by Anupama Krishnakumar
What would life be like without sharing, expressing and making a point? Definitely hollow and stagnant, I think. And strange. The need to communicate is an inherent part of our lives and it is hard to imagine a world without conversations. As someone who has always been fascinated and drawn unfailingly towards human nature and behaviour, conversations are something I think deeply about. There’s so much that can be made out of how people converse and what they converse about. Of course, the degree of how much someone talks varies from one person to another but again, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t talk at all.
As a writer, I think of so many instances of dialogue involving people and wish that I find the time to write, write and write. Go on and on without a care about the world, write as if there’s nothing much else that I have to do. Most of the time, the picture comes up in front of my eyes and the words wait impatiently at my fingertips as they rest on the keyboard.
My mind imagines a little girl who has had a fight with her mother. She is distraught and is filled with sadness and regret. But she can’t run to her mother; she doesn’t want to do that yet. She watches the cloudy skies sitting by the window and when the skies split open and the downpour roars down to earth, she doesn’t think for an instant. She jumps, runs, her skirt and hair flying in the wind. She looks up at the rain and lets her tears mingle with the water drops and starts speaking. What would she say? What would she tell the rain? I crave to listen to the voices of my imagination and write a beautiful conversation that’s honest, confessional and is full of lovely innocence.
My mind imagines a get-together of a bunch of friends from college after 15 long years. They meet, talk about how much their lives have changed over the last 15 years. For a while, they laugh, muse, discuss and fall silent, leaving behind their present, living temporarily in the collective consciousness structured by their shared memories of a place that they once belonged to. The hangover is strange and it weighs down on each of their souls. Suddenly the present feels unreal and all that their lives are filled with now seems to ebb away. In that little group are a man and a woman, who have, in their minds, thought that they are over and done with the past and it can’t really come back to them again. But for a brief, very brief instant, amidst all the cheerful and contemplative multi-way conversations, they both catch a glimpse of each other. The eyes converse and they realise that their eyes don’t lie. The longing soars and comes gushing from the depths of their hearts and stings their eyes. In that instant, beneath all the superficial conversations of enquiring about the well-being of their families, they realise that their spark of love hasn’t died.
My imagination continues its journey to destinations unknown, taking me by surprise each time and many more stories are born. I think I should write a story about the last conversation between a dying grandmother and her grandson, one that’s full of pain that comes with helplessness and gloom that surrounds the inevitable fate of life on earth. I wish to write about an intelligent conversation, an argument of sorts between a teacher and a student, both extremely smart, well-aware of what they are talking about, yet full of respect for each other. I think of a conversation between a father and his teenaged daughter about love, life and relationships. I think of a criminal’s moment of realisation and a monologue he has – the one last conversation that he wishes he could have (but can’t) with his wife and children, in which he regrets his act and expresses his longing to be with them.
I wish to write stories on a bunch of women who can’t stop laughing at a joke shared, a drug addict having a hallucinatory dialogue full of swear words for the world he hates, a group of beggars engaged in a discussion as they sit counting their fortunes and misfortunes for the day, a dozen senior citizens having a heated political debate and ruing the fate of the world after they are gone, tut-tut-ing over the irresponsible ‘younger generation’, a group of children doing pretend-talk, acting adult-like, women haggling over vegetable and fruit prices with a poor vendor, travellers bound by a common journey, long or short, chatting up on nothing in particular. Oh, the world is so full of them. People, conversations and stories!
Does the journey end there? No, not at all. There are conversations that are not all about words. Sometimes it is just a gesture. Sometimes it is all about sounds and sometimes it is even silence. I want to write about a conversation that happens between a mother and her unborn child. She doesn’t utter a word but communicates to the child in her womb through her thoughts and the movements of her hands over her belly. And the foetus kicks, in response. I would capture her thoughts and the baby’s kicks in words. Isn’t that a beautiful conversation? Or what about conversing with an infant who has just about started to grasp the nuances of words? He understands the words that are spoken but can’t express himself in words. Yet, he responds with movements of his hands or by making sweet sounds through his mouth or both. Isn’t that conversation too? Don’t cats, dogs and other animals express themselves to us, their gratitude or anger or restlessness in their own ways? Words never find a place there. Yet, they are conversations. I wish I could write those stories too.
While real conversations, those that involve people definitely capture my imagination, I have also wondered whether conversations can occur between subjects that are beyond the obvious. I guess all it needs is a wee bit of imagination and stretching your thinking a little beyond the boundaries that we exist within. Allow creativity to take charge for a while and you will end up thinking of a million beautiful instances. That’s what I try to do. Even as I go about my routine, my mind conjures up many kinds of conversational possibilities.
Like two shadows talking to each other, for instance. And no, they don’t talk what their owners talk or feel what they feel. The shadows, I imagine, have personalities and cravings of their own, totally disassociated from their owners. A couple that hates each other but their shadows that love each other and express fondly their affection for each other, or two friends who can’t do without each other but their shadows that, time and again, keep arguing with one another. Or a bunch of care-a-damn, happy-go-lucky teenagers enjoying and screaming at a party, while their shadows, solemn and serious, utter a few words of disdain and wait for the whole nerve-wrecking episode to get over. I mean, why not? Surreal though it is, isn’t it always fun to look beyond the obvious? And after all, do we humans know everything? Perhaps shadows do talk!
As someone who owns two bookshelves stuffed with books, it isn’t surprising that I also start thinking of books having conversations, late in the night, when the human world has switched off all lights and retired to bed. Perhaps they ease themselves out of their positions to get some air (especially mine would, for the shelves are totally stuffed!) and begin talking. My imagined conversation would proceed thus. They would discuss their covers, fonts, paper qualities, and the stories and characters or the content among themselves. The more serious books would probably critically evaluate themselves, going to the point of stating that the other is full of nonsense while the lighter ones would just giggle and laugh it away. The classics would probably sound deep-throated, sincere and proud because they have proved themselves over the years. They may have a comment or two on their reprint editions’ covers, but the excellence of their content would remain undisputable. The younger books, written by aspiring writers, gleaming in fancy-looking, colourful covers and grainy paper textures, would not comment much and look up at the seniors doing all the talking, while conversing with their peers in hushed tones.
Well, while the books have their conversations, I imagine the world within those books coming alive without the knowledge of the books themselves. The words transform into realities held within the seams of the book and the characters start talking, living their lives, set in the settings etched by words. And once they are done, they pop out of the books and run away for a brief while to their own characters’ land to engage in conversations that they really want to and not what was scripted for them by someone else’s mind.
It’s a sea of possibilities, as you can see. And I am not even done talking about half of what keeps striking me. The magnitude of what all you can imagine and write when it comes to conversations is simply mind blowing. Someday I hope to be able to capture them all in writing. Till then, I shall observe and absorb conversations of all sorts, which form the basis of our existence. After all, what’s life without conversations?
Anupama Krishnakumar loves Physics and English and sort of managed to get degrees in both – studying Engineering and then Journalism. Yet, as she discovered a few years ago, it is the written word that delights her soul and so here she is, doing what she loves to do – spinning tales for her small audience and for her little son, singing lullabies to her little daughter, bringing together a lovely team of creative people and spearheading Spark. She loves books, music, notebooks and colour pens and truly admires simplicity in anything! Tomatoes send her into a delightful tizzy, be it in soup or rasam or ketchup or atop a pizza!
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