Speak your language, not theirs

At the Kati Roll Company, we were enjoying our kati rolls, adda (conversation), and the reunion we had after a year. A group of young girls sat at the table next to us.

Soon, an oddly dressed young man joined their table. Given my ignorance about popular American fashion, I could not say if he was a style icon, or generally poorly dressed. When the girls smiled sheepishly at him, I thought that they knew each other. But the girls started to leave their table, clearly uncomfortable. They might be planning to leave anyway, but our young man surely facilitated their departure.

By now, my colleague and I were curious spectators. The man had a drawl, maybe he was drunk and stoned and anything in between. The girls left, and the man walked further inside the restaurant with confidence, calling out to more people. I could not see any further after that. I told my colleague about my disappointment that four girls could not confront a man and ran away, validating him and fueling his courage in the process.

Sometime later, the man came back to us, of all the tables. I could not understand what he said but recognized a mishmash of words that occasionally sounded like baby and boob. Sure, all babies need boobs for nourishment, but I don't think that was what he meant. I saw red! I am allergic to people calling me baby, and I didn't ask for an assessment of my boobs. He walked towards us with an intention of joining our table.

“Dada, ki bolchen bujhte parchina, Banglaye bolun,” I said out loud enough to turn a few heads in our direction. (Please speak in Bangla, I cannot understand what you are saying, I said).

The man was momentarily stunned. Of all the things he would have anticipated, a sharp reply in Bangla was outside his syllabus of imagination.

He has some nerve, he asked me to speak in English, with more references to baby and boobs. I lost it.

“Banglaye katha na bolle hobe? Boshe boshe meyeder theke khisti khachhen, bujhteo to parchen na. Ingriji te katha bolte parbo na, amake niye jokhon katha bolchen, amar bhashaye katha bolun aage.”

The more I spoke in Bangla, the more confused he got. It had never occurred to him that he would not be able to communicate to a girl something as simple as a lecherous remark about body anatomy. With a horrified expression, he started to leave the restaurant.

“Arrey paliye jachhen keno, adda maarben na?" was the last thing I said before he scampered out.

Looks like my “confuse your enemy” ploy worked wonderfully, although it was unplanned, untested, and impulsive. Whatever the guy had expected from us (shame, discomfort), being reprimanded in a foreign language was outside his imagination. This strategy might have failed if he had a gun or knife or if it was late in the night. I do not know. What I know is that in the heart of Manhattan, my mother tongue gave me the confidence to confront, confuse and belittle a man, and drive him away. I could have given him a piece of my mind in English. However, communicating and engaging with him was not my goal. Whenever you speak in the language of the enemy, you validate and empower the enemy.

Speak to your enemies and speak to them in your own language (and not their language). Chances are that the enemy will not understand your language. If they did, then they would not be enemies. I use the word “language” metaphorically here.

sunshine

The art of saying “no”

I don't read through emails word-by-word, I skim through them unless they are really important or come from someone important. I get close to 150 emails a day from all kinds of people. Colleagues. University emails. Professional society emails. Urgent emails. Useless emails. Journal editors asking for reviews. Publishers trying to sell me their products that I will never buy. Survey requests. Scams. Phishing emails. Hapless students from abroad who tell me their GRE scores and ask where they should apply and whether they should study fisheries or pharmacokinetics (how am I supposed to know?). Random faculty from China self-inviting themselves as visiting scholars to my university and assuring me they would return the favor if I ever want to visit China. Unfortunate spouses who moved to the US allured by the promised greener pasture and after seeing only snowy pastures, email to ask me of their future prospects (Irony! Little do they know that I am still figuring out my future prospects in this country after all these years!). I skim emails because it is a necessary practice to save time. 

Acceptance emails/notifications are short and sweet. They start with the word, "Congratulations!" The message is delivered, loud and clear, without wasting my time. 

Rejection emails/notifications somehow become all about the person who rejected me. There are two paragraphs about how the selection process was daunting, challenging and how they had to skim through hundreds of great applications to select the best. The outcome is like a hidden gem, I am still on paragraph three and trying to understand what was the outcome of my application. Well, tell me you did not select me and move on. You do not have to make this email a sob saga about you. I have plenty of other things to do, other opportunities to apply for, and all I want to know is the outcome before I move on. I do not care how many applications you had to read. All I care about is I did not make the cut.

Effective communication is an art. Be objective, be succinct, and be precise. Tell me what you are trying to tell me in the first line. Don't make it about you. It is just an award, a paper, a grant, and not the end of the world.  

sunshine

A related post I wrote: I know it’s a no, but I don’t know why

I know it's a no, but I don't know why

When tragedy happens repeatedly at short intervals, following the same pattern, it becomes comical.

