Language woes

"But you speak good Marathi..." is something I hear a lot. You see, because of my rather North Indian sounding name people somehow don't expect me to speak the language of the state where I was born, raised, studied and am now working. It is only when I explain the born and raised part does their confusion seem to ease away a bit. 

However, it not being my mother tongue, I lack the fluency and the vocabulary that a native Marathi speaker possesses. I get mixed up in the tenses and genders. (But hey, that is something a Marathi speaker does to Hindi as well)  Somehow, despite my best efforts, this deficiency does get exposed during every Marathi conversation that I have, forcing the speaker to switch to Hindi or English. Honestly, that hurts just a little bit. But I have no problems in accepting that my Marathi is constrained, and that I am working on it.

So what about my mother tongue? Once again, I am almost there but not quite. I can neither read nor write Punjabi. I can understand it very well. I can even speak it, but here's where things get bizarre. I don't speak Punjabi at home. Well, for the most part anyways. When I was a little kid, my parents in a stroke of genius decided that they would teach me Hindi so that I'd pick up the language and thus have no problems in  "talking to people outside the family" (their explanation). Suffice to say that while my parents succeeded in their plans, with so much Punjabi being spoken around the house I picked it up too. Unfortunately, since I don't get to speak it much, any half decent Punjabi speaker identifies the rustiness in my speaking and quickly switches to Hindi or English. A complete fail here as well.

Then I must be good at Hindi, no? I used to live under the same impression. But the two years (and beautiful ones at that!) I spent in the Hindi heartland of the country taught me that what I thought was Hindi, was in fact Bambaiya, which is Hindi of unsure genders and tenses, along with a spattering of Marathi wherever applicable. I can still see the bewildered looks on people's faces whenever I called an amrood a peru, got confused between a kakdi and a kheera or between halwa and sheera and so forth, whenever I announced main jaata hai or told an elder aap chalo/aao/khao etc. No luck here either.

So this brings us to English, the language of the queen, the medium of instruction (officially at least) at all my places of learning. One would expect me to be good at it. But my cup of woe still overfloweth. My school was dominated by Hindi, nay, Bambaiya, college was a Marathi bastion and Kanpur, as we know, is a chaste Hindi speaking area. So whatever English I know, I have learned from books, newspapers, movies and television. While this means that I possess a decent enough vocabulary, the 'text to speech' interface is still pretty primitive and I can still be found fishing for words in a conversation with someone who speaks the language more fluently than I do. Being able to think in English and speak it are two different things altogether you see.

So there we have it. Gaping flaws in all the four languages I claim as my own. I do not know if and when the day will ever come when I will be able to confidently communicate in either of them. If it doesn't, maybe I'll  invent a language of my own.

How to survive office meetings

If you're a young professional (comme moi) and have recently joined the ranks of the employed, chances are that you've been involved in one or more 'meetings' at your workplace. Now meetings come in all shapes and sizes but I am talking about the ones where you don't know jack about whatever it is that's going on, but are expected to participate nonetheless since your post graduate course had a subject that contained a fleeting reference to the topic which is to be discussed at the meeting, the same one you never paid any serious attention to out of sheer laziness. Sound familiar?

If so, fear not...you're not alone. Here are some pointers which will not just help you survive this atrocity, but may even allow you to leave the conference room with your head held high. But before we do that, let's quickly brush up on our basics.

The People

1. The Meeter: Usually your superior/boss, s/he is the one responsible for bringing you to the meeting. S/he is not responsible for getting you out though.

2. The Meetee: It could be a client who's paying you, or someone you are paying to get some work done,  either ways, the basic principle remains the same i.e the meeters are a bunch of idiots.

3. You

The Location

Like football matches, meetings can be held at home or away. In this case, home means your place of work and away usually means the meetees' place of work. Meetings at neutral venues too are possible, but rarely heard of (meaning, the author has not experienced them so far). Also like football matches, home advantage is always preferred.

Things to carry

A pen/pencil, something to write (a notebook or a few pieces of paper), your business card and your wits.

All right then, now that we know the basics, lets move on to the advanced levels. Since the whole point of this exercise is to project your inherent knowledge/intelligence over and above its true value, pay careful attention to the following points.

1. Walk the talk: Walk into the meeting like you own the place. If the meeting is in your own office, quickly grab the farthest available seating place from the meetees. If you're on an away mission, do the same. Just remember to ask permission before plonking your butt down.

Why this works: Walking in with confidence shows that you are, well, confident. This is especially required in cases where you're not confident. Asking permission from the hosts signifies that you're cautious and know your limitations. Also note the subtle exploitation of home advantage.

2. Card Swap: Once all the participants are in and have settled down (usually marked by a 1 degree rise in room temperature) start exchanging business cards. After the cards have been exchanged, spend a couple of minutes familiarising yourself with the names, designations and qualifications of the meetees. 

Why this works: Initiating information exchange is always good. It show the meetees that you're not intimidated by them, and it shows your bosses that you can hold your own in an alien situation. This will also give you an idea of the hierarchy amongst the meetees.

3. Flow with it: During any meeting, digressing from the topic is as common as the common cold. It is bound to happen. When it does, do not try to bring the discussion back to the original topic. Let it sway as far off course as possible. Take a few swings yourself if you're comfortable with the pseudo-topic. Try and bring up one if you're not. If you can't do anything, pretend to agree with the dominant party.

Why this works: After the meeting, no one can complain that you didn't speak much. This gives you a chance to show that you're well versed in topics other than work and also hides the fact that you didn't know much about the original topic.

4. Silence is golden: Body language plays an important part in all meetings. While we've already discussed the significance of a confident entry at the onset, the following table gives you a guide on how best to use non-verbal communication.

If	You
Your boss cracks a joke	Laugh heartily
The meetee cracks a joke	Copy your boss' reaction
Your boss is answering a question	Stare blankly into space and occassionally scribble something (this will make it seem like you're thinking)
You have to answer a question	Tell them whatever you know (Do not fudge. If you don't know anything, say so)
The meetees are being criticized	Pretend to agree with your boss
Your boss is being criticized	Let him have it, lest the critique starts flowing your way
You're being criticized	Accept it. Take copious notes and if at all you have something to say, wait for the daggers to stop flying

5.Improvise: Despite all the worldly wisdom the author has gained over the course of several meetings, it is possible that the situation you find yourself in is not covered in the above treatise. In such cases, the only thing that works is improvisation. Just remember two things:
A. Do not make the people who're paying you look bad.
B. Do not use more than half of your lying prowess. There is a high chance that these lies will come back and bite you in the posterior, so smaller the better.

So that's it! Five simple points (and a few sub-points) to make the first steps in your professional life a little bit easier. I'm sure you realize that compiling this guide has been a pain staking process, and it needs to be updated constantly. So, send only your positive feedback to me as I love hearing good things from you :)

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk. The author shall not be held responsible for any embarrassments that might arise due to the use of this guide.