Things People Say (Part 1)

Have you ever seen people talk? Have you seen them sway their hands and spit in the listener’s face as and when the enthusiasm gets over their reason? Have you seen them swear at the sound of the aircraft passing over which makes them inaudible over the din? Have you seen them sitting in coffee shops (my readers would be wondering my connection with the coffee shops! I just can’t avoid them!) munching over nuts and talking to their girlfriends as if they own the place?

Let’s get one thing straight. Idiots or non idiots, people love to talk. Some are fine with a quiet ‘Hello’ while some revel in loquacity. Some enjoy the cool breeze from a distance while some like to get right into the thick of things. So, when people are involved in the active or passive version of this verb, they throw signals to the listener. It’s not that the listener is stripped of this seemingly horrifying joy, but that his role switches across modes and that the reference to the listener is only an alias to a pacified speaker who as and when his role allows him, dons the mantle and does what people love to do: talks!

Now, when people are involved in this surreal act of self rejuvenation, it is important to see how they react to motions. However, before moving into motions, please go through a set of headers, which I have bundled without any thought process into merged sections for the shit people splutter.

1) The 'Crazy Guy' Talk: This, by far is the easiest to do. You need (at least) two idiots, some shade, cigarettes and/or tea (optional) and a hot chick’s image to discuss upon. The ingredients, though stereotyped are very much interchangeable with cricket, college or an irritating professor. The notion probably varies across nations and regions but the centrality of the theme preserves the ferocity of the talk. Now, dear readers, don’t be misled by the adjective ‘ferocious’ which here is used just to express the vigor and not the pattern of the talk. These talks are smooth as silk. The participants in such a conversation end up discussing some serious matters like the (in)appropriateness of nudity in Indian culture, the distorted ass of some random chick/guy or the impact of Bollywood on the use of birth control measures amongst the youth. The glibness is surprising but the intensity is not. However, paradoxical it sounds, these seemingly important talks end up in some crazy conclusion which is discarded with the butt of the cigarette (I was so tempted to ‘use’ the butt of the chick) and the disposal of the tea. Hence the name ‘Crazy Guy Talk’


2) The 'Cool Dude' Talk: Now, this one is tricky. It is tricky because it deals with the hip and the cool. You will find these leaders of stupidity everywhere. You can easily identify them with their loosely hanging t shirt which seems appropriate enough to house two and a half of them inside, untamed, intractable hair, pants which cling to the sides for their lives ; which these cool dudes keep pulling up every now and then as a reassurance to their asses. They have mastered the art of compaction. Not only are they compact with their sentences, but they have extended this act into the domains of words too. They break ice with a “’SSUP?” with a perfected (by years of practice) upward nod of head inclined at an optimum angle to avoid the sunlight into the eyes and bent enough to observe the listener. These guys discuss sports, music and cool arts like “shittin’ in ya pants” , “mah cool dad’s super cool car” or “’scaping to the trance”. Their ‘Ts’ are heavily pronounced and they try to miss the beginning of the words because of their resolution to compaction. These guys’ discussions are frenzied about cool things. (Dear, readers please bear with the frequent use of the word ‘cool’. It’s really un-cool to talk of them without their sacred word.) Then there are the cool parties and the catch phrases. A hot chick is ‘hoot’ and a slightly uncooked/overcooked pizza is ‘deep shit’! A word called as ‘dictionary’ does not exist for them and grammar ‘ain’t that buzzer either!’ A participant can join only after he has mastered the act of breaking things into incomprehensible shit to the average brains and coding into them, with an expressed denial to normalcy, the fervor of indifference and haughty-ness of a seven year old. Above all, it’s not cool to be uncool, dude! Hence the Cool Dude Talk!


3) The ‘I-HAVE-READ-IT-ALL’ Talk: These are dangerous conversations. Not because they allude to a bombing or terrorist activity, but simply because the conversations are so ‘mature’ and so stuffed with ‘content’ that the lesser mortals might die of overload. Specifically, the participants find themselves in a situation of boastful boredom flaunting their boring life about books and knowledge of arts to such a level that the discussion seems an over exaggeration of an epic saga. These talks normally proceed with “Hey! Did you get to come across the book….?” The conversations delve thereby into metaphysical domains of epistemes and unexplored knowledge domains with utmost display of clarity and an unprecedent back up of ideas. These are the hollow conversationalists that you will find in every classroom and every office. They are dominantly found discussing Newton’s theory of motion with a slight hint to Arundhati’s, ‘Inheritance of loss’ with an air of seriousness hitherto unknown to the aforementioned “Crazy Guys” and “Cool Dudes”! Trust me people, these guys don’t know shit about stuff but they can speak with such clarity that the third person is confused if the guy came up with the concept , in the first place. They will blow up things that they can easily understand and worship an unknown ‘subject’ with religious sentiments. These are the hypocrites you would want to escape. These are the intellectuals who apparently ‘have read it all’ but have not comprehended shit! They praise Foucault and Rand with an equal capacity and talk of Deleuze as if he was their first cousin who stole their ideas. Arundhati Roy is shitty to them because they could understand her Preface in one go and Chetan Bhagat is too simple to be taken seriously!!


(coming up next- 'The Gossip Girl Talk', 'The Big Intellectual Talk' and more....)