The woods would be very silent, if …

What kind of sights and sounds the word “woods” bring to your mind? Have you ever been into any woods either trekking or following a trail? What kind of experiences, await you in the woods? Well I am not talking about my two cents about a latest RGV’s movie. Anyone starting to read this passage thinking of this as a commentary of the (in) famous directors’ works or about the more recent work of his, you can stop reading this now . I have not seen the new horror genre movie of RGV, hence can’t comment on same. By the by, I am no film expert although I do have some passing knowledge about movies and I intend up movies only if there is strong connection with learning and development related concepts.

Back to the topic of what images come to your mind, by mere mention of woods? Tall trees forming canopy, thick green/brown foliage depending upon the season and singing/chirping birds will be definitely part of the expectation. Coming to think of it, the sounds are as important as the sights that await you deep inside woods. Sounds are made by mostly the birds and it is quite difficult to imagine woods without any sounds, is n’t it?

While this post is not about environment awareness, given the connection I should mention about “Silent Spring” a book written in 1962 by Haughton Mifflin – which poses the question “How does it feel to have one fine Spring morning when there are no birds left to sing”? This book helped raise lot of awareness about the harm caused by many Pesticides such as DDT as arguably it killed and eliminated many bird species. Due to the debate raised by this legendary book, many harmful pesticides like DDT have been even banned in the western world from further use.

What I am talking here is very different topic. At wood do you only hear the best singing birds such as a Cuckoo alone sing (or) do you hear many other birds joining the singing/chirping act? Henry Van Dyke, a well noted American author, educator of 20th Century once observed that “Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” So it is very important on part of every one of us whatever talent we have without worrying about whether it is really the best or not. Unless we try out, how the talent will improve further?

Let’s not have silent woods, classrooms or even for that matter this very Campus Arena Forum itself. Whether you consider yourself to be really good in expressing yourself (or) only beginning to get a hang of expressing yourself, you are equally welcome at Wipro arena.

Jagan Mantha (a.k.a J2M)

Technical Manager, Talent Transformation