Hear One Hear All
by P.S

Let’s say you’re watching a film. It is the same old climactic ending of the Indian popular cinema. The hero breaks the shackles he’s in to rescue his heroine, probably being held captive by the villain. Or because it’s 2017, she’s running alongside the hero. Together they will save the world! You’re at the edge of your seat. Will they do it? Will they make it alive? Will they?

Come on! You already know the answer to that. Yet, you feel edgy, hold your breath and feel. Your heart beats in sync with the hero’s. You experience what he does. At least, what you think he's experiencing. Now that’s what Bharata Muni, centuries ago, called sadharanikaran. The moment of climax, when the audience feels exactly what the actor does. This is what I’d like to believe–is successful communication.

For years and centuries, the study of communication as we understand today has been an integral part of arts and aesthetics. There are multiple modern theories of communication that were established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But what is the common underlying current to all of them? It is the fact that they’re all from the West, or Eurocentric as some call it. Some well-meaning researchers took it upon themselves to study these theories and look for alternative ones.

Primarily, they all established that some theories from the West were linear in nature and failed to acknowledge the culture they have emerged from. Since the globalisation process was underway in the earlier part of the 20th century, the West began, in some sense, to lead the rest of the world in most academic pursuits–even in the study of communication. Theoreticians claimed that some Western communication processes did not apply to the East as the cultural systems that operated here were different. This was the point where they realised that communication cannot be studied without the context, or the culture in which the process takes place.

According to some academicians, the East does not view communication as a linear process from sender to receiver as it is generally understood today. It is a more intrinsic and inherent process within most Eastern cultures.

Let’s take the example of Indian popular cinema again. India is known for its random song sequences within its films, where the entire cast and crew breaks into song and dance. While the West finds it illogical and amusing, comic–even. Song and dance has always been a part of performances in the south-asian region. Ancient practices of theatre had actors who would sing, dance and narrate, all in one show. No wonder, whether it’s the Khans shaking a leg or the leading ladies swaying gracefully, the Indian audience laps it all up enthusiastically.

Coming back to what Bharata Muni said about sadharanikaran– he claimed it was a state of achievement, or a point of convergence, where the communicators, or sahrudayas reach a common understanding, (sahrudayata) through a set of shared beliefs, customs and gestures.

The key difference, I think lies in the hierarchy that exists within the Western linear models of communication, where the sender is more in control of the message than the receiver. While in the concept of sadharanikaran , there is no hierarchy or a separation of the variables into sender, receiver and message.

No matter what the dominant communication model we follow today, we’ll still be sahrudayas in tearing up when the on-screen, prodigal son says–“Mere Paas Ma hai”.