Talking Chameleon

Everybody told me that i spoke well. Dude, you have excellent communication skills, friends, juniors, peers and seniors were wont to say. Of course, i emphatically agreed. Perhaps, this innate ability as well as the confidence of possessing it in reality, prompted my interviewers to offer me employment as a sales man, in the first place. (And over the years, i have managed to dupe many such ready to believe professors of corporate medicine!). However, life would soon teach me how i tended to live in a make-believe world.

It was true that i had a passion for words. i had practically enjoyed devouring Norman Lewis and Ida Elhdrich and many others during college days. And my English medium based convent education (for some reason my father was proud of this "convent" thing) had groomed me well, i thought. English language was an interesting language, easy to learn and use, when you get to its roots. (when i say roots, i dont mean you could break up conscience into con science or icon into i con, but the latin or greek source of english words!).

As i went about my job, all liveried in corporate makeup, attempting to sell (or would you prefer foist) my wares, the rejection levels moved northwards (productivity charts moved southwards). Over a period of time, it dawned, that i was hardly impressing prospects with my "communication skills". How could this happen to me? I kept trying hard, polishing myself and my angrezi skills more and more, but in vain. The order pipeline remained a large hollow. My seniors were all busy with their own "numbers" (read swords of damocles), and i was still swimming with agnosticism.

As the night the day, some light finally broke. I had experimented with a different thought. I was in Punjab and it was evident that people here preferred to speak in their own language, and with some pride at that. Now, by birth, i was a Punjabi ( although for some strange reasons, my parents never conversed with us or in front of us in punjabi). I had always believed that English was my forte and my Punjabi aspects were not something to be advertised. Operating in Punjab though forced me to leverage my weakness more and more. Things had started to change as i used the "mithi" language. Suddently, i did not need the selling skills (which my base station ecosystem had suggested) or the communication skills i proudly strutted around with. The job was no longer daunting. You just had to be friendly, and speaking their language was endearing. Even if one was to stumble in a conversation and quickly shift to the easier ground of English or Hindi, the effort was appreciated more often than otherwise. Conversely, a sophisticated, corporate type approach would lead to day-long benchwarming exercises. I had transformed into a star salesman, but only after i had moulted, shedding the vestiges of pretense. It was not about my strengths anymore but about tuning into people's wavelengths. (Many years back i had asked a chole bhature wala, minting money vide his misery of a shop in Connaught Place, as to why inspite of the money, he would not improve his infrastructure. "Saab , customer se tuning gadbad ho jayegi", he said. He knew already what i had just realised).

It may appear to some, that i am suggesting that English language is not the language of this country, and by that measure, it should be sparingly employed. Many years later, i had occasion to speak in public, to a large audience of parents eager to put their wards into anything english medium, and i pulled it off, i think. One has to play the right tune.

Cluck, cluck goes the talking chameleon!