Triggering a stimulating conversation

A conversation should serve as a platform for the tolerant and free exchange of opinions
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It’s intriguing how some topics easily trigger (and sustain) a spirited conversation better and longer than others do. Often social conversations founder and fizzle out at parties and get-togethers for want of a suitable subject. Many a conversation loses its focus and turns desultory due to digressions. However, when the topic centres on a current or controversial issue, it usually clicks as a conversation starter. Topicality does matter.

As a sure-fire conversation launcher, there’s perhaps nothing like the unpredictable weather plaguing us — a popular staple that everyone likes to dissect verbally and freely. And, of course, global warming and its resultant climate change, along with their disastrous consequences, have gifted us a topic to talk (and worry about) all the time now. “Don’t knock the weather,” remarked American humourist Frank McKinney Hubbard insightfully. “Nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while.”

In India, cricket is, of course, a hot topic of conversation that seldom flags. To ignite a lively discussion at a get-together, all one has to do is to comment on a prominent cricketer’s poor form and sit back — to be bombarded with a detailed “discourse” that would put our most eminent cricket commentators and pundits in the shade, figuratively speaking.

Then there’s nothing like national politics to kick-start an animated conversation among strangers in a train compartment and get some revealing feedback; the number of people eager to voice an opinion, unsought, surprises one as much as their vehemence. Some prefer sensational social gossip about well-known personalities — the juicier the better!

And, of course, the ongoing India-Pakistan conflict (with its nuclear undertones and threats) often fuels a heated discussion. When the subject is of popular and compelling interest, people are inexorably drawn into it.

Ideally, a conversation should be an uplifting and mutually satisfying experience for all involved; it should leave one edified and relaxed rather than worked up, having aired one’s views. More importantly, it should serve as a platform for the tolerant and free exchange of opinions, dissenting though these may be. Bulldozing others’ views should be avoided. No doubt it will be difficult to reach a consensus on any issue, but acrimony should be eschewed in the interests of companionship and bonhomie. Some, of course, will inevitably contribute heat rather than light to a discussion!

The essence of a good participatory conversation (or discussion for that matter) lies in giving others’ point of view a patient hearing and due consideration without dogmatically harping on one’s own, no matter how cogent it may be. A good guideline is that timeless maxim: it’s better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.

Good conversationalists are popular anywhere but, alas, they’re a fast disappearing species, hard to find these days. As American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson opined, “Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.” And, of course, only the most articulate and knowledgeable succeed.

gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com