Let's talk!

con·ver·sa·tion (kŏn'ver-sā'shion) n.
The spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings;
talk.

Last Monday I got into work and realised that for the next two weeks my room-mate would be away, and I would have the whole room to myself for 10 glorious days! So I rubbed my hands in delight at the prospect of the privacy and cranked up the volume on my computer speakers. Now that the days drain on, the dwindling novelty of going onto YouTube whenever I choose makes me realise that I do miss having another person in the room.

Much has been made about the virtues of silence and introspection... but oh, hang it all! Maybe it is my garrulous personality, or perhaps it is the Indian blood in my veins. Otherwise, blame it on my innate partiality to people born under those Gemini-an stars and becoming over-accustomed to their incessant nattering...(you know who you are!), but I have to confess that after two days of not talking to another soul and sitting in my room staring at faceless e-mails, I have suddenly realised how indispensable conversation with another person is!

Tell me... have you gone one day without talking to anyone (and I mean not talking at all... not even to yourself), and do you remember how you felt then? Now I know that we do come across people that we would love to see shut up, but as this very wise man once said:

Oh some as soon would throw it all, as some would throw a part away.
And some will say all sorts of things, but some mean what they say.


Over these last few days I have been thinking of the remarkable conversations that have meant something to me. Some of these happened years ago… and some have come my way only recently…but invariably, all have been unforgettable!

Like the conversation with my math teacher when I was 9 years old. Sit back and picture me in school uniform with a mutinous face, hunched in front of a wooden desk in an empty classroom at around 3 pm on a Friday afternoon during recess. Naturally there was a good reason for my imprisonment. I had not handed up my math homework for the third time during the week, and my teacher refused to believe what I, at that time, personally thought was a very good excuse i.e. that my little sister had eaten my exercise book (my own brilliant version of the dog-ate-my-homework fib) - Yes -yes... I know I most definitely was not a very good liar!

My teacher watched me through her massive owl like spectacles as I muttered under my breath and scrawled out my sums, and then she suddenly said...

Teacher: So, your sister ate your exercise book?

Me: (looking up and nodding adamantly) Yes!

Teacher: (genuinely concerned) That is really worrying. Is she okay? It must have been hard eating a whole exercise book. Is she feeling ill now?

Me: (inwardly chuckling but with a serious face) Oh no, she’s fine. She eats exercise books all the time.

Teacher: (shocked) All the time?!

Me: (persistently) Oh yes! My mom always scolds her, but she can’t seem to stop.

Teacher: (thoughtfully smiling) Well, I have never seen anyone eat an exercise book!

Me: (relaxing and smiling too) I know! You should see her!

Teacher: (still smiling) I would like to see her!

Me: (raising my eyebrows) See her?

Teacher: (insistent) Yes… I would like to see her eat an exercise book.

Me: (alarmed) Eat an ex-ex-ercise b-b-ook?

Teacher: Yes.

Me: (more alarmed) N-N-Now?

Teacher: Yes… Now!

So she called in the class monitor and got my sister to come into the classroom. Imagine my little sister around 7 years old in little her school uniform standing timidly in front of my teacher in that big empty classroom with an even bigger pair of eyes.

Teacher: (matter of fact) So… Your big sister told me that you eat exercise books.

Sister: (mouth open) Huh?

Teacher: I have never seen anyone eat an exercise book before! Can you show me? (handing her my exercise book).

Sister: (more alarmed and looking at me, as I struggle to meet her eyes) I d-d-don’t…

Teacher: (sternly looking at my sister) Well, if you don’t eat this exercise book, I will know that your big sister has lied to me. We do not tolerate lying in this school! (looking at me) And you know what the punishment for lying is?

Me: (now very very worried) Err…?

Teacher: (calmly) The headmistress will expel you from this school! (turning to my sister and speaking very kindly) Do you want your big sister to be expelled?

Sister: (tearfully looking from my teacher to me and back to my teacher) Uh… errr…

Teacher: (insistently) Well, do you?!

Sister: (tearfully) No…

Teacher: (satisfied) Good! You can start eating now!

