by Thousands of festivalgoers. One volunteer confidently gesturing a complex, entirely self-invented signal language. Zero other volunteers who have any idea what any of it actually means.
KOLKATA – A volunteer coordinating crowd flow during one of the city’s major annual festival celebrations reportedly developed an elaborate, genuinely detailed personal hand signal system intended to direct fellow volunteers and festival attendees through the densely packed pandal grounds, a system he maintains is “working perfectly,” despite the fact that, by his own eventual admission, not a single other volunteer on his team has ever actually been formally taught what any of the specific gestures mean.
“There is a signal for ‘move this direction,’ a separate signal for ‘move this direction but urgently,’ and a third, considerably more subtle signal for ‘move this direction but only if genuinely necessary,’” the volunteer explained, demonstrating each gesture with visible pride and precision. “I have used this system for three festival seasons now. I genuinely believe it works. The crowds do, generally, eventually move in roughly the direction I am attempting to indicate.”
Fellow volunteers, interviewed separately, confirmed they have never received any formal training on the specific signal system and generally interpret his gestures “based purely on general context and vague intuition rather than any actual, shared understanding of what he is specifically trying to communicate,” a coordination method one fellow volunteer described as “somehow still functional, mostly through sheer accumulated experience working alongside him rather than any genuine comprehension of the actual signals themselves.”
The volunteer coordinator overseeing the broader festival security and crowd management operation acknowledged being unaware that this particular volunteer had developed his own independent signal system at all, noting that “our actual official protocol involves considerably simpler verbal communication over radio,” a protocol the volunteer confirmed he is technically aware of but has “largely replaced with my own system, which I have found considerably more effective in situations where the crowd noise makes verbal communication genuinely difficult.”
Attendees moving through the festival grounds report generally successful navigation despite, or perhaps entirely independent of, the volunteer’s specific gestures, with several noting they simply “followed the general flow of the crowd” rather than consciously interpreting any individual volunteer’s hand movements, a pattern that raises genuine, if largely academic, questions about how much actual crowd management the elaborate signal system is contributing relative to simple crowd momentum doing most of the actual work.
The volunteer, informed that his system may not be functioning quite as precisely as he believes, remained entirely unmoved in his own assessment. “The crowds move where I want them to move,” he said. “Whether that is because of my signals specifically or simply because that is the direction the crowd was already generally heading, I genuinely cannot say with certainty. I choose to believe it is my signals.”
Festival organizers, informed of the situation for this piece, expressed genuine appreciation for the volunteer’s three years of dedicated service while gently noting that a more formal, shared training session for the signal system, “assuming it does actually get adopted more broadly next year,” might meaningfully improve overall crowd coordination beyond whatever benefit his solo efforts currently provide.
The volunteer, informed of the organizers’ suggestion, expressed cautious openness to teaching the system to others next season, though he noted, with visible reluctance, that “some of the more advanced signals took me genuinely years to refine properly, and I am not certain they can be taught in a single training session the way they suggested.”
This reporter, watching him direct crowds for a final hour before filing this piece, observed the festival grounds continue functioning smoothly, thousands of attendees moving steadily through the pandal, entirely unaware that a single volunteer nearby believed himself to be the primary force guiding their collective, largely self-directed momentum.
As the evening crowds finally began to thin, the volunteer offered one last gesture toward this reporter, a specific two-handed motion he confirmed simply meant “safe travels home,” a signal that, for once, required no interpretation at all.
This reporter walked away understanding it perfectly, the first and only signal of the entire evening that landed exactly as intended, on the very first attempt.
Every other signal that came before it, this reporter can only assume, landed exactly as intended too, at least according to the one person actually sending them.
Next year’s festival, the volunteer confirms, will bring the exact same system back, refined slightly, understood by no one but himself, and, by his own account, working just as perfectly as ever.
The crowd, once again, will presumably find its own way through regardless.
It generally does.
And so, once more, will next year’s.
Some systems, however privately understood, simply keep working regardless of whether anyone else ever learns to read them.
This one, by every account, always has.
The festival, once again, closed out safely, thousands of attendees having found their own way through, one way or another.
The volunteer, packing away his gear for the night, seemed entirely satisfied with that outcome, regardless of exactly how it was actually achieved.
For related commentary on individual confidence functioning entirely independent of any actual shared understanding, see News Satire Websites and Satirical News, plus further reading at Satire Examples.
Additional coverage at What Is Satire?. More satire at Reductress.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
