Jaane kya toone Kahi

Listening is an art that requires attention over talent, spirit over ego and others over self

Dean Jackson

When you earn your bread and butter (and some cheese too perhaps) through making sure that people can hear what you say, you are probably a comrade- in-arms: an ENT surgeon or an audiologist. Thanks to the new- fangled habit of ears sprouting ‘buds’ of all kinds (no, not the growing kind luckily, though the ear can be home to funny varieties of fungus thanks to it being a cool, calm, and peaceful cul-de-sac) the number of people who are actually or pretend to be hard of hearing is on the rise. If the S bend of the girls’ toilet can safely house a rather weepy ghost like Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter world, the external ear canal can house more than its fair share of baddies, including foreign bodies, wax, and the a forementioned fungus.

It is a rather a strange organ, the ear. Home to the smallest bone and the smallest skeletal muscle, situated deep inside a bone with little space for tricky maneuvers (usual story of the body), strange bony protuberances, snail like coils, a good bit of something resembling a bristle brush masquerading as a sense organ, and of course its proximity to the brain. By the time you get to grips with this convoluted anatomy, you can be forgiven for the strange lightheadedness you feel, sans the ‘happy juice’ that is. And thanks to all this paraphernalia packed away, it is sensationally responsible for two sensations: hearing and balance. So next time, you get the spins sans any reason, pay attention to the ear. It is entirely up to you to listen to what it says, whether you hear it or not.

And that, my friends, brings us to the difference between mere hearing and the finer art of hearing between the lines, called what else? Listening of course! Ask any much- married couple and the complaint of “He/She NEVER listens to me” is a universal one. Unfortunately, what was once the shield of an uncomplaining spouse against the frequent tirades of the other, the disease of not listening seems to be catching. And thus, you have this complaint of parent against child, child against parent, teacher against student, X against Y, a social malaise you can call it.

Blame it on most people ‘living in their heads,’ but an inability to listen is at the root of the deafening silence which often stretches between people who seem very well connected socially. A walk down the street is lonely, with only your air pods plugged into a podcast for company. Silence reigns where one was hailed by a dozen different people within the span of a hundred feet once upon a time, not so long ago.

The conundrum arising from such a fraught situation is that everyone often goes out of their way to be heard. And thus, we have several (and largely unsolicited) opinion pieces, vociferous and vituperative debates on every media channel you turn to and everyone under the sun lending a voice to the voiceless wearing the blissful cloak of mystery and anonymity on social media. Voices and hackles are raised and language becomes far riper than needed just so that one maybe listened to. There is ‘Janta ki Awaz’, ‘Voice of the People’, ‘Meri Awaz Suno’ and ‘The Nation wants to Know’ galore but nobody to listen to the uproar. Methinks the PM can save his breath because very few people are hearkening to his inner voice on ‘Man ki Baat’.

Only a few decades ago, people had not just developed but perfected the art of listening. A simple inflection or change of tone was enough for the discerning listener to correctly gauge the speaker’s feelings. Most people were men of few words for they knew that a few succinct sentences were suffice to convey the deepest feelings and the profoundest of thoughts. When someone said ‘Lend me your ears,’ people did so without a second thought and with a touching sincerity. Orators great and tall, or even the gossips large and small were listened to with devotion and the hidden meaning gleaned without obvious strain or effort. It was a pleasure to listen to the other’s view point, a display of class and good manners. People who inadvertently or purposely monopolized conversations largely fell into two categories: classless or politicians.

The importance of the ability to listen was generally honed by baby steps from childhood itself, when mothers listened to lisping baby-talk with such deep attention, that the child was automatically conferred with the security of ‘being heard’ by the people who mattered the most in its tiny world. And thus, the ability of listening was automatically inculcated. In fact, ‘companiable silence’ was as common back then as ‘unheard cacophony’ is in today’s world. The ability to listen well was perhaps slightly more prized than the ability to speak. It was perhaps because people valued the sanctity of silence so much that they had an almost innate ability to choose words carefully to convey deep meanings. True believers in ‘actions speaking louder than words,’ listening strangely was through the eyes and with the heart as much as through the ears. No one was so busy in the pursuit of busyness that they did not have the time to listen.

In today’s world, it is almost as if the machines have taken over the ‘listening-and thinking’ process. Lost in a haze of importance and artifice, most people are hearkening to their inner voice on WhatsApp, X and LinkedIn. Listening to an actual voice is a rare gift only to be bestowed on the great and the important. It is sometimes misused as sycophancy. You listen to your boss or your business partner with undivided attention, but the friend who talks on the phone for a minute more than necessary, or a family member, who repeats the same thing twice becomes a ‘bore’ who must be adroitly avoided the next time round.

That listening with deep attention can make a person feel valued and important is a medically acknowledged fact with enough research to show that it is one of the best and simplest ways to make a person feel appreciated. The ‘keep them talking’ rule in most suicide helplines is not a mere ploy to triangulate the location of the caller but also a proven way to make the victims feel wanted. Just the thought that someone out in the void takes the time to listen to their thoughts can help them off the ‘edge’ on which they are poised.

In a world largely centered more and more on itself, being a good listener is one of the easiest ways in which we can make a small difference. Besides, God forbid, what seems like the incessant babble of today may die away into the haunting silence of tomorrow, laced with nothing but regret for there will be no one to listen to us! So, the next time you get a chance to listen to anything, from bird-song, to a hesitant teenager’s idea to the oft repeated reminisces of a septuagenarian, hear with your ears, and listen with your heart for it can be the echo of the Divine.

Once we stop merely hearing and start listening, it can result in the unravelling of the knottiest of problems characterized in the song,

                              ‘Jaane kya toone kahi

                               Jaane kya maine suni

                               Baat kuch ban hi gayi!’