Chatterboxes

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"Brevity is the soul of wit"

...Polonius in Hamlet

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James Thurber recounts this advice he got from his sub-editor when he joined his first newspaper as a cub reporter:

"Write a paragraph describing the scene of action, its ambience, and crowds. Then three sentences about the action. Then a paragraph about your conclusions, morals, and expected consequences. Take a pair of sharp scissors, snip the first and last paragraphs, and submit the middle three sentences"

In our "Sankarabharanam" Telugu padyam-group a hundred or so poets write their 4-line verses and be done with the exercise for the day.

But there have been three or four well-read poets who write a long introduction and a long conclusion between which is buried their 4-line verse...they haven't heard of the "snipping" dictum Thurber got.

My genius PhD guide, SDM, used to write up his 15-page flowing paper within a day; and then take a fortnight writing its short Abstract.

The famous journal, Physical Review, had this advice to its authors:

"Abstract should be as brief as possible but not so brief that the reader has to read the entire paper in order to understand the Abstract" 

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I have heard many chatterboxes in my time who loved to talk for six or seven hours at a stretch.

But most of them have a "switch". 

Most interesting are people who are otherwise silent but talk talk talk when they are suitably drunk: alcohol is their switch.

Mark Twain wrote a hilarious piece titled: "Grandfather's Old Ram":

He was advised to meet one Jim Blain when he was "precisely" drunk to listen to his famous adventure with his grandfather's old ram.

After many unsuccessful attempts he was told one night that Jim Blain was "just so" drunk to commence his tall tale.

And Jim Blain starts with his grandfather's old ram and strays into all sorts of interesting side-stories till, after half an hour of that, he falls fast asleep snoring.

No one had ever succeeded in getting him talk about his adventure with his grandfather's blessed ram :)

In 1971 when I was living in our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP, I had a remote guest-family whom I placed in our Guest Suite. 

Wife was talkative but her hubby was as silent as a tomb.

That evening the hubby borrowed my pushbike and vanished. Wife was waiting anxiously for more than a couple of hours for his safe return in our village to which he was as stark a stranger as I am to New York.

At last he returned wobbling, to the blessed relief of us all, took his dinner, and dragged me by my hand into his bedroom.

Wife appeared briefly and whispered in my ear: "Don't believe his tall tales" and left for her bedroom.

The hubby talked the whole night on what turned out to be his intimate conjugal adventures.

Next noon when I met him I asked him where he vanished the previous evening on my pushbike:

"I went hunting for my daily dose of country liquor"

"Where did you find it?"

"Simple...kept going till I found a neem tree by the wayside hidden below a culvert, with three or four happy customers sitting and singing" 

I then remembered one such neem tree in Jhapetapur...I never knew :)

And then my eldest B-i-L, Shree G Ranga Rao, IAS. 

During our 50-year friendship, we must have been brought together one-on-one a dozen times at least.

For all I know, my face serves him as his switch. 

He talks hours upon hours unremittingly. All his talks are eminently entertaining, informative, interesting, and educative. But I myself being in the education line, the saturation point is reached rather quickly.

He had a standing invitation to our Qrs in the campus at IIT KGP. Occasion arose in 1995 January when he was to attend a Refresher Course in IIM, Calcutta, at its new Joka campus (then a remote village far from the center of Calcutta). He had of course up-and-down air travel and govt hospitality at the expense of us taxpayers :)

But he agreed to travel from Chennai to Calcutta by the Coromandel Express breaking his journey at Kharagpur for two days and two nights...provided I agreed to accompany him on the third morning to Calcutta and settle him at the Guest House of IIM.

Most welcome. 

But by the third morning I was a totally exhausted listener ; and after "placing" him at IIM and gorging a guest-lunch, I happily boarded a bus back to the Howrah station via the Esplanade. At the last minute, however, he decided to see me off at the Howrah Station. A compromise was reached that we would have Khejur Gud Rosagollas at the famous KC Das outlet in Esplanade, after which we part...he to Joka and I to Howrah (phew!)

And then there was this Chief Engineer (Retd) Shree Prasada Rao, a decade older to me, who found my face as his switch when we were renting in Khairatabad. 

A dozen times over a couple of dozen hours over three years he narrated to me his adventures in the Royal Bhutan Army, I standing on either leg by turns at the street-corner. 

As a recompense, he told my son once:

"Your father is a very LOVABLE man" :)

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2014/01/konga-japam.html?m=0

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Everyone says I am a strong silent man. I agree. For 11 months in a year, I hardly speak nowadays with anyone  in our Nile Valley Township.

And then, every December, arrives my young friend, Professor JK Sharma, from Agra.

And locates me sitting quietly on our lawn bench. He takes his seat by my side and switches me on with his charming smile.

And then I talk talk talk at random on all sorts of topics: physics, philosophy, jokes, anecdotes, poetry...for three or four hours till he gets up and goes home.

Same story next day...

I am his favorite jukebox :)

Here is what my student (now Professor at IIT Kanpur) wrote in my sixtieth birthday souvenir (among other things):

"...GPS talks a LOT. Whenever I went to his house, he would just give me a plate full of sweets to finish. While I am on my way of finishing those sweets GPS would keep talking. I used to enjoy each and every word of his. Once in a while he also used to give me a chance to speak. To be honest I used to prefer listening..."

...Anand Kr Jha

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/sweet-sixty.html?m=0

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