Somewhere Michel Serres, the French philosopher, speaks of how the speaking human voice is a narcotic of sorts that casts a spell over the speaker. I have always found out that this was the case with me. In my distant childhood I was, it seems, a chatterbox whose unceasing words would cast an invisible net over my surroundings in the vain hope that I could, I guess, capture my world and its transience.

For reasons which are not clear to me as yet I went silent and retreated in a world of books, ideas, and movies during my teen and early adult years. Yet as an artist, critic, writer and educator, over the years, I have found my speaking voice once again. In an age where to converse is sadly a passing art and to listen also a dying thing in our social media saturated world I have become progressively thankful to others who may think similar things.

Face-to-face encounters are what our age needs more of . It was said that Luis Buñuel in his old age would rise early in the morning so he could capture the morning light and see and hear how trees would sway in the morning breeze. On doing this Buñuel’s face would came alive with our world’s infinite capacity to enchant us.

I have decided not to smooth over through editing out the idiosyncratic rhythms, inflections, meandering digressions, impasses and argumentative circularity of my conversations in order to retain their overall non-linear character.