To Talk or not to Talk

====================================================

I said so much over this weekend that I have nothing to say tonight.

But that hardly matters.

Bloggers Anthem sings:

"You may have nothing to say
Still you can say it here"

*********************************************************************************************

'Talk' is a noun that digests almost any adjective thrown at it:

"Small Talk, Tall Talk, Loose Talk, Smooth Talk....."

And a good many nouns too:

"Table Talk, Sales Talk, Pulpit Talk, Shop Talk..."

********************************************************************************************

Our most pro-active PM, Indira Gandhi, is said to have always regretted that she was no good at Small Talk.

But her actions spoke volumes to one and all:

She outwitted the old Congress Syndicate who installed her as a stop-gap PM thinking that she is just a ghoonghi gudia (dumb doll); split the Century-Old Congress, gave a bloody nose to the ever-high Yahya Khan who was sent packing, imposed an Emergency jailing one and all who she thought was her rival, ordered Operation Blue Star against the Holiest of the Holies...the Akal Takht.. that gave her a Pyrrhic Victory and led to her pathetic assassination by her own security- body-guards; and her last Talk was the astonished:

"Tum eh kya kar rahe ho!" (Hey, what are you guys doing!)"

An amazingly dare-devil procession of decisive acts which her scholar-father was never capable of...but he could Talk...small and BIG.

************************************************************************************************

Of all the PMs I heard, I love the Talking Style of our beloved and badly missed Poet-Swayamsevak Ataljee.

Whenever he came on the TV screen I sat glued to it. His pauses were lengthier than his speeches, but I had my private guessing game:

"What is the next good word?".

I always lost...his talks were full of surprises...he was truly our Hamlet PM: his perpetual quandary as PM was:

"To talk or not to talk...."

And as PM his achievement was mostly negative: to keep his flock together and stick to his seat...and who were the hottest potatoes of his flock (to mix metaphors)?: Didi and that Sanyasini!!!; and of course to regain with enormous cost to men, money, equipment and honor what he lost to that wily Commando; with whom he later wanted a love affair @ Taj (spoiled by another hot potato: the maroon-bindi 'Self-Rule')

******************************************************************************************************

The Taker to whom I was a great target was my Guru SDM.

It is like this: When our 'work' was going on (for 3 years) he rarely talked about anything other than a few crucial sentences needed to guide me.

But after he gave me the green signal to write my thesis, he used to invite me to his Qrs every weekend afternoons at 2 PM to 'review' the progress of the thesis; which never happened.

But from 2 PM to 9 PM he was incessantly talking (with a 10-minute loochi-break) on successive weekends for 6 months.

I never saw anyone talk like that. Initially I was all ears thinking that he would ask a question: "What is your opinion?"; but it never happened..and so later I used to relax and let my mind 'wanderlust'.

It didn't bother him.

At 9 PM he would 'seem' to be apologetic, almost as if to say that he would be serious and 'look into' my Thesis next weekend. But it was always a Repeat Telecast as Dalia said charmingly.

Don't ask me what all he talked...neither I nor he did care...

**********************************************************************************************

Coming to myself, Aniket calls me a chatter-box; you too would agree.

Our Don says poetically: "Jaa Taa , Ehtaa-Shehta"

And they are about 10% right.

Ask any of my relatives and they will say I am silent as a tomb and they have to egg me on to say something in between so they won't feel guilty of collaring the 'conversation'.

But I am a Male Indira Gandhi in my actions; with almost the same 'surprised' end...

The truth is that if anyone in my company is willing to talk, I take rest.

But if there are embarrassing silences that I dislike much, then I would talk non-stop...

Aniket said that once upon a time he was an inveterate Talker, but fell silent after a prolonged throat infection; and is yet to recover...

I can believe it because it is said that if you go on a vow of silence for 12 years (I never knew what is so great of this non-Baker's dozen that keeps popping up), you won't be able to talk again. I guess it is simply a matter of 'good habit...why bother?'

So, if Aniket visits my home and sits down and I expect him to talk first...that is never going to happen...like Alice in Wonderland: "Never speak unless you are spoken to, and curtsy while thinking what to speak.." (rough quote).

So I have got to talk.

***********************************************************************************************

When I am forced to talk, I talk about myself...a safe subject since I am an authority on it.

That also lets the audience feel at ease; and they would then be eager to talk about themselves...and then you take it easy...

In Faculty Meetings, my policy was not to talk at first. There are always many who are eager to talk and strongly express their views. Let them have their lengthy say. Surprisingly all they want is a chance of a 'fiery talk'. After everyone have had their say and all are getting bored and want to quit, I get up and speak out my opinion (if I had one) or the HoD's opinion, if I was coached about it beforehand with a quid pro quo {;-}.

Generally it gets passed...

There is one colleague who has an apparently halting speech...he is the Pseudo-Vajpayee of the Dept. He appears (on intention I believe) that he is 'dumb'. But the next long-awaited word would be a bomb-shell (unlike Vajpayeejee's damp squib).

******************************************************************************************

Like students have a wrong opinion of my 'talk-ability', they also have about my 'persona'.

After two semesters of Lab and two of Lecture at the end of each he used to follow me to my Office to 'discuss' Physics, and co-authoring with me an 'internationally renowned' book published by Addison-Wesley-Longmans, Saswat writes:

"...We always thought of you as a quite serious person when you taught us. Great to see all this fun element in your blogs..."

Which simply means that we all wear our face-masks quite effectively.

We too had such illusions about our Teachers at our AU till we became highly-paid Research Scholars and active members of the erstwhile loss-making Faculty Club at our AU.

Thereafter it was a frantic fight between 'us' and 'them' as to who will hog the glossy 'Men Only' Magazine (how come-ly its center-spreads were!).

Moral: "No man may be an island, but all of us are icebergs"

===================================================