Filling Up Silences

 





    Often, conversations make our day. The ones that leave you smiling, make you laugh when you rewind those dialogues, enlighten you, inspire you, those that are filled with words that can be written down, make you want to meet the person tomorrow and start conversing all over again.

    Heck, great conversations fill the silences in our lives, because they replay endlessly in our heads even when we’re walking alone on the streets. It’s not the words, it's the feelings they evoke that fill us up. Feelings that linger, quietly sparking melodies in our heads when we revisit them.

    What I love about these conversations is how they follow us through our days, accompanying other activities in life. Talking to your friends while you grab a quick lunch,  those few words exchanged when you pass someone you know on the street-  quickens time. And discussing things while travelling is a whole other vibe; unmatched as the scenes outside make silences more comfortable. Buzzing of other conversations, announcements on the metro and the sounds of traffic all flow and pepper the talking.

    The best conversations are made when you’re doing something else. Think of all the times you just had to turn around and talk to your bestie in class. In fact, conversations get intimidating when focus is just on the conversation itself. This is perhaps why we couple having a chat with someone, with food, to ease things and take the pressure off talking.

    Yet, through all these beautiful conversations, some things get a little daunting. To constantly think of things to say and be interesting is not an easy task, and irrespective of how conversations flow by themselves, we’ve got to make efforts that can be jarring. And that’s when overhearing them becomes magical. We get little snippets of conversations that makes our day, without having to produce anything ourselves. Freeing the pressure, but also gaining access to other people through their dialogues, heartful laughter and heated debates.

    Overhearing, unlike eavesdropping, is neither done on purpose or unethical. It is light-hearted, and maybe the most interesting thing that can happen to you while being stuck on a 12-hour flight.

    And as our attempt to preserve such unforgettable conversations, I’d like to announce the launch of Orators Club’s - The Overheard Podcast. Over the course of this season, we shall interview guests in hopes of bringing you discussions that might seem common but will be told from a whole new perspective. And overhearing others talk about things shall make it interesting all over again eh?

Stay tuned folks, for some interesting conversations to fill up the silence in your lives :)



Written By - Anupam Varma

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fine Dining and Finer Tales

The word Orator conjures images of mighty leaders basking in the spotlight, addressing huge crowds with the perfect mix of voice modulations and gestures. An eloquent orator pauses time while he takes a breath and always keeps the audience under his command. This is the alley of oratory I would like to pay homage to, not by scrutinizing great speakers perched on podiums, but through my own father sitting at the dining table weaving stories.  It’s always stories that we’ve heard a few million times before. But that’s what great orators do right? Irrespective of content, they engage the audience tirelessly.   We’d be sitting around, eating slowly, discussing our work or school when Dad began his autobiographical tales. “When I was in…” or “Back in the day…” served as introductions that transported us to the decades Dad grew up or perhaps his initial years in Bangalore. He’d paint a vivid image of the characters of his tales: by linking them to some other story or relation we know of. Eve
Read more

The representation of women in Hindi cinema

Image
  When watching a movie, have you ever noticed how the camera would pan in and out over an actress's body? Many well-known Hindi tracks, including "Tip Tip Barsa Paani" and any song by Honey Singh, romanticize objectification through their lyrics and camera angles. We overlook the effect that these scenes have had on the audience as we watch scripts with poor structure and content from the comfort of the theater.  Women were typically prohibited from acting in shows and movies in the early 1900s. It got to the point where a male played the first heroine in an Indian film. Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, assigned male actor Anna Sulanke the role of Taramati in Raja Harishchandra (1913), the country's first motion picture. In the 1950s and 1960s, known as the "Golden Era of Bollywood," women were portrayed as strong characters. Take Waheeda Rahman's character in Guide, or Nargis's part in Mother India, a film that praised the idea of wom
Read more

Oration in Sports

Image
          Sports are truly a sensational way to express one’s emotions. May it be a fun match of cricket after a long day at school or an exhilarating game of football on the weekends, the playground never fails to provide a channel to convey our innermost feelings. The recent festivities of Agneepath serve as the epitome of the fact that sentiment and sports go hand-in-hand. However, can sports also improve one’s speaking skills and ability to communicate? As it turns out, these skills play a crucial role on the field and can be the deciding factor between a win or a loss.     Oration in sports comes in different forms, differing slightly with a new variation. There’s communication among the players, which can make or break a team sport like basketball. Each player on the court knows their role, yet communication among them can improve the quality of the sport. Even though it appears simple, the ability to quickly set up plays and direct teammates to specific positions while playing s
Read more