Ten deaths of conversation

1:

At Wednesday’s dinner,

the optimist is terrifying

and the other diners drink heavily from their half-full glasses

cheeks stiffened by forced smiles

and weak nods that substitute

actual talk.

2:

Conversation goes to die

at the left hand corner

of a man’s coat at a wedding

where he has said

“so then?” a total of 15 times

to one person.

3:

No one has spoken for three minutes

as the person who holds the table together

has left to pee.

4:

A conversation graveyard:

“When are you getting married?”

“So, how’s married life?”

“I heard you’re into CrossFit?”

Something about babies. Or cats. To a person who has neither.

5:

And the people yearned for a time when they didn’t know everything about everyone already and could ask a question like “so, what have you been upto?” without knowing the answers through a comprehensive study of stories and vacay reels.

6:

You have said goodbye thrice but your Uber is still 15 minutes away.

7:

‘These crazies’ have taken numerous selfies of ‘the squad’ and some photos of their ‘drunch’ but not said anything except, “WhatsApp the pics, na.”

8:

The subject of light and mostly harmless gossip has just wandered into the room.

9:

The rot started to set in a Whatsapp composting group when Madhavan from ninth floor sent too many religious forwards.

Gomes left.

Chadda requested the group to stick to maggots and mulch.

Chatterjee from eighth floor said “hi” and nothing else after.

(The group has wasted away).

10:

They’d been exchanging rapid texts, courting in a bouquet of memes, gifs, emojis, memojis and even one recipe from TikTok.

They had so much to say.

Until he called.