My sister took the exercise book and looking at my teacher, slowly put one page in her mouth. She chewed on it for a while with a pained expression on her face, and then as I held my breath she swallowed that chunk of masticated paper!

My teacher sat there twiddling her pen in her fingers. My sister looked at me, promptly turned green, and dashed out of the classroom bawling her eyes out. My teacher looked at me for a while, shrugged her shoulders, and then hauled me by my left ear to the principal’s office.

And so how does the story end? My mother was called and told that I had failed to turn in my homework. That was enough to merit me getting scolded all the way home in the car and receiving a few lashes of the cane on my palm when my father came home. The red marks disappeared after a day, but the anxiety sure didn't! For the whole of the next week I gave up my pocket money and bought my sister her favourite cheese flavoured “Twisties” every day just so that she would keep schtum about the exercise book fiasco. It was all worth it as long as I wasn’t being tarred and feathered and marched off to church on a daily basis.

Last night I thought about that episode with my teacher and my poor exercise-book-eating-sister, and it made me laugh out loud. There are other conversations that I remember and smile about : the heated debate about the theory of everything with an old friend along the streets of Rome; the angry complaints about shitty bosses and bitchy colleagues over the office phone; the words said between two close friends puffing cigarettes outside a noisy pub in Holland Village; the arguments over the philosophy of "Kwang" on rooftops and the crazy interpretations of Neon Genesis between mouthfuls of sashimi; planning the filming of “Papazilla” in the back seat of a car on the way home; late night decisions made in the void deck and early morning confessions at the prata café…

There are what I call the "Momentous Conversations", usually revolving around the big themes in life, and remembered fondly because they are usually for “the first time” and have a fresh-faced quality about them: Love: Like the sweaty-palmed first time I told someone that I loved them. Like the first time someone whom I loved turned me down. Like the first time I heard the words “I love you” from someone else. Death: Like the first time I learned about doggy-heaven. Like the first time I talked to my parents about what will happen when they die, and it struck me that I was an adult. Like the first time I stood at my grandfather’s grave, and spoke to him, hoping he could hear me.

There are the conversations that I regret and wish I never had been a part of. Like the time I was told that a certain person I also liked had a crush on me. I will never forget how agonising it was to tell this same person that the type of love between us could never be more than platonic. I learned to consciously tear my heart from my mind, and in so doing, learnt the cutting cruelty in choosing to do something because I thought it was right, although I felt intensely that it was wrong.

So we go on with the Gab-blab-gibber-jabber-prattle-tattle and talk-talk-talk…

Funny thing isn't it? It is such an innocuous thing when two people or more get together and chatter away. If you were to anatomize dialogue into energised air and spittle, it would be a trivial thing indeed! However, there is this beautiful, dangerous, vital but subtle power in conversation. It clarifies and complicates. It destroys and builds. It heals rifts and breaches defences. It is as elemental as it is complex... as essential as the air in your lungs and just as taken for granted.

And yes! There will inevitably be those wise old hermits in caves on the hills with stashed-away hearts and pickled-tongues, who shake their heads and wag their fingers at me and sagely say that "talking comes by nature, silence by wisdom". Well, so what!? I don't care if I may never be a likely candidate for an Ashram, and Wisdom be damned if I am not permitted to be natural! This "Barbaric Yawp" will not be contained!! And so today I write this blog entry and shoot it out into cyberspace like a distress flare from a sinking ship…

So Reader, let’s talk! I will give you free rein on where this horse-and-buggy will go. So let fly! Ask me, tell me, challenge me, agree with me, outwit me, condemn me but most of all tell me about you and what you think... and then, let me do the same.

There are a million topics we could choose from, and we don’t need to agree on anything. And if you are stumped for ideas and words - take the cue from clever Oscar and his friends.

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
- OSCAR WILDE

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” “The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let us talk that we may not feel lonely.” ” Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” “Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.” “We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full.” ”Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right.” “Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?” “I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.”





So say something, will you?!


~~~

PS: Oh, and just in case any of you were wondering when my little purple friend will be back…








….AKAN DATANG Lah! (very very soon)….