| These two months have seen a slew of sit-down dinners for which initially at least my wife was thankful since it gave her the opportunity to sit rather than stand in high heels. It also considerably lowered our dry-cleaning bills as less curry was spilled by jostling elbows in impatient queues. But soon their charm wore off, largely because once seated, there was no choice but to listen to the dreary conversation of your immediate companions who, by some Murphy's Law, were always bores big on nostalgia. |
| Else, they were simply people who would rather eat than talk, and particularly if you had nothing in common ("Weather's warming up a bit." "Yes." "Seen Jodhaa Akbar yet?" "No."), it could be taxing on your nerves. It was particularly galling, of course, if they seemed to get along just fine with their companions on the other side, even going so far as to laugh heartily, while you stared gloomily into your soup, or reproachfully at your spouse further down the table. |
| Attempting to talk with a table full of Americans some weeks back proved futile. Who were they backing in their elections? "No one," said the lady on my left. "Oh, absolutely," agreed the gentleman on my right. "Let's not talk about the elections," said the matronly woman across from me. Right. Er, had they been to India before? "No," said my left. "No," echoed my right. "No," said the matron. Any observations, then? "Umm," on my left. "Uhh," to my right. "Uh-huh," from across. |
| More recently, my wife and I were on a table where everybody was so busy on their Blackberrys, you might have mistaken them for being in a boardroom. They wrote messages over their salad, received and dispatched lengthy instructions over the main course, spoke urgently into their phones by way of dessert, and exchanged cards over coffee before striding purposefully away. |
| I didn't know whether to be thankful for their businesslike professionalism or unhappy that I seemed to have had more conversation with the waiters than with my dining companions. Only the previous night, I'd been stuck with someone who sounded, and likely was, a hundred years old, and with a memory that slipped all over the place. It was hardly surprising that I was soon absorbed over weightier issues "" such as whether to eat my third roll of bread with butter or without, when he roared, "Where was I?" My wife later said I seemed to have mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open. |
| Last night, I was attempting to count the number of sepals in the flower arrangement on my table (while everyone else talked animatedly to each other), when my mobile beamed with a message. "What are you doing?" my wife had SMSed from her table in another part of the room. "Nothing," I messaged back. "Me too," she responded. |
| "Maybe," I wrote back, "we ought to leave early." "Maybe," her message flashed, "we can attend the wedding we'd decided to skip for this dinner." Soon we were companionably absorbed in meaningful SMS conversation: "But we aren't carrying a present;" "We can always slip them some money in an envelope;" and so on. It was only a matter of time before we were SMSing each other instructions, or sharing gossip ("I think my neighbour is snoring between courses," my wife wrote), or messaging friends and family about matters of great or little consequence. |
| Later, driving home, perhaps from recent habit, my wife SMSed me from the seat next to mine: "That wasn't so bad, after all." "Perhaps," I agreed. "I think I'm going to enjoy my sit-down dinners from now on," she punched back in newly-found camaraderie. Dinner conversation, I suspect, will no longer be the same anymore. |
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