‘Silence is Golden’. Anything new in this? We’ve been told and we’ve been telling it to others ad nauseam. I have absolutely no intention of saying anything about an issue that is so widely known. For me, issue concerned is far more serious because of the effect it has, not only on us and others but our closest relationships.

Recently team India lost in the semi-finals of the cricket world cup. One person who got huge tongue lashing by our media was Virat Kohli. We didn’t even spare his lady love Anushka Sharma. But for a moment let us stop at the player, Virat Kohli. What would be happening in his mind? Would he be sad or happy? Would he be blaming himself for the defeat or the bowler or the empire? Does he need bashing or support? Now for one more moment let’s put ourself in this situation. How would we react in this situation? Chances are, we would be crest fallen. Chances are, we would be considering ourself responsible for the defeat. Chances are, we would avoid meeting our team mates for some time. Chances are, we would go back to our hotel room with only person allowed there being the girl friend or wife. Chances are, we would berate ourself in front of her. Chances are, we would tell her how we goofed up and how we let the team and the entire country down. Here ‘we’ is Virat Kohli, who’s an accomplished person in his field, extremely knowledgeable, speaking to Anushka who is a great actor but knows little about the game cricket. Imagine if she starts giving an opinion on everything Virat is saying. She may become a critic advising him what he could have done. That would add fuel to fire and Virat would get angry, more depressed and walk out of the discussion. There could be another stance. She connects with Virat, understands the agony and speaks in comforting, polite and concerned tone. Once again, the reaction may be unexpectedly wild. Virat may still feel and say, why are to telling me all this? As if I don’t know? Am I a child? Chances are that the discussion will get over on not so positive note. At a time when the guy is agonising, angry, frustrated, an expert, just dying to vent out his frustration, the best course of action may be complete inaction on our part. Just stay silent and listen. Talking should be done only by eyes, reflecting nothing but understanding and concern. Do I connect? Does it happen sometime with us? Have we been in either of this situation ourselves? How was our conduct in such circumstances?

In my opinion such situations come in our lives far more often than we can remember. In fact, we may not even realize it when we are in this situation. I’ll therefore give few more quick examples from different spheres of life. Recently again, one Dornier aircraft of Indian Navy crashed in the sea. Senior most officer on board, the pilot, managed to survive but two of his younger colleagues lost their lives. What would be his mental state? Officer in command, badly hurt physically, trauma of having seen his own death from very close quarters, failed his junior colleagues who trusted him completely and now feeling responsible for their death and asking God why was he allowed to live. In this situation he is brought to the hospital. Just after one day while he is still on the hospital bed, his own Commanding Officer comes to meet him and asks about the incident. Pilot was emotional and feeling guilty. He started pouring out his grief. But the boss, after some time starts telling the pilot what he should have done and what he shouldn’t have. Chances are that the pilot will clam up. He will just shut up and close the conversation. That moment CO should have just listened. Official debriefing would happen at an appropriate time. A silent listening would have done far more good at that moment. At the moment he is on the hospital bed and recuperating, both mentally and physically. At this time scratching a partially healed wound would only make it worse.

Let us now think of a mother whose school going son returns home very excited from the school. He has stood second in the class. He was all excited and was just dying to tell this to his mom and also how his class teacher called him in front of everybody in the class and complimented him. This was a big day for him. As soon as he told that he has stood second in the class his mother had just one question. Who came first and what was his percentage. The moment she asked the question, son was startled at this unexpected twist to the story. His excitement drained him. He replied in a slow and dull voice the name of the student who came first and went to keep his bag. That evening he didn’t go out to play and stayed with his books in his room. Don’t you think that at that moment if mother had patiently heard him, allowed all his excitement to come out, smiled at him, kissed him and hugged him without saying a word son would have been happy and motivated to come first the next time? If at all she had to know who came first she could have waited for the next day and encouraged her son to be at that position next time. Sometime, we just have to listen.

Recently a close friend called me on phone from a different city. He is a very knowledgeable and accomplished person in life. A grown up and well settled man. He got into some problem where he was wrong, was feeling guilty, sad and upset. I being in a different city and also because I was not connected with his field of work, was in no position to offer any advice or suggestion. In any case he himself was aware of the problem, error made by him and the solution. Once, only once, I suggested to him that he should do nothing now and allow events to unfold, everything will fall in place. There was a violent reaction from him. He immediately reacted by telling me he knew the same and the reason he had called me was to share his agony and not to get advice or sermons. He did not expect or desire a comment, solution, suggestion or even a pep talk. After this we barely managed few more minutes of forced conversation before he disconnected. At that moment his only objective was to pour out his agony in front of someone. When a person is so heated and angry anything that you give him in terms of advice, suggestion or opinion will only bounce off. There’s no possibility of it being absorbed. There may a different day and time and environment to do that. Sometime, we just need to give a patient hearing to the other person.

Few months back one of my very good friends called me up. He had a difficult day at work. He had been given a notice period of six months to quit the job. The news was completely unexpected. He was tense and upset. He called me up from the city he was working. Gave me the sad news and told me that he had enough savings to last him for quite a few months. Their living expenses were not very high and finances were not much of an issue. His biggest concern was not this or what the world would say. He was most worried about how would his wife react. I listened to him and just requested that he should call me next day to tell me about what happened. Next day, absolutely against my expectations when he called me he was very cheerful. I again allowed him to speak without interfering. He told me that his wife heard him patiently for about an hour without any interruption. Only thing she did was to take his hand in hers and pressed it gently. In the morning while having tea together she only said that whatever has to happen will happen and he should not blame himself for that. She shall be with him in thick and thin. Last week again I called him up to get an update. He sounded very cheerful. Support of his wife at that crucial time had filled him up high energy levels. He sought an appointment with the CEO after a week, spoke to him calmly and was able to get the notice withdrawn. He was once again his confident self, happy and was speaking very highly of his wife. Sometime, patient hearing can be a very powerful medicine.

The reason I decided to write on this issue is that I’ve been on both sides of the fence in life. I have seen that ‘just listening’ when required, gives disproportionately good results. I’ve also experienced first-hand both the situations, how speaking when the best course was patient listening, makes already tense situation even worse. Now I know who in my life is capable of listening and who will immediately become an expert and start tendering unsolicited advice. What is also very important to remember is that in this situation only the closest people are the actors in the drama. They may be spouses, close friends, close superiors or subordinates, favourite student and teacher, parents and children or any other relation like that. Whatever it may be, it is bound to be a close relationship. If a person wants to share his deepest agony and happiness with you then you are privileged, a fact that you must be conscious of. You are implicitly trusted by that person – and that’s a great responsibility too. It becomes our duty to honour that trust and faith and appreciate that privilege. And it is this relationship that gets impacted either way, depending on the way we respond.

My Little Thought Of Life in this context is that it is essential for us to be alert to a situation when someone very dear to us just wants us to listen and not give our opinion. By keeping quite we will strengthen the relationship far more than by speaking few words of either sympathy or advice, even if it is right. It should be left to be discussed some other day. And just in case we are the ones who need to blurt out, it may not be out of place to mention subtly to our dear one that today ‘just listen’, don’t interrupt.

With best wishes to my friends, dear ones and readers – sometimes, just listen.