The best way to get a handle on boredom is to describe a bore and his dramatic turnaround. G was a minor clerk who lived near us and was on cordial terms. He had a walrus moustache, a belly that walked far ahead of him, mouthed the same inanities when we met by chance. He tried to look dashing in a tweed coat with leather arm patches, but even that failed to excite. Then once, my very pretty aunt came to visit us from Jorhat. When the time came to send her home, my folks were in a fix. We needed a safe, dependable chaperone to accompany her. My dad requested G, and he agreed. A week after my aunt reached home, there was a breathless letter from her. It seems that scarcely had the bus reached Barapani, when G, who had not spoken even a word to her, turned towards her and said. “Now dearie, will you take off your goggles and show me your beautiful eyes?” My mother’s voice trailed off after reading this sentence. I don’t know if my father ticked off the ardent suitor but I never looked at G in the same way again. From crushing bore to daring Lothario was a steep climb indeed.
Boredom is weariness, ennui, lack of enthusiasm, apathy. I felt it when, as a five-year-old, I waited for the school bell to ring. I feel it when a meeting drags on as each man or woman on the dais is determined to share their pearls of wisdom. I feel it waiting outside the doctor’s chamber for my turn. I never thought much of it till I read boredom can actually kill you. If not straightaway, but gradually wear you down. Like tobacco.
It is not that this piece is utterly originial. Great writers and thinkers have mused on this despairing human condition. Tolstoy called it the desire for desires. Schopenhauer has it that the enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. Carlyle preferred to die of exhaustion, rather than boredom. Most boring people are quite unaware of how boring they are. I’ve noticed that on flights people hardly talk to one another. But it is a different matter in trains. The sheer distances loosen tongues and how. The boring passenger talks about himself. If he has no achievements, he goes on about the feats of his relatives. He talks about his illnesses, his habits, the places you pass by. He talks about religion, politics, the economy and the failure of the netas to put back the nation on its rails. By now you are ready to fling yourself out of the door, but thankfully, saner counsel prevails.
What causes boredom? Surely it can’t be just a flaw in our personalities. For one, it is induced by mechanical repetetive tasks. Its like being a pair of yoked bullocks and made to go round and round the watering wheel. The human mind looks for new experiences, for stimulation. When a person’s skills match the challenges presented to him, there is a flow that makes boredom impossible. May be that is why intelligent people are easily bored, because they are not challenged enough.
People, some of them, also have a constant need for novelty. They are always holding parties, going on foreign junkets, eager to meet people. They try out exotic cuisines, go bungee jumping, whitewater rafting. They are on the go for a buzz and are addicted to looking forward to new events.
A bored person is one with lack of direction. He cannot focus on what he wants and ends up with idle time on his hands. His is the failure of imagination.
Boredom is a modern, urban construct. Our lives, in large parts of the world, have become safe, comfortable. This has provided the condition for boredom.
Like in the beginning, I end with a personal anecdote. Let me admit I was never Miss Goody Two shoes. I lied, spied, stole, swore and had a particular talent for finding naughty passages in books meant for grown-ups. As you can guess, I was frequently punished. I was made to stay in a tiny room for a couple of hours. It was expected I would be bored of tears. Before you start feeling sorry for me, here’s the catch. That tiny little storeroom had a window opening to a gorgeous view – hills and a ravine, pine trees, a meandering road. I would lean far out, counting the sparrows, peering intently at the people – matrons, slender girls, tired men returning from office… a drunk weaving along and crashing into a gutter… boys poking him with a stick and running away with whoops of glee, processions of Loreto girls taken on their evening constitutional – a snaking of grey and red. A funeral cortege winding its way to the graveyard. The curd-seller delicately balancing his skinny aluminium vessels. Then a soldier on leave from the army, a young gurkha, whistling in gay abandon. There was a tiny wooden shop run by a pretty woman, while her husband sold wood down below. And one day I saw the strapping soldier enter the shop. Soon the shop had its wooden shutters down. I thought nothing of it, till a few days later the grapevine buzzed with the news of the woman and the gurkha’s disappearance. There I was, perched on the window sill, watching an affair simmer and boil over. If my father thought I would be bored to tears, he was sadly mistaken. Behind the most innocuous details, lies life’s unending drama.
Indrani Raimedhi