Editorial»
Talk the talk
OCT 20 - To start with, I must admit that
I am a terrific conversational
ist. Everybody says so. My wife, my colleagues, my bank manager, my dentist, the barman at the club — everyone who talks while I listen.
This is not to boast about any special aptitude I might have, apart from making people feel I’m an easy person to talk with. By doing this I’ve helped to maintain a tradition, the origins of which are lost in the mists of prehistory when the first troglodyte threw away his club and, instead of clobbering the female on the head and hauling her off by the hair, asked if the lady’d like to come up and see his cave paintings sometime, thus putting into motion an invention more revolutionary than the wheel.
In the beginning was the word. Call it talk, discussion, discourse, confabulation, palaver, pi-jawing, or what you will. It was what made the sociable world go round. In fact the term “conversation” comes from a Latin word which means to keep turning.
Speech was the golden rule, not silence. The polished phrase was an embellishment to a good meal in much the same way as gleaming silverware or sparkling crystal, and the piquant anecdote added a dash of savour to the ritual of eating. Talk filled the long, lulling days of a leisurely age in which travel was a slow and tedious business, visits from afar few and far between and most of the entertainment available was what you provided by and for yourself.
In more recent times, the party circuit kept things buzzing. I remember the first such gathering I was invited to, in a right lather, wondering if my tie was matching my acne and clutching the invitation card lest sceptical flunkeys turn me away at the entrance as a gatecrasher. The other immaculately turned out guests seemed to me like exotically plumaged birds engaged in an elaborate courtship dance as they nodded and smiled and bowed and circled. And all the while words poured out of their mouths in an almost visible stream. I was reminded of those Sindhi salesmen who stand at one end of a counter and with a casual gesture send cascading at you a bolt of seductive silk or six yards of whispering chiffon. How on earth could people find so many things to say, I wondered, and hid myself behind a potted plant, waiting to ambush an unwary waiter carrying drinks. My host, however, spotted me and hauled me into the thick of it, saying I must meet everyone, that’s what parties were for. I’d always thought parties were for getting free food and drink, but wasn’t about to argue the point.
That evening, having talked to, or rather been talked to by, a French financier, a Bengali movie producer, an expressionistic dancer, and a man from Texas doing research in the 19th century Brahmo Samaj movement, I discovered I was not a bad hand at conversation. All that was expected of me was to look keenly enquiring, raise my eyebrows every now and then and say “Oh really,” or in the case of the Texan, “Gee whiz, no kidding?”, and the others did the rest.
Then some time ago, I noticed people weren’t talking much to me any more. This worried me. Perhaps I should switch my brand of deodorant, or change socks twice a day. Then I realised it wasn’t just me but everyone; it was a global phenomenon. People everywhere were engaging in meaningful dialogue, issuing manifestos, reviewing options, ventilating grievances, voicing aspirations, analysing alienation and articulating the thematics of the situation. People were talking at one another, but few were talking to, let alone with, each other.
It appears that the art of making pleasant small talk, like maharajas, sit-down dinners for 12, and Tagore’s Sahaj Path, is going out of fashion, having been declared elitist, wasteful and, that most cardinal of sins, socially irrelevant. Others who have noticed this blame the accelerated pace of the age and nominate TV as the chief villain of the piece.
In the rising tide of sound, sense is swept away; noise drowns out nuance. Little wonder then that people are becoming suspicious of verbal communication and are turning to other means by which to relate to each other, such as the transmitting and receiving of psychic “vibes” and the use of what is called “body language”. Though all this new, straight-from-the-shoulder form of expressing oneself is doubtless the “in” thing, it makes those diehards who still believe in saying it with words an endangered species. While all about people reiterate their positions, freak out to mind-blowing disco music, or vibrate with wordless intensity at each other, these outcasts hover beyond the fringe, hopefully waiting for someone to come and say something to them, even if it’s only to tell them an Internet joke.
They’re a sad lot, deserving pity. So do a good turn and the next time you see one, take a break from whatever it is you’re grooving to and go and say a word or two to the poor dumb creature. You have nothing to worry about. They are quite house-broken and don’t bite or make nuisances of themselves apart from being colossal bores. If you can’t think of anything else to say, tell a knock-knock joke, or quote the meteorological report, anything.
And just see how grateful I am.Posted on: 2003-10-19 11:00
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