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Photo: Mohd. Yousuf

Magic mantra An informal, casual chitchat will do wonders

Every speaker worth his audience faces the nerves at times. “A one-to-one or one-to-many is not always hunky-dory,” says Gangadhar, who specializes in the nuances of the art of conversation. “Unless you connect with the listener/s first and maintain that during the whole conversation, you could as well go digging a hole in your backyard and filling it up, again and again.” The best way to connect with others is through ‘small talk.’ Small talk is an exchange of pleasantries on social occasions. An informal, casual chitchat will do wonders. It can scope out various relationships, reduce emotional distances and prepare a fertile ground for further connection.

For Jagan, an engineering grad, social awkwardness is the problem. “When I asked my friend out for the first time and was trying a conversation, I fidgeted with my fingers, my legs were shaking with tension, and no words would come out. I was a complete wreck.” Fortunately, small talk helped him negotiate the difficult moments. By chatting about music and movies, “I put my friend and myself at ease. Now, I can talk about anything without any awkwardness.”

“As part of oral communication, I advise my students to have small talk before launching oneself into an issue,” says Shankar, a lecturer in English who is working on communicative language acquisition. Small talk can be about many things: about work, family, hobbies or music and movies.

The aim is ‘to establish a common ground, an emotional rapport, to get the conversation going and interesting.’

Even if you know you are going to have an argy-bargy or desperate to head-butt someone on an issue, ‘it’s better to start off with a small talk,’ so the damn affair won’t rankle afterwards. In this sense, icebreakers do more than break the ice; they thaw out hardened positions, bring each other closer to a mutual understanding. You don’t skate on cobblestones, do you?” asks Tarun, a PR manager.

Informal conviviality connects better than straitjacketed formality. Whether you are talking about the weather, about the current events, at the office, at a social event or any other occasion, informal talk pays many social dividends. “It’s a culture thing,” says Sudheer, an MNC executive, adding: “In U.S, stiff upper-lip formality can be interpreted as being unfriendly.” Some companies are formal and conservative, where all decisions are made in boardrooms. But, now you see twenty-somethings start companies where communication is highly informal. They brainstorm big things under a tree with a coffee mug in their hands.

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