ENCOUNTER

ENCOUNTER

The word ‘encounter’ has come to be somewhat misunderstood in India. Yes, it is wrongly conceived of as a trick by the police administration as a strategy to wipe out hard core criminals and systematic offenders who indulge in house-breaking, robbery, highway crimes and so on. But, in its native formulation, ‘encounter’ means something of a different nature or purpose.

Let us consider what standard dictionaries have to say of the term for its meaning / application. 

VERB [encounter]

If you encounter someone, you meet them, usually unexpectedly.

[Formal ]

Did you encounter anyone in the building? [VERB noun] 

Renata wrote him that she had encountered her long-estranged father. [VERB noun] 

 [Can we presume that she had ‘killed’ her estranged father? Since the term ‘encounter’ is used in the context of police personnel eliminating anti-social elements]. In its native form ‘encounter’ does not imply ‘killing’.

 COUNTABLE NOUN

An encounter with someone is a meeting with them, particularly one that is unexpected or significant.

...offering supporters the chance to win an encounter with the President in return for any size of donation. [+

Synonyms

experience , meet, face, suffer,  have, go through, sustain, endure, undergo, run into, live through.          In any case, all these terms signify our ‘getting on with something and not ‘getting rid’ of something.

 

Coming to the encounters that we know of, some interesting patterns emerge. As we pass through the

Road, we encounter street vendors selling vegetables, greens and fruits from nearby fields. So to say all these are agricultural produce of local cultivation. Since it is dusk, people returning from work find it convenient to buy the fresh items near home and complete the requirement. For each unit of an item, the vendor demands a certain price [Say Rs 5 /- per bunch of greens]. We start quoting imaginary ideas of the same item marketed at Rs 3/- elsewhere. The poor vendor pleads that he cannot afford any lower pricing. We try to encounter by asking him to add some more green for the same price of Rs 5/- apiece. The vendor, unable to forego sale of the item adds a little more to the bunch and parts with it for Rs 5/-. We feel triumphant having gathered a little more than what the vendor offered initially. We presume to have a gain from bargain.

On another occasion, we visit a supermarket or a shop run by MNC of a popular brand. Having picked up a few items from the shelf, our attention turns to vegetables; there too we collect a few items including a bunch of greens. At the billing point, we patiently wait for the queue to clear. On our turn the billing happens as per the price tag notified by the firm. We neither seek to lower the price nor seek adding of greens to the bunch though the item is priced at Rs7/- a bunch. In this encounter, we neither bargain nor gain anything. We simply abide by the pricing, however unreasonable it may be.  We choose to fight with a native vendor but never with an organized sector like MNC. Obviously, we have yardsticks -differing for different traders. This is how we encounter trade in different places.

Prof. K. Raman