Miss Interrupted (Again!)

After the tea break, Aprana headed back to her cabin to resume her work, where luckily she was not interrupted for a few more hours. Her hunger announced to her that it was time for lunch.

She sauntered out to her friend’s cabin to meet her late in the afternoon. The friend Anisha was a lively and ‘worldly wise’ girl and good at heart. Aprana and Anisha were good aquaintances and enjoyed each others company. Anisha had wanted some jewelry, which was typical to Aprana’s hometown. When she was shown the jewelry, Anisha did not really like them and when Aprana offered to exchange it in her next trip, Anisha quickly added that she would take it as Aprana had gone out of her way to bring it for her. Everytime Aprana tried to put in a sentence that it did not really matter, that she could get it easily exchanged, Anisha interrupted her and infact passed on to the next issue. Aprana wanted to shout “LISTEN! ITS NO BIG DEAL!” but didnt get the chance!! Why can’t people listen!!!

As Aprana was heading back to her cabin a quick meeting was called by her boss to brief them on their upcoming project. After an hour of ‘details-sharing’, no one was any the wiser about the project. The whole project was ambiguous and the parameters kept changing every so often that no one involved was really convinced what was wanted of them, plus the project was a long term one so even if they all had questions / points to clarify, no one was willing to get through with it. With that, another day came to a close and Aprana was grateful for that.

There were so many unanswered questions and half spoken sentences, she felt she was actually carrying a burden. It was indeed a ‘point to ponder’ why it is so important to be ‘heard’. In this fast world, nobody ever has the time to listen to the other person. Even in intimate relationships, like mother-child, husband-wife, teacher-taught, siblings, there is very limited listening taking place. A person has to literally ’shriek’ to be heard. Each is so engrossed in his/her life that they do not observe the state the other person may be. They just finish their ’conversation’ as if the other person is transparent or something. Especially people like Aprana, who are good listeners by nature, suffer the most because they are the last to be heard. She was grateful to come home and have her cup of evening tea.

When she reached home, her cat ‘puss in boots’ was fast asleep on the sofa! He was blissfully unaware of her coming, but Aprana was not about to be put off by this. She shook him awake, fed him his saucerful of milk and started narrating all the day’s happenings to him. Afterall he can never interrupt her!