On vanishing conversations

BENGALURU: Renowned Kannada critic and scholar Dr Rahamat Tarikere is acknowledged for his extensive research on various undercurrents of Kannada literature and bringing forth some brilliant insights into the literary works and authors we are already familiar with. He is very approachable, fearless and is active on social media. I look forward to his posts. Of late, he has been writing about his family members. He not only captures their colourful personas, but also brings in some important milestones, while giving the reader a peak into the lives of members of a community at different points of time.

You react to each charactersketch. It feels like you are having a great conversation with the author himself. This is something that I have been missing lately -sitting down with a bunch of friends and being part of a good banter - without having to bother about fallouts, being blocked, unfriended, cancelled or branded. I remember my university days. After our classes, library runs, seminars and canteen surfing, we used to gather under the statue of Kuvempu. Someone would start loudly reciting a poem. Someone would comment on it. Someone else would present an opposing view.

A senior would mention a freshly launched book or a political development and all would join in, until we were all shouting so loud, we could not make sense of what was being said.At times, a debate would grow fierce and someone would suddenly walk out, fuming. The next day, the same people would be seen sharing a cigarette at the cafeteria.Once we celebrated a birthday during a solar eclipse. Conversations were an essential part of our youth.

I cannot imagine it otherwise. Cultural observer Anna Narinskayablames the disappearance of the conversation on ‘a suffocating experience of stability’ that has left people with only small talks. This, I think, very much applies to the ever-expanding Bengaluru. Hop into a bus, a metro or an inter- city train, you hardly get to see people conversing with each other. They seem content to be in their respective bubbles, not bothering about the rest of the world. Why bother about the clamour when you have noisecancelling earphones? Another development Narinskaya cites is – mutual hostility – the endless presentation of ir reconcilable positions, which is the only thing people on social networks have been doing lately.

Along with Narinskaya, many of usunderstandby now that we have reached a social dead-endwhen it comes to having real-time conversations. All that we witness are egotistic arguments and permanent fallouts. Before the pandemic, a friend used to run a tiny literary plat form cal led ‘Sankathana’ at RavindraKalakshetra where people just sat down and had discussions on various topics.

Conversation just started and flowed. I recall, on the last week of Karthika month, we spent one of these lovely soirees lighting numerous lamps, recited poems and spoke about them. It was exactly like what author John Greensays: “In the best conversations, you don’t even remember what you talked about, only how it felt. It felt like we were in some place your body can’t visit, some place with no ceiling and no walls and no floor and no instruments.”