Suresh Subrahmanyan is a Bengaluru-based former advertising professional

It is widely accepted that while being overly aggressive, offensive or too clever by half is not an admirable personality trait, there can be no bigger pain than that of being a bore. Therein lies the rub. Bores can otherwise be pleasant to engage with, they may even be gifted in many ways. A handful of them have gone on to achieve great things in life but there is no guarantee that some of them, if you have had the misfortune to be buttonholed at the club bar or elsewhere, won’t turn out to be crashing bores. Particularly if their best days are behind them.

The thing about being ensnared by a bore is that you are never sure what’s coming. The conversation, or rather monologue, starts harmlessly. After five-six minutes, it dawns on you that you are trapped with no escape route. You have failed to get a word in edgeways and your mind is beginning to wander. Your eyes glaze and you keep looking frequently at your watch, which the bore ignores with impunity. You respond with an ‘Oh,’ ‘Ah,’ or ‘I see,’ not having the faintest what the bore is on about. The modern-day response is to feign a yawn and say, ‘Boring’ and walk away. Alas, we were brought up to be civil.”

If someone tells you he has never been boring, he is being more than economical with the truth. That goes for yours truly as well. Merely because I am writing a column at the expense of bores, doesn’t mean I can’t be guilty.

The warning signal to watch out for is when your wife or a dear friend gently admonishes you with ‘I think they have heard that yarn about your hattrick in school many times before, dear. You’ve downed one too many.’ At least, that is the gist of it. I am not much of an imbiber, but I do not require alcoholic stimulants to get people around me fidgety, once I am on a roll.

We all know that a confirmed hypochondriac holds pride of place when it comes to boring the pants off his companions. ‘I will give small eats a wide berth, if you don’t mind. Tummy trouble. I keep getting these shooting pains at the pit of my stomach and I fear it could be something more serious. My GP simply brushed the whole thing off as a figment of my imagination. Take two antacid pills twice a day after meals and you will be right as rain. I was not convinced. I decided to get a scan done and you know what…’ And on and on he drones, while his friends are beginning to disappear having received ‘urgent calls’ on their mobiles.

Beware of the man who starts a sentence with, ‘I shan’t detain you long,’ or ‘Did I tell you the one about…?’ I can state with absolute certainty that he has told you the one about. Yes, my friend, you have. More than once. But here’s the thing about bores. They don’t listen to what the other chap is saying. They bash on regardless. ‘In that case, I had better start at the beginning.’ And the long evening wears on.

Musicians are, by and large, a noble lot. As long as they perform on stage or in a recording studio. Most are reluctant to engage in long conversations as they believe that is not their forte. Many of them speak well but prefer to keep their opinions to themselves. That said, I have known some Carnatic musicians who love to convert their concerts into lecture demonstrations. They talk more than sing and that can be trying. And boring. ‘This is the first song my guru taught me. He made me practice it 50 times before he allowed me to perform it on stage.’ Wild applause. That is all very well except that he has narrated this particular tale to us over 50 times.

It is instructive to examine the issue of boredom in music from a western perspective. Here is Jude Kelly, artistic director of London’s Southbank Centre, on the subject. “An audience must have the confidence to admit there are structural inadequacies in the great works. We’ve all had moments when we’ve dozed off. But there is also a sense that the best art is like life. A bit dull at times, but you need the boring parts to appreciate the climaxes.”

Finally, a word on teachers. The teacher who held our attention was the one who interjected his lessons with a light-hearted quip. ‘Boys, do not copy your neighbour’s mistakes.’ On another occasion, our Moral Science teacher was explaining the importance of prayer and how it helps assimilate the values of life and trust to a higher power. ‘Does anyone have another opinion?’ A back bencher piped up, ‘I don’t pray because I don’t want to bore God.’

In sum, I agree with the late George Harrison who said that ‘The Beatles saved the world from boredom”