I had applied for a position, and last week, I received an email asking me to log in to their website and find their decision. Hastily, between palpitating heartbeats, cold, sweaty palms, and forgotten passwords, I managed to log in and find their verdict. In their decision, they rejected me. I felt hurt. I knew that it was a competitive position. Like most rejections in life, committees never tell you why they rejected you, although they assure you that they took the time to go through your application. Constructive criticism is often not valued, either from the sender, or by the receiver. Rather than reading about how sorry they are to reject me (which is about their feelings, not mine), I'd rather get to the point and know the reason, because that will bring a sense of closure, and give me perspective. Anyway, I moved on with life. 

This was last week. Earlier this week, they emailed me to say the same thing again, basically spelled out the same decision word by word, in an email now. And today, they sent out another email saying that there was some error in the subject line of the last email (which I hadn't even noticed), so they are sending me another email with the corrected subject line, and with the same decision.

The third time, I burst out laughing. Because you do not need to tell someone "no" three times before you get your point across. And because they could have saved themselves all this wasted time and energy, and just enclosed a one-line truth about why it was rejected, without rehashing again and again how sorry they are. Something about all this was really disturbing. There was no dignity in the way they were rejecting me again and again, although I had accepted their decision with dignity.

This incident once again took me back to my philosophy, unconventional for some, where I always want to know why someone said no. Once I emotionally detach myself from the rejection, I always wonder what people were thinking when they made their decisions. Everyone puts in a lot of time and energy and expectations into their application, or in anything they pursue. I understand that one cannot be accepted all the time. However, if one has really evaluated my application, like they said they did, all it takes is sixty seconds to write down the reason.

“We found someone better than you.”

“Your statistical skills or background is not strong enough.”

“We do not wish to sponsor a visa.”

“We are afraid that you may not have what it takes to do the job.”

Just one line of truth.

And the same thing translates to relationships. It has always disturbed me that people just leave, just grow distant over time. But that one line of truth not only brings closure, it does good to both people involved. Sometimes, we need to hear the truth ourselves, before we can tell others. A long lifetime ago, there was someone I really liked, and enjoyed hanging out with. I assume he enjoyed my company too, given the telltale signs. So instead of playing mental games, strategizing, and thinking of everything I should or should not do because I am a girl, I asked him out. Plain and simple. And he said no. However, we remained friends, we still are, and till date, I have not asked him why he said no. At that time, it broke my heart, not knowing the reason. I thought that we made a very compatible pair, and I was just asking him out, wanting to know him more, without the expectation of a commitment. I spent months feeling terrible about it, until I traveled to California, hiked the Channel Islands on my own, spent a day by myself, and forced a closure to it. I still believe that giving a reason would have made things easier for me.

“You are too tall for me.”

“I did not feel the chemistry.”

“I am a vegetarian. You are not.”

“I only date Russian girls.”

Just one line of truth.

On a different note, I am so trained to distinguish a yes from a no these days that I can open a letter, read the first line, and tell you their decision. When you get accepted somewhere, at a university, conference, or a journal, their first word is “Congratulations!”. They never waste time to let you know that you have been chosen, and they cannot wait to meet you. However, when it is a no, the letter starts with three lines of summarizing how wonderful you are, and how competitive the program is, and how they can only admit a small number of people. They paint such an image of helplessness that it will twist your heart, and make you feel guilty that you applied in the first place. On the second half of the fourth line, they will tell you a no (Although you are so good, we cannot admit you unfortunately). Why not cut the first three and a half sentences and just write their decision? After the fourth sentence comes five more sentences, wishing me all the best and thanking me for applying. So really, they wrote an entire nine lines without giving me any idea about why they just said no.

And I haven’t even mentioned the universities which never respond back. You know that you did not make it because they never reply back. They imitate life in a warzone, where there are no guarantees. With all my job hunting experiences over the years, I know that most places do not bother to inform you if their decision is no. And what’s wrong with this situation? Well, just because you did not qualify for this one does not mean that you will never be able to work in that school. Thirty years from now, you might be the dean of the same school. The point is, life is shorter than we think, and somehow, we go in circles, meeting the same people from the same network again and again. So even if someone thinks that you do not deserve the job, there is nothing wrong in being frank, and amicable about it.

Honesty is hard. Saying things for what they are on your face is harder. It is often easier to hide behind kind, clichéd words, that still mean the same thing. That you were not good enough. That the answer is a no.

sunshine