Usually the meek, the gentle find it a decent way of saying that they do not agree. If you have people like me who have a natural excited disposition, it could be a rather vocal game and am not responsible for the vocabulary used. But my children have taken after their gentlemanly father so complain sessions are usuall held in a corner, care taken to see that the sound bytes do not reach my ears and end in a non- verbal resolution, a nod or a shrug denoting 'she is like this anyway'.

My favourite part of communication is cribbing. I love it. Everything is wrong with everybody but not me, an epitome of perfection. Now there are some thumb rules in cribbing, never do it in a boring open style. Always use subtleties, underplaying yourself but highlighting the right lines. Trust me no consultant would give you this tip. Not that I am qualified enough but I speak from my little experience and studying the re-hashed lines that consultants dish out and yes charging a bomb. You agree, I know you do. What have I just done? Cribbed against the consultants and told you that I can do it better. It is another story that I have never got called. The world is not ready for anything new it is rather happy with the ordinary lot. "Look beyond people", say welcome to me.

Husband and kids come in a group, I know they find solace in numbers. That is the perception they exude and I envy their listening skills. Lunch I serve with my style of exaggerated flourish, with the perfect body language to go with it. Do not ask me how, it is their gaze that tells me that I have them mesmerised even before they have started eating from the platter.

You must have come across the non dumping theory under communication skills. But look at it this way, if I do not dump my ideas using my most meticulous words and tonal excellence, would I not be over thrown by now? I am surviving for the last twenty three years and already planning my silver jubilee at the helm.

I pilot the conversation at the lunch table. How we are lucky to have what is on our platter, never mind the taste. This way I have ensured that no negative feedbacks roll in when I flutter my eye lashes and ask them whether they enjoyed their lunch. I do allow a few sentences from them, communication is afterall a two way process! You speak more and create an aura that you are allowing others their time as well. It will take some time to master this art but there is hope.

Last on my list is listening. Who? Me? Listen? To whom? How can communication be about listening. That is not my job, it is theirs who sit opposite me. If I listen then who will communicate? Funny, very funny. I only listen when I see my threesome huddle together in a corner. I put on my hearing aids to catch a word or sometimes a syllable. It is enough to drown them with my ballistic communication after that.

'Silence speaks louder than thousand words', remember the text book that taught us this? I allow you to communicate in this form after you have read this piece.

As for my lovely threesome they found meaning in this decades ago.