A birthday gift for the most natural
communicator I met in my life…
It was a bright Sunday morning. The door bell rang and I rushed to respond as I was waiting for my friends for playing cricket. On the contrary, it was a couple in their late forties. I shouted “Papa” and ran away to search a corner in my home at highest possible Cartesian distance from the drawing room centre. Soon, I could be seen occupied with my pending home-work. This is how I used to react to all the guests in my childhood. Whenever we used to visit someone’s place, the hosts and my parents used to try everything out to make me speak but to no avail. My grandmother made futile efforts for the same by giving examples of from my father’s life. He used to talk to everyone from ninety days old kid to ninety year old great-grand-parents. He was famous among my pals for his friendly manner and had an impeccable sense of humour.
I am blessed with a wonderful
sister. In our childhood, we used to fight a lot. Still she was my companion
24X7. She used to keep count zeros that I used to score in unit tests and
glasses that I used to break while playing cricket. In my college days, she
started counting my secret crushes and ensured that they remain secret. She is
quite outspoken. It’s really difficult to keep her quiet. I wonder how siblings
are so different from each other in their behaviour.
Two decades have passed and I made
decent progress in communicating. I am a Post Graduate from MICA, won a small
prize for stand up comedy, made short videos and wrote many articles that have
found appreciations from friends, classmates and colleagues.
My mother has a similar story. She
belongs to a Kannada family that was crazy about cinema. She was always forced to
watch movies on big screen. She had to cry to say no for a movie. Her family
could never understand how she could refuse to come. She also has an outspoken
sister that gave her less chance to speak in public. She was also among those students
who study the whole year just to celebrate that one day - when examination results
are declared. In her formative years, she was in a habit of cracking the merit
and she tried to inculcate the same in us.
My mother remained an introvert even
after her marriage and we were born. However, she used to talk to infants and small
kids easily. It’s amazing to see why kids never cry in her arms and how they
stop weeping whenever she lifts them and talks in their own language. Kids give
you sufficient time to talk. They don’t have anything to say yet express so
much through expressions. They don’t cut you in between when you are speaking.
My mother works with Allahabad Bank.
She has more than three decades of banking experience. Any public sector bank
has a huge variety of customers, salaried customers: who have fixed spending
and saving pattern, small businessmen: who want to use savings account as
current, unlucky customers: whose ideas never work and are not able to repay
loans, NRI customers: who think dollars and transact rupees, rural farmers: who
remove their footwear while entering the bank, old patients: who don’t have
enough money for operation, thieves: who make a good life with some help from generous
branch managers. My mother is a stickler to rules and uses both love and stick to
treat customers.
Sometime in late nineties
Allahabad Bank started shifting to computerization. In the initial stages, they
didn’t have any standardization and different branches worked on different
software. Computers were mostly used for data entry in those days. Later they
shifted to uniform software countrywide and finally adopted core banking. Recently
they also introduced an online portal where employees can get instant help on banking
issues. They can also contribute to non-work related articles. This portal
(called forum) connects all Allahabad Bank employees countrywide.
My mother started using this
medium to express herself as she did never before. She started writing about customer
experiences in bank, personal incidences, corruption, must visit places in
Bhopal, healthy lifestyle, generation gap, religion and many more. It gave her
the visibility throughout the organization.
The questions that arise are how my
mother, who was an introvert throughout her life, could contribute so much to
the organization’s blog? Why didn’t these stories come out earlier in some
social gathering? Why couldn’t my mother capture limelight ever? Answers to
these questions might be found Susan Cain’s work on introversion. According to
her one third of the people in this world are introverts. Their opinion might often
be ignored as they find it difficult to express. But they could focus a lot
more in solitude and come up with solutions to most complex problems or create
masterpieces.
Online medium is wonderful for introverts.
It gives them a neutral platform to express themselves. People who always failed
to find their turn in discussions with family, friends and colleagues could
write articles and publish it. One doesn’t have to fight for time slot when writing
and or posting articles on blog. There is no necessity to gather listeners too.
One can write articles and people around the globe can read it whenever they
find time. Moreover, it is the cheapest mode of long distance communication medium
known to mankind. This medium has worked for my mother and me. It might work for other introverts as
well.
If you want to explore
introversion visit this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4
