On Boredom

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“All men are bores except when we want them” …….Oliver Wendell Holmes (circa 1850)

Holmes classifies the word ‘bore’ as a ‘flash’ word. Flash word is not the same as slang or jargon. It is a well-known word used in a new context to pithily describe a ‘syndrome’ (viz. a set of concurrent things, as emotions or actions that usually form an identifiable pattern….Webster).

College students have ever been the casual inventors of flash words. During the last decade, ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ were two famous flash words: “He is cool”; “She is hot”. I used to pin down my students and ask them what they precisely meant by ‘cool’ and ‘hot’. They would hum and haw but they do seem to understand what they mean. Surprisingly, the two antonyms can mean the same thing: The same ‘guy’ and ‘doll’ could look ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ to another set of ‘dumb-heads’. Obviously the two words don’t refer to their body temperatures.

One criterion for a ‘flash’ word is that it should have just one syllable; college students are too lazy to be polysyllabic ‘weirdos’. Look out for synonyms (or antonyms) of ‘bore’. The word is just matchless and so survived a century and half.

I first met this word in my University days. Most teachers were bores. And most lectures were boring. So were most subjects. So were most ‘unfriends” (a brand new web-jargon used to describe people you have just dropped from your circle of ‘friends’).

I guess there are two sets of ‘professionals’ who are never bored. Their hobbies match their jobs and they are all-consuming.

Politicians: They may have their ups and downs, but they never give up. Other professionals may have an age-bar and retirement but not them. I am sure Vajpayeejee must still be enjoying if not playing his brand of politics. Kasu Brhmananada Reddy was a renowned CM of AP and later the HM at the Center. During these spells he was simply unapproachable to common men like Professors of IIT KGP. But my friend tells me that, in the interval, he met KBR waiting in the lounge of the Delhi Airport desolately all alone. The two shared tea and jokes. Politicians simply bide their time and are never bored.

Investors: I mean the small-time ones who play the stock-market as a compulsive hobby. They too may have their ups and downs but they are forever dreaming of their Big Swoop. There was a student at IIT KGP who was facing a Placement Interview with a Finance Company. He was not one of those charmers or achievers. After a lukewarm Q & A session on academics, he was asked about his hobbies. He replied he had only one: playing the stock market spending hours reading between the lines of the Daily Economic Times. He was asked jokingly how much money he made. He replied: ‘A cool 2.5 lakhs’. Everyone was taken aback, before he clarified he didn’t have a single penny to invest, but that didn’t prevent him from playing mental ‘games’ as if he did have the money. And he brought out his ‘portfolio’ and graphs of the swings of his ‘buys’ and ‘sells’ during the past month. He was grabbed then and there with a whopping salary.

Fortunately, I was never ‘bored’ during my life so far. My trick was simple: I was and am a loner. I have far too many interests to get bored. My University never had an Attendance Rule. So, I used to cut those classes which threatened to bore me. And IIT KGP never forced me to teach subjects which bored me. And, there was no Attendance Rule for Senate Meetings. Indeed most Directors preferred the Senate Attendance be as thin as they could manage.

And, at home, I resist going to movies, preferring to read their reviews. TV threatens to be a bore, but I got used to pay no attention to it. My son is a music-buff, but with some practice I learned how to survive it. Folks like me tend to be bores; but that is none of ‘my’ problems. My wife knows how to switch off!

Sorry if I bored you; but who asked you to read this?

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