Thursday, July 30, 2009

Misinterprentation of blinks

Many people used to think that when I blinked it meant 'no' which was the exact opposite of the convention that had been established in the hospital. Problem was that they will not tell me what I should do for 'yes'. I will stare for some time and they will wait till I blink and they will interpret the answer to their question to be 'no'. By the time Jaya comes into the room everything will be a mess. I will explain the whole story to her and she will clear the confusion.

A friend of mine used to say that if two people are understanding each other they are said to be 'connecting'. And what do you say when people are not 'connecting'? Connecticut, of course!

Visitors and I being 'connecticut' resulted in some unforeseen consequences. If the misunderstanding was not material, I will leave the error uncorrected thinking that it will be too tedious to correct it. This slightly distorted story will come back sometime later with a small mutation. Again I will let it go. This process will continue till I suddenly realise that the story had changed considerably from its original version but by now it will be too late to change it. The process was somewhat similar to what in military parlance is known as 'salami tactics'.

After several such incidents, I thought it prudent to rein in my 'loquaciousness' and decided to maintain the eye equivalent of the stiff upper lip in front of visitors who may not be familiar with my communication codes. There is a lot of truth in the old saying that "it is better to keep your mouth closed and have people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

2 comments:

  1. Kesu - i thought the code was 1 blink for 'yes' and 2 blinks for 'no', when you were at the hospital..

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