Tearing down the barrier

The greatest barrier to communication, they say, is the distance between one man’s thoughts, and another’s (don’t mean to be sexist, but this is how people used to write stuff early last century). In a recent trip to a foreign land, I realized the relevance of this quote.

Besides a Lonely Planet Phrasebook guiding us on the Greek language, there was little else we could use to communicate with the locals in a small island off Greece’s East coast.

For, while the big cities and popular islands have a lot of English speakers, obscure little islands get lesser tourists and therefore lesser exposure to the language. In a neatly tucked away settlement in such an obscure island, we found a quaint little shop with some delicious locally made foodstuff (drinkstuff too!). The woman who owned the shop spoke better English than 90% of the island (meaning she could understand nearly half of what we said, without us using the very helpful phrasebook!), and explained with élan, the stories behind everything in the shop – how she actually makes everything from locally available ingredients for eight months of the year, and sells it for the rest of the four. Went on and on for almost an hour, especially as she had problems finding English words for what she was trying to say (didn’t stop her at all from talking though…women!)

What happened next was quite remarkable – a woman we’d met in a shop in another neatly tucked away settlement dropped in, and turned out to be our subject’s mum! Of course, belonging to the older generation, she didn’t speak a single word of English, but was quick to point out to her daughter that she recognized us (no mean feat, as we were the only Indians on the entire island!). Extremely excited about this serendipity, she went on to invite us to a ‘fiesta’ later that evening in a Church owned by the family (seeing as we were ‘close’ friends of her daughter). Greeks are extremely friendly people, it seems…

Following her car through a maze of hill roads (not the one in Bandra), passing about four small Churches on the way (everywhere in Greece, there’s a Church – much like the paan shops in India), we finally reached a hilltop with a quaint little Church, where a bunch of people were busy preparing for the feast. Of course, the woman from our foodstuff shop wasn’t here to translate, and we were left at the mercy of the phrasebook, as no one in this entire gathering spoke anymore English than my friend’s Labrador…

A slew of amusing exchanges followed, including one in which, on explaining that it was getting dark and we didn’t know the way back so we needed to leave, we heard lots of ‘Ohi Ohi’ (NO! NO!); and were told (mostly in sign language, accompanied by the weird sounds that were words of Greek), that the priest would be going the same way, and we would need to follow him, so there was no way we were to leave!

Then something magical happened – the food appeared on the long table, and everything suddenly became ok! Greeks go out of their way to prepare super tasty meals. A great meal later, we followed the priest and were able to get back alright, but the evening turned out to be one of the most remarkable experiences ever – a foreign land, not so much a language barrier as a language great wall, friendly strangers and brilliant food…

My take away on human nature was simple – when people connect at a human level (especially around food ;)), all other barriers disappear – it doesn’t matter if you don’t look alike or speak the same language – as long as your thoughts match, there is no barrier to communication that can’t be overcome!

Appearances can be deceptive...

This oldest of quotes hit me with an unbelievable force in a recent journey...

I had travelled to Pondicherry (now Puducherry, for all you regional jingoists) and it seemed like the short flight and car journey had transported me to an altogether different country! Nothing was as it should've been - I didn't understand the bad words written on the washroom walls, most people understood English (or a highly region-specific version of it anyway), meal timings were all screwed up - if you went to a restaurant at 2.30, it be shut, 'cos lunch, of course, got over at 1, and to top it all, auto rickshaws used the horns characteristic of the BEST monsters, making me jump in panic on more occasions than one, I can assure you!

It was here, in the land where up was down, where a breakdown of appearances happened for me. A really old man (nothing less than 280 years old), wearing only a lungi was the entreprenuer who rented us our means of transport (a 50cc gearless TVS moped - i prefer to think of it as an automatic transmission, compact urban transportation vehicle, ahem ahem).
At first, he came across as a senile, ill-tempered old man, whose English was restricted to "deposit 500 rupee" and "ID card deposit". By the last day of our stay, however, having rented the moped for 5 days from him, we'd delved a little deeper...
We found a grandfatherly figure, who helped us figure a way around keeping the bike (prefer to call it that) beyond rental hours, told us off for roaming about till very late at night (9.30pm), and invited us into his house...a really sweet old man who was only looking for some kind words, beyond which all barriers of language and region evaporated...ok, maybe not all, but the deal sure got easier.

Also, got me thinking - maybe we do judge too fast and too harshly, based on nothing more than appearances. A celebrated book (Blink), by a celebrated author celebrates the human ability to semi-consciously judge everything we need to know about a person or situation in the first few minutes of an interaction - I say relax, and let the person in front of you relax - this way you're likely to see a side to people and situations that you'd miss otherwise.

This is not to take away anything from the human instinct - that is an extremely useful tool - but the fact is that in today's life of extreme distrust in our fellow being, the walls that we build around ourselves sometimes become too tall and solid... Maybe we should just take the time from our busy schedules to give people a chance to let their guard down a little bit.