The art of good conversation

Being a good “talker” is something of an art, don’t you think?

For the first decade of my life, I was not much of a conversationalist – given that my mouth was mostly occupied by my thumb. When at last, with the help of the dentist and several dental aids, I kicked the thumb-sucking habit, I still kept my mouth shut for another few years because I didn’t want to expose the braces that I wore to straighten out my teeth!

Around the time I entered my teens, I was done with all that and I could finally join the ranks of those who spoke – but I found that I had very little to say.

I remained more or less tongue-tied for another decade, getting by passably in school and college and at work with the bare essentials and marvelling during social gatherings at the easy camaraderie and the half-insulting, half-affectionate chatter of friends and extended family while I struggled to think of something witty or winsome to say!

Sometime in my twenties, my vocal cords began to loosen up and I partied and picnicked and paved the way for lasting friendships – and then, midway, I was beguiled by a most interesting conversationalist and found myself a part of a large and voluble new family where everyone spoke at one time and no one (except me, possibly), listened.

It was entertaining. It was exciting. It was easy.

Hover on the sidelines

I didn’t have to do anything but hover on the sidelines and all events and relationships and everything under the sun was discussed to bare bones! There was an abundance of that same half-affectionate, half-insulting outpouring of words between siblings as childhood memories, in five different versions, were discussed with decreasing accuracy at increasing decibels.

It was truly beguiling – and I stepped into what I presumed would be the cacophony of holy matrimony.

For most of the year immediately after the plunge, I found myself on my own while the garrulous gent in olive green went off on courses and weapons trials and exercises and war games. I didn’t mind the solitude or the silence because I anticipated the wonderful conversations that were to come.

When, about a year down the line, the wandering soldier returned, I waited at the gate for what I was sure would be a torrent of words, descriptions of the places he had been to, the people he had met, the adventures he had had. Surely, with someone as loquacious as him, there would be at least half of The Odyssey to hear!

I waited in the garden…I waited at the door…I waited inside the house…

You get the idea, right?

His words dried up

I’ve been waiting for four decades – but somehow, somewhere, sometime in those months when he began to take the term “wife” for granted, his words dried up.

It took me decades to figure out that it was a “familial” syndrome and conversation only flourished as long as listeners didn’t belong to the family. Apparently, the minute I took on the family surname, I no longer mattered in the “conversation rating points” and now, I only get to eavesdrop on this expansive family’s conversations with outsiders.

Meet a stranger in the elevator in the UAE, bump into someone on a ferry in San Francisco, why, in these pandemic times of isolation, answer the doorbell and see the neighbour’s cousin inquiring about the whereabouts of the couple opposite our flat – and the floodgates open. Life histories are exchanged, experiences are enumerated, likes and dislikes are expounded upon and they are at their witty and friendly best!

And no, I haven’t resorted to silence. Rather, as if to compensate for those early years of not talking, I am now quite the chatterbox – even if I have only the echoes of my own voice to chatter with!

— Cheryl Rao is a writer based in India