In Praise of the Salon

THE ART OF CONVERSATION is slowly leaving this planet. The tragedy is not that there are no conversations to be had, but the reality is we have stopped conversing with one another. We have stopped debating, we have stopped disagreeing. And as someone very famously said, “It’s important to disagree as long as you’re not disagreeable.” I miss the days when you could go to someone’s house and partake in a conversation that revolved around the arts, included some place that you may have seen, where you discussed films, books, and general museum visits.

But somehow, that has been replaced by the desire to only indulge in political conversations where there is more rage than reason, and more argument than consensus. And that is where we have lost a lot of the character of the erstwhile salon.

Salons were important. They allowed people to exchange ideas, understand another perspective. They allowed people to be discerning in their ways. All that has changed and it’s because, I guess, we don’t read enough. I don’t think it’s important for us to go and see plays. I don’t think people want to actually discuss books anymore.

If you look at what’s happening in India, you will be sad: because I remember when I first moved to Delhi, the salon was the heart of any social engagement. I remember the many salons one had at the homes of friends like Jugnu and Malvika Singh, or for that matter, Tavleen Singh or Pavan and Renuka Varma. I remember the many discussions that one had at the home of Uma Gajapathi Raju and Ramesh Sharma, where Ramesh was always in disagreement, but never disagreeable.

What mattered then was the mind that you brought to the party, not the wine. What mattered was the intellectual heft you carried, and not that ugly French bag. And that’s why I believe it’s time for parents today to allow their children to indulge in this culture of salons. But for that the parents have to be more reasonable, more reasoned, and more willing.

Education is finite but knowledge is infinite, and knowledge will only happen when there is an exchange between people in terms of what they believe is their interpretation of what they have seen or what they have read or what they have heard or what they have been to. And that is the point that is missing in our lives today.

You go to someone’s house, you listen to some wretched music, you eat some catered food, and then you leave. But there’s no conversation. You really don’t understand the person you have invited. You don’t even understand what that person thinks, what that person believes, and how that person behaves. And therein lies the tragedy, because if everything about our lives is about human engagement, about human triumph or human failure, you need to recognise that unless we get into the minds of each other, everything else will be facetious.

For my part, I’ve always encouraged different sets of people to come home, people from the arts, crafts, industry and from politics so that the mishmash then produces, through a manthan, a confluence of ideas, not just a confluence of one kind of idea.

We need to go back to our roots. We need to discuss our civilisational legacies, not just the recent elections. We need to discuss men and women of great value, of great import, and great meaning, not just those who have been made into stars by some paparazzi.

That is how we as a society will change, that is how we as a people will evolve, and this is how human beings will then move and climb the next blue mountain. Till then, everything we do is just facetious, meaningless, and has no rudder. It’s important for us to therefore bring back the social compass in the form of a salon.

artsconversationcraftsindustrypoliticssalonsocial interaction