The talk of the town: Conversations in the social circles in 2014

Their voices amplified by the social media, the chatterati were at their cattiest best in 2014, commenting endlessly on things big and small

So what did the chattering classes chatter about throughout the year? What were the bon mots that fell from the lips of the country squire from Ludhiana, the vulture capitalist from Mumbai, the Kafka-spouting nihilist from Kolkata and the ebullient Mr Ever Reddy from Hyderabad?

Who did the ladies who munch take a bite of at the last South Mumbai kitty party? And their counterparts in Saddi Dilli, the Dastkar-clad causerati of Lutyens’ Delhi: what was the flavour of their discussions? How soon did the once Golden Boy of the media become its favourite whipping horse? And that most lethal gang of Bollywood wives? Whose shredded reputation did they pick expertly at with their chopsticks at the Wasabi, only to spit out before the next bottle of bubbly?

Being an unabashed purveyor of India’s urban classes, a collector of its deepest secrets and most profound lies and an unrelenting excavator of the flotsam and jetsam that gathers like crud on the margins of Indian society, I bring you the trends, trivia, trifles and trails of the conversations and confabulations, the chit-chats and chinwags that occurred during the year. The sotto voce, the dulcet tones, the shouts and the whispers that pierced our collective eardrums with their yadda yadda and their yap yap.

The demise of Robin Williams was much discussed

And boy, was there a lot to talk about this year! The biggest was the particularly polarising topic of Narendra Modi, which saw the usual suspects taking their usual positions (the self-proclaimed Modi-toadies on the right and their critics, the so-called sickular Left-leaning types, aptly glaring at them) — never have dining table conversations been so fraught or combustible. “He’s awesome,” said one lot. “Awful,” said the other. This divergence of views was kept on the boil on the social media pot by armies of trolls ever on the lookout for a hubble-bubble to stir.

What’s curious about this particular topic of conversation was that in the words of Paul Simon’s immortal Sounds of Silence, the harsh murmurs of dialogue resembled “People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening”, which resulted in each group being none the wiser for its efforts.

But Modi wasn’t the only subject that occupied political chatter this year. Rahul-Sonia and the dismal prospects of the United Progressive Alliance, the Congress in particular, took up enough bandwidth. “I don’t know what’s wrong with them,” I heard a Congress-friendly industrialist whisper to one of his peers at a private dinner thrown by a prominent Mumbai banker. “Every time I visit Delhi, the handful of top party leaders appear to be so gung-ho, so certain of winning the next elections that it makes me wonder if they’re just plain mad or they have some secret strategy which they will unleash soon that will be a game–changer.” He said this before the general elections when like lemmings to the cliff the historic party offered itself for slaughter.

What had gone wrong? Perhaps, in the omnipresent and incessant grandstanding and hard blowing, the Congress had forgotten to listen, a fatal but not unexpected error for a party that had been in power for so long!

Unsurprisingly Modi’s arrival on the scene also gave rise to some choice desi chest-thumping and braggadocio — the pent-up release from years of feeling miserable and frustrated by corruption, apathy and sloth. Like a miracle, Modi’s call for Swachh Bharat became the symbol of the new brooms that would sweep the Augean stables of governance clean.

Of course, the Swachh Bharat campaign itself borrowed from the year’s great cooperation starter, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which gave rise to its own compendium of catty remarks. A tiny dust storm of bitchiness and hissy remarks arose with each timorous stroke of a celeb’s broom.

“Who did Modi pick? No, he didn’t pick him? But why not him? And what about her?” was the initial response to the first names that were enshrined on that much speculated list of the prime minister’s squeaky clean compatriots with many a snide whisper that the inclusion of a few was a red herring or “trap”. “He has no idea but it’s a ruse to get him into trouble with his own party,” one Delhi grande dame was overheard whispering to another at the launch of a book at the India International Centre. “And he’s so vain that he won’t see the diabolic intent!”

Similarly in Mumbai, it would not be wrong to say that the Preity Zinta-Ness Wadia affair had its own share of conspiracy theorists having a field day over the imbroglio that had allegedly occurred on the sidelines of the cricket field. “He’s nothing but a gentleman,” said one So-Bo princess. “And, after all, she was rude to his mom.” Another claimed to have seen the bruises on her wrist. “She’s been put up to it by someone else,” said a third.

If conspiracy theorists were at their cutting best about these topics of conversation, their relative absence when the tragic news of Sunanda Pushkar’s untimely death broke was understandable. From a subject of a spicy Indo-Pak affair played out between Pati, Patni and Woe over social media, it suddenly become one of tragedy and grief. No one dared question the then official announcement that the unfortunate lady had died of unconfirmed illnesses. No one wanted to add lose talk to the sad enough situation.

Celebrities taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Instead, they chose to grieve over the deaths of some very feisty women during the year when the managerial Zohra Sehgal, the husky Lauren Bacall and the social terrorist Joan Rivers chose 2014 to give their last pirouette before departing to the eternal screen in the sky. And as if in a mirror image, the deaths of Khushwant Singh, Russy Mody and Captain CP Krishnan Nair gave rise to whispers of sadness and salutation. “He led a full and grand life,” was more or less the sentiment that was heard regarding all three. The death of BKS Iyengar (“You’ve got to see pictures of him doing a headstand at 90,” said one yoga enthusiast in awe), and Gabriel Garcia Marquez also gave rise to similar sentiment.

Maya Angelou, that great icon of black and women’s empowerment and mentor to Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, too called it quits. “It’s strange,” said one bewildered hack. “But friends are posting alleged comments by Angelou and alluding to books she’d never written claiming that they’d changed their lives.” No one had informed her of the great powers of the social media and its ability to transform its users into instant fans and groupies of popular personalities and causes.

In the same manner, conversations across upper class portals swelled around topics of “importance”. At some stage or the other, the Ebola scare, Robin Williams’ tragic suicide, the looks of Conchita Wurst (the bearded lady) and the arrest and incarceration of Subroto Roy seemed to have various interest groups in their thrall. It was a year when too much was said about Devyani Khobragade and not enough about the inherent hypocrisies in upper class India, when the sadness around disappearance of the Malaysian airline almost outdid the jubilation around the Mission to Mars, and when more people ranted about the Uber rape than the rape and murder of the two hapless sisters in Badaun.

Robert Vadra getting into trouble with the media made news

Talk is cheap, and talk was everywhere during 2014. Modi’s triumphant contouring of the Indian diaspora in America, Subramanian Swamy calling Arnab Goswami a liar on television, Robert Vadra repeating “Are you serious?” in head-numbing staccato, football and kabaddi receiving as much attention as Rahul Gandhi’s theory on “escape velocity” and Arpita Khan’s wedding details got as much breathless interest as the Hrithik–Sussanne split.

As usual, it was a year when people talked too much, said too little, and meant nothing. It was a time of great chatter, gossip, prattle, babble — a year ripe with rattle blather yak and gab, and 365 days of prime jaw, natter, rap and yammer. And as it comes to an end, all these voices, words, sentences and sounds merge into that great white noise of hum that fuels our lives. That meaningless buzz of words that we exchange to prove that we are after all alive!