Transcommunication

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"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said"

 ...Peter Drucker 

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'...But you still haven't told me what you think of The Cocktail Party.'

I laughed a laugh that was not actually a laugh.

'What don't you think it means, then?' she put in helpfully.

I circled around this for a moment. 'Do you mean what Eliot is intentionally not saying, or what he just happens not to have said?' I asked, with enormous tidiness. She looked bewildered and I tried to clear it up for her, and for myself. 'Let me put it this way,' I said. 'No playwright has ever deliberately said "Kings wear oysters in their shoes". That line has not been left out, however, in the sense that it has been rejected. It is certainly not what Eliot is not saying. If we charged him with it, he might quite properly reply, "I would never not say that!" '

...James Thurber in What Cocktail Party?  

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One of the most famous Board Meetings in the history of Free India is supposed to be the Cabinet Meeting Nehrujee held in the wake of the historic drubbing India got in the so-called Chinese Invasion in 1962. India was not prepared for it mentally, morally, emotionally and militarily.  We were all kept in a dream world by Nehru's eloquent Peacenicking.

In the aftermath of such a sudden ignominy, within and without, heads had to roll to satisfy the voters. And the cabinet colleagues of Nehru were determined to draw blood. And the obvious choice for the guillotine was the then Defense Minister, V K Krishna Menon. Menon was a brilliant though vitriolic figure...he was the co-founder of the Penguins. And he was famous for his speech in the UN defending our Kashmir policy for eight long hours at the end of which he fainted and fell down on the floor. Without doubt he was a great patriot but that didn't mean he was an efficient minister. And he was a favorite of Nehru.

So there was this unanimous uproar in the Meeting: "Menon should go! Menon should go!! Menon should go!!!"

And for 3 hours and more, it is said, Nehru defended Menon till, at the end of it all, he suddenly realized that what his cabinet colleagues were saying, but not saying aloud, was:

"Either Menon's head or Nehru's"

And out went Menon in a trice.

Human beings, like animals and birds, have ways of communicating more dumbly than by shouting. 

There is what is broadly called body-language.

Take clapping for instance. Most of the time, clapping means cheering and applauding. But not always. There used to be this slow clapping by the students of IIT KGP that unanimously built itself to a crescendo to convey the message that enough was enough. It could be a music recital, or a speech by an eminent guest, or a politician.

Then again there was this clapping that I was subjected to by transgenders traveling by Madras Mail in my sleeper compartment...they wouldn't let me go when I was a bachelor till I forked out an awesome Rs 5...they knew...

In the Hindi movies of my time, the villain didn't talk much when the hero was captured and brought before him...he just clapped...and his crew arrived to do the needful to the hero who fells them all in the end with or without the aid of the heroine or the police who arrived always late and were left with only the handcuffing.

It used to be said (I don't have a first-hand experience) that barbers of yore in South India employed this single clapping after they shaved the head and the beard...it was to ask their clients discreetly if they wished any other hidden hair also to be shaved off.

Then there is this silent smile.

I was told that shopkeepers in Abu Dhabi would never say: "Not available" if you asked them for, say, the Grundig Tape Recorder of the 1950s...they would just smile politely...to say, "no", was inauspicious for them.

And of course students at IIT KGP used to routinely resort to this simper in their vivas...it was a euphemism for: "I don't know, sir! Leave me alone!"

An enigmatic smile like Mona Lisa's used to be the favorite answer by heroines when the hero asked: "Will you marry me?"...it cut both ways.

Silence is also an emphatic language. It could mean anything depending on the context. It is said that the four sages Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumara, Sanatsujata, went from pillar to post for learning the secret of their existence; but were dissatisfied. Ultimately they found a boy sitting under a banyan tree with closed eyes and under a vow of silence. They sat down at his feet and within minutes they found the answer to their unasked queries:     

Chitram Vatataror Moole; 
Vriddhaa Shishyaa Gurur Yuvaa

Gurostu Maunam Vyaakhyaanam; 
Shishyaastu Chhinna Samshayaah

A simple pout can be an effective substitute for an encyclopedia of words, employed mostly by married women, like in this famous picture:

 

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