These are tough times for braggarts. Etiquette dictates, alas, that it is bad form, horrible manners, pure and simple, to boast. Not only is it now taboo to blow one’s own trumpet, it is now a social nono to blow one’s children’s trumpets, as well. That is, boasting about one’s children, such a staple of conversation till just the other day, is now greeted with sniggers and sneers. In such a situation, what is a person to do?

Come to think of it, bragging is probably a basic human need. But, as civilization marches on, this urge to talk endlessly about Me, Myself and Mine is being mercilessly throttled. This is a sad but undoubted fact of life. Perhaps it was necessity, purely practical reasons that have made this happen. After all, the urge to brag is inherent in all of us who are not saints or holy people. Unless venerable sages and seers of the past had dictated that it was bad manners to brag, humankind would perhaps have done nothing else. Progress would not have taken place at all. We would all have been dressed in skins and would have still been sitting around in caves, telling each other tall tales about ourselves and our immediate families. Good fun, no doubt, and so fulfilling, but uncomfortable, to say the least. I mean, those skins must have been really rough on the skin.

Still, a basic human urge is impossible to throttle. Think of it. Hunger can be ignored only for so long. Before long we fall, salivating, on the laden tables before us, pushing aside the fact that we have been trying to diet our way to losing at least ten kilos off our bulky frames. Similarly, bragging. Evolution has not wrought the miracle that is the human brain for nothing. Thinkers have, over the centuries, secretly dreamed up ways of bragging that are socially acceptable. Most practiced braggarts are seasoned veterans of this art: How To Boast In Such a Way that the Listener will Not Realize You are Doing So. And yet, boasting is what you will be doing, plain and simple, and refreshing your soul, too, in the process.

In this scenario, the tone of voice in which one boasts is all important. The inexperienced or boorish braggart makes the cardinal mistake of not modulating his or her voice while delivering the boast. Cutting across a roomful of cheerful social conversation, he yells to the person he is talking with, “But my son is doing WELL. I mean, REALLY REALLY WELL, earning more than a lakh a month.” The words “Match that if you can” are not shouted, but the look on the braggart’s face, competitive and triumphant, says it all. The person to whom this is addressed is usually too taken aback, and too polite to mention that her son is earning in the same bracket too. But she need not fear. The loudness of the braggart’s voice in this case has made sure that public opinion is against the guy. Whereas if he had said it in a more artistic way, in a softly modulated voice, people would have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker, and he would have made his point without any fuss.

One popular way in which boasts are put across is the use of the third person. This third person, usually referred to as “A friend of mine,” is often invented, a mythical entity. Still, who’s to know that? So we often hear it said by the expert braggart, “You know, this friend of mine rang up just this morning. She said she’s never tasted anything as good as my Chicken DoPiaza, even though she’s a foodie who’s travelled the world. She wants to come over to have it. Practically invited herself…” This is delivered in such a soft tone of voice that listeners smile and nod agreeably, never realizing that they have just listened to a whopper of a boast.

Sometimes the mythical friend is useful for racking up compliments to the next level. You go to a person’s house, and compliment her, in all sincerity, on the décor of the drawing room. If she is inclined to bragging, and is good at it, she immediately picks it up, and says, smoothly, “How nice of you to say so. In fact this other friend of mine was saying the same thing to me just this morning. She was complimenting me on my taste, the way I have used colours and shades…” By adding substance to your compliment, she boasts in such a way that you can do nothing but nod for all the time that she goes on about what the mythical friend has told her.

One hesitates to say this, but it’s a fact that, alas, artistes seem to have a greater need to boast than do the rest of uncreative humanity. Not those top notch ones who have made it to the rarefied peaks of creativity, of course. These gifted people do not need to brag about their work. Everybody knows about them already. But what about those poor wannabes who are still trying to scale the lower slopes of a creative endeavour such as music or dance? They do not have interviewers trailing their every step, begging for a sound byte, nor do newspaper reporters hang on their every word. Naturally, the only recourse left to them is to brag.

One of the ways that one comes across through which this is done is to talk of “audience reaction.” Those musicians, for instance, who have mastered the fine art of bragging are a treat to listen to. “You know, the audience loved it when I sang Raag Hamsadhwani the other day in Kolkata. There were so many well known critics sitting in the front rows. Their reactions were all very positive.” This gives the boast a ring of glamour and authenticity, guaranteed to impress the lay listener. Left unsaid is the fact that the “audience” consisted of a total of twenty people, five of whom were friends and relatives, fourteen being the organisers. The music critic was the guy who occasionally writes an article or two in a Puja Committee journal. His reaction was very positive because he was delighted to find a seat in the empty hall when he had dashed in to take shelter from the sudden shower outside.

Really successful braggarts have honed the fine art of boasting to a really admirable degree. They even call it by another name. In the Himalayan heights at which these people operate, it’s even known by a different name, a much more politically correct one than “boasting”. It’s called “Public Relations.” If one can afford it, one can hire the best brains to tell the world all about oneself. And yes, these Public Relations firms manufacture glorious myths about the person who hired them with such aplomb that one can barely tell them from the truth. Their sophistication and expertise would leave most individual aspiring braggarts looking like village yokels. A Press Conference is just one of the ways through which these myths are created, either about a person or a product. But Public Relations is a constantly evolving field, and mythmaking and image makeovers are but the work of a moment for these talented people.

All Things Considered, we should all learn a thing or two from the examples given above. For, in today’s world, boasting is a sine qua non. The only thing is that it should be done in such a way that it goes down smoothly with the listener.

MITRA PHUKAN