The Conversational Me

Early in my life I recognized an important aspect of my personality - that I am constantly in a conversation with somebody that I know in some way. I stumbled upon this as I developed the habit of taking a pause and look into myself and observe what I was upto in that moment. Whenever I did the unmistakable answer has been "A conversation with somebody". The collection of this somebody makes an interestingly large universal set. Starting from family members, it has very naturally covered my relatives, friends, colleagues but eventually it has stretched itself to include cultural and historical figures who are somewhere buried in deep history or even lodged at the depths of cultural mythology. It does not exclude passing acquaintances such as news report characters. The antagonists and betenoire have an even bigger space - naturally. I have often wondered 'why' at this phenomenon but it has been this way ever since I thought of myself as an individual or probably since my childhood. In fact my earliest and deepest memories of mine are all about I being in conversation with something. It has taken many years for me to explicitly recognize this aspect of my personality. But this process has run itself like a guptagaamini at a subconscious level all the time.

The subconscious nature of this has  also meant that there is no purpose to these conversations. In the sense that there are material objectives associated with them. It has largely been shaped by an irrational fundamental instinct, a sensitivity beyond rational explanation, emanating from a fundamental core - almost at the level of defending and earning my very existence. Of course, a conversation requires a partner and a context. Thankfully, the world never has a shortage of a context, India is blessed with a population and I am personally blessed with a good memory to remember every single person who comes my way along with their idiosyncrasies.

There is also this craving to sculpt every thought in the form of words. All thoughts emanate from perceptions and perceptions are all about the physical world and people. I dont seem to be at peace with my perceptions being perceptions alone. I seem to want to share and negotiate my perceptions with an irrational urgency and immediacy. Probably I respond to every single thing that cannot scale to a face-to-face conversation and I seem to be too impatient to wait for it. This results in a conversation within - an easy solution to a complex problem.

These conversations are great fun. But this results in some strange, awkward and a few interesting realities/scenario.

1.  My relationship with people reaches a greater depth within me than in the real world. Consequently, in physical realities my interactions reached a greater level of intensity with the other person than what the latter was ready for resulting in the latter being perplexed. But as I aged I realized this conflict and learnt to manage the gap within my internal world and the external world. I learnt to create multiple levels of conversations with different people without creating any discomfort.

2.   On a positive side, I grew my perspectives on various subjects through these conversations. For eg., I  am in constant conversations with Ramachandra Guha on why he is wrong in his perception of the so called right-wing. Guha of course will never know me but Guha grows within me and I grow those debates to greater depths through those conversations.

3.   This tendency of being in a conversation all the time made it easy for me to begin a physical conversation whenever there is an opportunity. I have hardly ever hesitated to begin one with a stranger - like on a train - rather there is an urge to begin one and build over it. It does not matter whether the person comes from my background or age. The moment an experience results in a perception, the conversation engine within me takes over the perception to build and shape it. The Mind rearranges itself to create a meaningful space for the person and then the person permanently resides in me without a great deal of competition for space. Not remembering a person means either the conversation has weakened or some other related conversation has taken over.

In a nut-shell this is a way of life. I dont claim any exclusivity to this, neither do I claim to have chosen or architected this. I have probably nurtured and recognized something that was already deeply within. I have often perceived many others as possessing the same sensitivities and capabilities. Some like me might have recognized this explicitly and built parts of personal and professional lives around this ability to create something sustainable and fulfilling.

In general, Indians are conversationalists by nature in this sense. Amartya Sen called Indians argumentative but I guess thats half-truth. Its quite a reductionist explanation of a complex reality, its an attempt to extract rationality out of a more fundamental human reality. The irrational nature of being conversational probably does not appeal to Amartya Sen. I believe that being conversational helps build a healthy connection to the world over which democracy can comfortably cushion itself and Sen's concern was democracy. In his reductionist approach, Sen lost an opportunity to explain India at a more fundamental level with respect to why it sustains democracy much against the doomsayers' predictions.

This must also explain my urge to blog. This is to continue to build a conversation with all my internal relations at once - which is a real community for me but an abstract community in the real world. An umbilical cord from which I derive my daily strength. The mother, the umbilical cord and I - all three of us grow together.