From Deepika, With Love

Nothing intelligent about this...

Some days ago I was chatting with one of my friends. As predictible it might sound but the coversation veered towards women (He being HE). I asked him 'What do you look for in a woman?'

His reply on the Gmail chat reads something like this: 'Somebody who has a decent knowledge of sports and a decent knowledge of international affairs and national affairs. And somebody with whom I can carry an intelligent conversation for long hours.'

I bet, if he can tell me who's Karen Hughs then I will resign from my job. Forget about international affairs, his knowledge of national affairs is quite pathetic. I mean, I am tired of listening to people talking about their love for being with someone who can engage in intelligent coversations.

I studied in JNU where everybody thought they can be world leaders in carrying out 'intelligent conversations.' Cups of tea were consumed in Ganga dhaba even as youngsters in cotton kurtas and kolhapuri chappals spent nights in animated intelligent conversations. Some even thought that they have a patent right to intelligence.

I have experienced intellectuals dissecting human emotions in most critical ways over glasses of whisky and laughter. But they never felt what it was to feel feelings. It was devastating as a 20-year-old to learn that the sentence 'I love you... is a plain simple contextual one devoid of any feelings' from a man who only believed in intelligent conversations. Anyway, times have changed. The same person now regrets about that particular phase of his life in which he was obsessed with everything that was remotely 'intelligent' and in the process lost out on one of the most beautiful things in life called 'Feelings.'

I have nothing against intellectualism... I love intellectuals for whatever they are.. For all their pretensions, for all their arrogance, for their ability to bask in absolute nothingness. I love sharing a drink with them cause they are so self obsessed. But then why do people have so much of shame in admitting that they too enjoy unintellegent conversation? If they love intelligence why can't they sit and finish Simone De Beauvoir's Second Sex at one go?

As you grow old and experience the richness of varied relationships, coversations laced with intelligence just do not matter. When I laugh and play Ping Pong-Ting Tong (that's a game in which one of us becomes a cat after eating some magic cookies) with my five year old niece Simrita then those moments of unadulterated joy simply overwhelms me. No logic, no rationality, no theory works in this case. Three years ago, I spent most of waking hours in a hospital holding hands and taking care of my terminally ill sister-in-law. There was no scope for carrying out a conversation (She died of head and neck cancer). But it was silence and love that eventually brought us closer in those trying monents. Not intelligent conversations.

There's something fresh about unintelligent converstaions. There's something very pure about it. There's something about it which just allows to be yourself. When I meet my old friends in Delhi, outsiders might think that we are crazy. Cause we spend all our waking hours in conversations without any trace of intellectualism. But the image of us laughing over silly things always add more life to memories.

And I strongly believe only if you are really intelligent then only you can carry on an unintelligent converstaion. Otherwise, throughout your life you will just keep on telling people that "Oh, I love women who can carry on intelligent conversation for hours." Man, try reading a book on Kafka. You can get your quota of intelligence provided that you can go beyond a few pages . ... (THIS IS A POST FROM MY FRIEND DEEPIKA SAHU, REPORTER, THE TIMES OF INDIA, in the running for the Cooker Prize in future for her chicken curry)