Is it a cat or a dog in you??..

Margaret, a 70 years old lady stays with only members of her family, Tommy and kitty. Tommy is the name of her dog and kitty is the name of her cat. She loves them more than anything else.On one hand, she loves Tommy’s excitement, greetings offered to her on the door when she comes home anywhere from outside, and On the other hand, she likes searching for Kitty who is busy scratching one of the most expensive furniture kept in some room. Without taking it any further, think and answer “had you been at Margaret’s place, whom would you have loved more, Tommy or Kitty”? How many of you have a kitty (Cat) or a Tommy (Dog)? If you have both, have you observed the very few basic differences between them? While Tommy, the dog greets you with jubilation and great enthusiasm, Kitty, the cat remains at its place without giving you any attention, doing whatever it was doing even if you enter the house unless you reach that room. On seeing you, the dog starts wagging its tail and keeps on chasing you, whereas the cat wants you to come near to her and stroke her. If you are not around for a while, your Tommy gets restless and starts looking for you. But have you noticed that when you are not around, your Kitty is not this much bothered unless it’s too late? While your cat sleeps besides you when you are fast asleep, your dog goes to sleep only when you are wide awake. Does your Tommy ever stare at you and looks straight into your eyes, but I am sure your Kitty looks right into your eyes and will keep on staring at you until you take your eyes off. Of course there is a difference in their body language as well. While the dog’s head bobs while standing in front of its master, the cat stands straight and still in front of you. The chin of the dog is down when its master says anything and the cat’s chin is always up. This gives us an idea that while a dog is submissive, a cat is dominant. A dog considers its master as its God while the cat thinks that she deserves everything and she is the God for her master.
Any thoughts or guesses what could be the idea of telling these differences between a cat and a dog? Don’t you think this has a significant pertinence with facets of human personality? To be very clear, aren’t we sometimes doggish and cattish depending on circumstances? I suppose the answer is yes we do behave cattish and doggish in different situations. It will be easier to explain this with the help of some examples which are quite commonly seen.
Senior-junior: - In any set up, it has been observed that a senior always has an upper hand thus gives him a chance to behave like a cat towards his junior. The junior who is dependent on his senior in terms of trainings, feedback, taking decisions etc, in return shows doggish behaviour.
Child & the father:-We all know if a child has to buy a video game or any stuff to play with, will keep on pursuing his father until the father gets that stuff for him. Once the child gets it, he is so much engrossed in his video game that he doesn’t give any attention to his father’s constant screaming. So to get the stuff, the child shows doggish behaviour and once he gets whatever he wants, he becomes a cat.
Boss and the staff- A boss shows cattish behaviour toward his staff once the work is done but the staff often maintains the doggish behaviour towards his boss.
Marriage negotiation: - It’s not difficult to understand the situation of an Indian girl’s father who is negotiating with the boy’s father regarding anything to do with the marriage, be it dowry, venue, jewellery, guests etc. The girl’s father always keeps an approachable body language, speaks in a low tone, and tells anything with a request mode to avoid any sort of mistake which may hurdle the marriage of his daughter. Whereas the boy’s father maintains a stiff and strong body language unless he is pleased with the proposal and offer.
Sales executive and the customer:--A sales executive does all sorts of things to please the potential customer. He will chase you, will ask and take you for dinner/lunch, will never raise his voice, will bring you some or other gifts and will be in a mode of nonstop admiration for you, if you are the potential customer. While on other hand, you are always busy, keep on postponing the appointment and if you are irritated you tell him to leave or not to disturb you. Thus in the above situation, it heralds explicitly that the Sales person develops a doggish approach to please his customer while the customer becomes a cat.
Leader and public:-Before an election all the leaders behave doggish in front of the public, in terms of convincing public for their votes, visiting them and discussing about their problems, promising them for developmental works. Once they win, they behave as if they deserved it and no one could be better than them.
So there are different situations when we behave differently. However, there are certain circumstances when the ideal is to have a balanced approach rather than simply having a cattish behaviour or a doggish behaviour. This is possible if you get rid of “Cat & Dog” and tune yourself to “Cag & Dot “behaviour. For example, as an appraiser if you are evaluating somebody, you can’t be completely cattish or doggish in your behaviour. You are in a position where you have to appreciate the appraises achievements and remarkable performance. However you also need to tell his drawbacks and areas of improvement. Similarly an interviewee needs to tell the interviewer about his qualifications, relevant skills, and strengths and other good qualities. At the same time he needs to talk about his weaknesses and areas where he needs trainings and support. Thus it’s wise and advisable to follow a balanced behaviour in such settings. Nevertheless keep thinking about yourself, is your behaviour often Cattish or Doggish and more importantly what you aspire to be?

