The dictionary meaning of 'bore' is a wearisome person. You cannot dismiss a many-splendoured personality with such a simple definition. No one is born a bore - it is a quality carefully cultivated in order to punish the simple and unsuspecting with unimaginable mental trauma.

When you select your victims, be sure the persons concerned are gentle enough not to react; they should be subjugated to your talk in small degrees till your conversation gains complete mastery over them. They should put up with your talk out of sheer politeness.

The second point to note is to close their escape routes. You should have a ready answer to their excuses, so that they are forced to listen, albeit with lumps of sorrow in their throats. When one topic ends, the next one should follow without a break so that the victims can't open their mouths.

I have seen faces wilt under my talk, eyes losing their lustre, complexions turning pale and even people having difficulty breathing due to suppressed yawns. Then I get real satisfaction, verging on the sadistic, and once again you have a person and subjugated him, your appetite for more victims increases, much like that of a serial killer. When you have achieved this, you have graduated from a Bore to an Arch Bore.

The vernacular translations of Bore and Arch Bore are more physical. In Tamil, a Bore is called a kadi or a bite as in dog-bite. An Arch Bore is called a marana kadi or death-bite. In Malayalam, a Bore is called lathi as in lathi-charge and an Arch Bore, bhayankara lathi or fearsome lathi-charge.

Many years ago, one day I went to pick up my daughter from school when she was in Class VII. While I was waiting for her to come out of the class, I started a conversation with her classmate whom I recognised. Later on, this little girl complained to my daughter, "Your father is a kadi." This was my first revelation that I had become a bore.

After my retirement I started repeating the incidents that had happened in my life endlessly to my relatives, who, out of politeness, used to listen to them with an artificial grin. Though I was conscious of this, I could not help it. A thick skin is the second nature of a bore.

When people coming opposite escape into the side-lanes, when you get 'not-at-home' replies on the telephone, when your friends on seeing you run to catch imaginary buses, when they scatter as if they have sighted Godzilla, then you know you have achieved your goal - you have become an Arch Bore.