| nice chat... |
[Jan. 24th, 2008|12:12 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | conversation, friends, lj | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | jeevan ke safar mein rAhee...odd song for when I have just met up with someone! | ] |
Had a Himalayan Yak with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) poketzedynamite...nice to catch up, in person, with people whom one feels one knows well, on LJ....and enjoyed the sweet sounds of her son getting mixed up with her dog, in the background, and the cool way she kept it IN the background!
Thanks for a nice session, Ms.First...! |
|
|
| OHO info |
[Oct. 26th, 2006|01:38 pm] |
.....
Still on the subject of social conversation....
Some people feel that they MUST make conversation, and this takes the form of asking for information which could not be of ANY possible relevance to them. I know an elderly gentleman who seems so insatiably curious about the minutest details of the lives of the people he is speaking to. As soon as the initial "hello"s are over, he will start off: "So, are you married?" "Yes". "How many children?" "Two." (probably here the other person, if they are like me, is fighting down an insane desire to say Fourteen.)"And where are they living?" "In the US." "WHERE in the US?" "One in Dallas and one in Kalamazoo." "Do they live in houses or apartments?" "Apartments". "How many floors?"....and so it goes.
And for every answer, the gentleman looks highly interested, and before adding the next question, responds with one sound that takes the place of a word: "Oho!" (Meaning, "appadiyaa" in Tamizh or "houthaa" in Kannada, or "is that so?" or "oh, really?" in English.)
I am NOT joking, this gentleman asked my daughter how many balconies she had in her flat and how many potted plants she had on the balcony. She lives in St Louis and I do not envisage him, over 80 years old now, ever visiting to verify the answer. But...he is making conversation, and is interested. EVERYTHING is grist to his curiosity/conversation mill. "How does your husband go to work?" " He takes the car." "Oho....does he have a driver?" "Yes." "Oho. Is the driver married?" (I kid you not.)
So now, when any of us gets information that is of no use to us whatsoever, we designate it "OHO info"! I was just retailing to KM the domestic help-related travails of my neighbour, and after listening to me, KM smiled, and with a twinkle, said, "oHO!" and we both cracked up! |
|
|
| have you met these people? |
[Aug. 29th, 2006|12:11 pm] |
....
Inspired by something latelyontime said....
I love to meet the ladies and gentlemen who are "instant authorities" on other countries, which they have visited for a few days. When someone who has lived in a country for a few years comes along, they immediately give that person a lot of information about the geography, history, customs and practices of the place....ask if s/he has visited "A", "B" or "C" town/ places of tourist interest; when the resident says, "No," politely, the response is, "But you MUST go there! How can you live there and not have visited that place?" Not for them the idea that different people might have different agendas in another place; everyone must do, see and experience what they did in the two or so days that they spent there....and they seem to have been everywhere and done everything, in the 3 days that they spent there, probably 15 years ago..... They will talk with great knowledge about what the people there do and how they behave and what they think....
I find that it's the people who have travelled the most and visited the most countries who generally keep perfectly quiet about their travels and their observations!
Closely allied to this IAT (instant authority tourist) is the IRR (instant relative recollector.) This person, on hearing of, say, someone's living in Kalamazoo, Mi ( I actually DO know someone who lives there btw, right zweilinkefusse?) they say, "Oh, you are living in the US? My sister's brother-in-law's nephew also lives there, I think it's some place like Oregon, maybe you have met him?" This breed, however, is vanishing these days...after the advent of IT, every second Subramaniam and Krishnamurthy's son is in the US, so they are now more aware of the vastness of US geography, and less prone to this "If you are in Florida you must meet my relative in California" conversation! |
|
|
thoughtful