Storytelling-The Teller & the told

Stories , we make up, we read, we listen to, we tell, we write whatever it is the best part is that we all enjoy doing any of the above.
We all have some or the other stories to share with which we have heard from our grandparents/parents in our childhood. There are different ways of storytelling. Some people make use of louder expressions and gestures to make it more appealing and novel. Some mention each and every small detail and while some try to keep it as succinct & brief as possible. Earlier the typical method of storytelling used to be orally with gestures and expressions. But the modern ways of storytelling involve a lot of accessories like pictures, wooden blocks, videos, audios, etc in order to make them more attractive and easily comprehensible. Story telling is an art and a skill which is not everyone’s cup of tea. The storyteller needs to have few qualities to make the story touching, emphatic and remarkable.
Ø Expressive – It’s very important to be expressive for a story teller. Appropriate use of gestures, different & vivid expressions (sadness, happiness, thrill, fearful, anger etc) and body language attain the attention of the listener. It keeps the listener wide awake and at pace as the story moves on.
Ø Contextual/pertinent- Adding spice to the story is good but it should be pertinent. It shouldn’t be fake and artificial. Telling irrelevant things might kill inquisitiveness and generate insipidity amongst listeners.
Ø Elucidation – The teller’s ability to elucidate on significant characters /incidents of the story fosters imagination and association on the part of the listeners. So the story teller should be in a position to explain doubts clearly and solve listener’s queries.
Ø Language & Speech–It doesn’t matter what language you tell the story in as long as your crowd speak & understand the same language. Whatever it is, be it English, Hindi, French, what matters is your ability to maintain a flow with a coherent speech. In order to maintain the flow the storyteller needs to have proper understanding and good knowledge of that language. The listener’s involvement, imagination, attention goes along with your flow and a clear speech. If any of these gets disrupted, that heralds the interruption of listener’s interest and enthusiasm in the story.
Ø Voice modulation- Having well acquainted with a language is not enough, the story teller must have the ability to modulate his/her voice. This does help a lot when the teller has to emphasise on a daunting moment, a hilarious moment, a miserable situation or a very jubilant situation. It enables him/her to communicate effectively with the listeners.
Ø Creative- Creativity is an important part of storytelling. It can be seen in different ways like, keeping the mystery unrevealed till the story ends, use of different props ( videos, audios, pictures, etc,) use of ornamental language, taking volunteers from the group of listeners and make it interactive etc. The more you add creativity the more you can make the story interesting to the listeners.
Ø Truthfulness and sincerity. Most importantly the story teller should tell the story justly and sincerely. Creating fake excitement, unrequited sound effects, excessive use of accessories may spoil the fun on the whole. So important is to be your real self as far as possible.
Impact of storytelling:
Ø Listening ability-Since you need to be alert and concentrated while someone is telling you a story, so it helps to improve your listening skills.
Ø Language development-While listening to a story you get to hear many novel words, sentences, relation between two sentences/words etc. It helps you to improve your language.
Ø Imagination- You not only listen to the story rather you start interpreting and thinking and visualising about different characters and incidents involved in the story. You also start speculating about the end /repercussion of a particular act in the story. Thus it improves your ability to imagine and visualise.
Ø Cognitive development- Since you start finding the meaning and interpretations of different things which are a part of the story, it enhances your cognitive ability.
Ø Behavioural impact- Any story has a great impact on your thoughts and feelings. It has been believed that oral storytelling has a considerable role to play in fostering emotional and social development amongst children.
Ø Awareness- Children are exposed to different characters, places, incidents, emotions, situations while they are told a story. It helps in their overall awareness.
Ø Association- While listening to stories, listener starts associating with a particular character. This gives him a chance to experience the emotions of that character and also ability to cope with an emotional situation.
The storytelling is being used more as educational methodology. In healthcare story telling is used as a tool to develop confidence amongst stressed and depressed people. It can also be used to inform the media about the service changes on various levels. It is also being used in organisational settings to create brand identity and to promote staff and customer loyalty.
Thus storytelling doesn’t happen in pedagogical setup only but its use is vast and diverse.