Life’s policy: observe and learn

‘Observing’ is a luxury in today’s fast paced times – a luxury, like many other taken-for-granted tasks we partook-in some years back. The momentum of today’s age has left the observers in oblivion; well, that is to say, by and largely.

To add to the above, it is not every day that one is offered an opportunity to observe an interview – an interesting prospect, I must say. So, recently, when Dr. Parth J. Shah, the president of Centre for Civil Society, and founder of the Indian School of Public Policy was being interviewed on “Education in India – challenges, milestones, policies, and all”, I took the opportunity to learn from mere observation of the interviewee and the interviewer – the communication, and its nuances, whether verbal or non-verbal.

How is the ice broken initially? What impact do facial expressions, body language, gestures, and others have? Is non-verbal communication a more powerful medium than its verbose counterpart? How is the element of ‘silence’ that we, humans, usually, shy away from in a conversation dealt with? What happens to ‘tricky’ questions? The list just goes on.

Besides, questions on the correlation of education, election and manifestos; or the delivery of education in India; or, for that matter, the role of mere individuals in bringing about change, aspects invite food-for-thought and deliberation.

In addition, the chance to see individuals interact, respond, question and ‘agree to disagree’ is a live platform to learn the fundamentals of communication, and life from.

I still recall a question posed by the journalist: “So, why the Indian School of Public  Policy?” The reply, a candid: “Change is the future, and future is the change.” Communication is all about “more in less.” We seem to have lost that in translation. Or perhaps not? Food-for-thought and deliberation?

Author(s): Sarah Berry