On
stitching a conversation
Conversations
are like pieces of clothing. They have got to be stitched. And you have to know
the art of stitching a conversation to be able to do a good job of it.
I am
incapable of stitching a conversation. Howsoever hard I might try, I cannot
prolong a conversation. My son Anurag seems to have inherited this trait from
me.
A typical
conversation between the two of us proceeds thus. Let us say that I have called
Cleveland, USA where he lives these days. I say, ”Good morning, Gugoo”. Gugoo
is his pet name at home. He is punctilious in his reply, as he has been trained
to do. “Good morning, Daddy.” I say, ”How are you?” and he replies,” Very well,
thank you. How are all of you over there in Delhi?” I reply, ”We are all right
by the grace of God.”
Now here is
an opportunity to stitch the conversation by resorting to the ancient technique
of “Nikka chha bi varay?”(Is the young baby well?) to which he replies,”Ahaan bhi varay.”( Yes, he is ok.)And
he asks in his turn,” Tathya chha bhi varay?”( Is grandfather also well?)and I reply,”Ahaan
bhi varay.”( Yes he is ok.) And thus the conversation can limp along for a little while we
exhaust the lists of relatives on both sides.
One of us
can then switch on to the weather. I can
say, ”How is the weather over there? “ knowing full well that Cleveland is
always cold. It can be cold or very cold or very very cold or extremely cold,
but there are no major surprises in store. Similarly if he inquires about the
weather at Delhi, I can say warm, hot or very hot and humid, very humid or
very, very humid. Again this line of dialogue cannot proceed very far or yield
conversational gambits that can prolong the exchange of words to any reasonable
extent.
And,
therefore, these father-son dialogues have a propensity to falter and splutter,
till they subside into silence. There is a pause in the proceedings and if
there were only fathers and sons in this world, telephone conversations would
be marked by precision and brevity.
Fortunately,
there are mothers who jump into the fray and daughters-in-law on the other
side, with the result that the sinking ship of international tete a
tete is again set afloat.
I have often
wondered what techniques are applied by our womenfolk to prolong the exchange
of their interminable dialogues. I have quietly and patiently waited in the
periphery, applying my auditory nerve to the utmost to learn the technology of
verbal exchange.
Believe me, both
technology and techniques matter.
The first
method is the collection and dissemination of information. When women meet on a
social occasion or exchange notes about
it in a telephonic conversation, they
exchange a host of gossip about who has come and who has not come and why, who
is wearing what and whether it suits them and how much it costs. What is the
detailed agenda for the marriage or the funeral or whatever, who
is going to Hardwar and so on .If someone falls ill, they exchange nuggets of
information on what the doctors have
diagnosed and prescribed and forecast etcetra.
Believe me,
if you talk to five relatives of the deceased or divorced or diseased ,you are
bound to acquire a vast store of
information, surmise, guesswork, and pure malicious gossip.As you talk to more
people and divulge what you already know, you become the
confidant of further informants and your conversations become longer and
longer.
The second
major technique of prolonging and embellishing a conversational tapestry is the
sharing of expertise that you have acquired over the years. If you maintain
data on the birthdays—English, Kashmiri, official, private and so on, you can
be the first person in the world to wish
people a happy birthday. This gives you
a crushing lead, especially in these days of What’ s app when all the
congratulatory messages are laid out neatly typed along with the names of
senders and the time when the message was sent.
Then you can
acquire and maintain over the years the lists of panditjis who can come and do
puja and how much is the going rate for different ceremonies. If you have a
good memory you can memorise the days on which, after a death in the family,
clothes could be washed or when you can
visit relatives or resume eating of non-vegetarian stuff! We all know how voluminous is the batni puraan
that has been meticulously worked out by clever housewives in conspiracy with
cleverer gurujis. No one knows what the authority for such fatwas or rules is,
but they seem to have the sanctity normally accorded to veda vakyas.
So if you
are planning to beat your wife in the conversational marathon, forget about
it.She is already miles ahead of you and is programmed to win! Don’t even try!!!
