Under my peepal tree ...

Before I left INSEAD, there was this discussion on how much I talk (which by any standards is lot and is increasing in an alarming rate off late) - both in terms of content and the duration. Fast forward - and recently, someone who read my blogs commented that I write a lot, in the sense that it's too long and winding. Another comment was that, I show too much of me in my blog - which is probably true when you write blogs like this. All these finally made me understand how much talking less really helps - for one, there's a lesser chance of saying the wrong things because you talk less. For another, you really save a lot of time to do better things, like talking to somebody else for example ;)

Another interesting inference is how much we love enigmatic people - those in whose heads what's running, we have no idea . Take for example this blog . For all you know, this guy is a first grader who's practising sentences in english, or may be he's this east european traveler from Krakosia who's stranded in a terminal and practises his english between whipping some Beta-Zones ass. No! he's this super-creative, long-haired QT2 who in day time is a witty poet and at night is a Neo-lithic hacker. No offence to that guy - but one big reason for finding such a blog "fascinating" is because we have no darned idea what's running in that character's mind.

Based on such unquestionable evidence I, at this very chosen moment, have decided to look wise - from now on, I am going to look as if I am solving fourier's equations in my finger tips. Here are a few tactics I am going to follow.

1. If someone's explaining me something he's really excited about - I am going to stay quiet, raise one eye-brow and try to spell a word like "vicissitudes" inside my mind giving him an impression I am critically analyzing what he's saying.

2. If I start doing it quite often and he starts suspecting my reactions, one of those times (if he's trying again), I might go next to an open window, relieve myself and show the relief on my face as if something about what he said finally fell in place.

3. Even if I find a joke funny, I won't laugh for one. That makes him feel I have a sophisticated sense of humour. In order not to discourage him from telling jokes, once in a while, for a joke he thinks I would never laugh, I might just throw in a hearty laugh - there's an added advantage with this that, I look unpredictable and intriguing (imagine "bond .. james bond" with a glass of martini and a "I wonder what you are wearing inside" look)

4. When people are involved in an engaging discussion and an uncomfortable silence lands over the table, I start off with something like, "you know, what you told me reminds me of something I have read" and quote something from a book like James Joyce's Ulysses that I am sure, most of the humankind never understands.

5. Another thing to do is to watch movies that no one sees or read books no one makes any sense of and copy paste amazon reviews in conversations - you know, thanks to my years in Eton and oxford, I have a refined taste in literature.

6. Profess morality - have a cocky constipation look even for the best of A-jokes, sound cynical about basic beliefs and practices - in short "Be coooollllll".

7. and if ever someone makes the mistake of asking me what I am thinking, come up with something like - "Can you believe it? We denizens might actually be neighbours in this virtual world of blogs - shapeless, weightless entities merging and forming a social force in the shit hole of my closet in ambattur's second street".

Let me start with these seven commandments for now. I am sure life will suck without the bliss of blah-blahing your way to glory, but priorities man - just as a quote on the social profile of a wise man in orkut reads ...

"I think and therefore I am ..... CONFUSED"