A Language which a Deaf can hear and
a Mute can speak
It was Saturday late morning of early October. I had
finished reading many pages of The New York Times along with my routine
breakfast of bread, butter, jam and strong tea. I took some loaves of bread in
my hand and moved towards the small artificial pond in the backyard of my
house. Seeing me approaching the pond, ducks and fishes started competing with
each other to be the first to reach me. I was their regular evening visitor on
weekdays and morning feeder on weekends. Fishes find it little difficult to
grab bread crumbs than their amphibious competitor, ducks.
While I was breaking the bread loaves and
tossing it to them, I saw two pairs of curious cute eyes at my back watching
these excited creatures. I looked at them and gave them a spontaneous smile
with a ‘Hello’. No reply came. They kept on looking at them. Then they started
clapping, shooing and chasing ducks with a small, thin stick.
I asked them not to do that. They did not understand at
first. Then they looked at my eyes and stopped. I gave them few loaves. They
also started feeding, playing and laughing. I was speaking English and the two
kids, a boy and a girl, were speaking their native language, probably Japanese
or Pilipino which I did not understand at all. I could only guess what they
were saying by looking at their facial features and expressions. We kept on
playing and laughing with ducks and fishes without knowing each other
languages, even duck’s language. So after around half an hour their mother
called them and we dispersed. We never met after that.
I have some acute bad
hobbits. One of the prominent one is going for daily evening stroll unfazed by
weather outside. The intention of this stroll has never been to reduce weight
but to come out of house and get some natural air. Winter had started
descending on this part of globe and leaves of the trees had started turning
colors, a clear indication of change in weather. I was wearing half sleeve
jacket and slippers. The chill in air had forced me to erect my shoulders to my
ears and to squeeze my fists inside pockets of the jacket. I was lost in my
thoughts and was strolling very slowly on the pavement. Then I sighted an
elderly woman of small stature of south Indian origin coming from my opposite
side. She was walking at a good pace. I could easily guess her motive of walk
was either to maintain her weight or to reduce it. She saw me and gave an
affectionate smile. If you find your countrymen or women outside your country,
either you look down to ignore them or give them a familiar lovely smile. An
evening or two passed like that. On third day I said ‘Namaste’ to her and she
said something in her native language probably Telugu. I could not understand.
She understood my ignorance of the language and said in broken English ‘Walking ...good. Good’. I completed her sentence and
said ‘yes... Yes’. So every evening I would meet her on pavement and she would
use few words of English like ‘family, working, food, happy, home etc’ with words
of Telugu to complete her sentence. In the
similar fashion I used to answer her in few English words like, ‘alone, not taken,
yes, no etc ‘. So one fine evening, she said, “Vinyak Chaturthi, come home”. I
understood. She was inviting me to her home on the occasion of Vinayak or
Ganesh Chaturthi. I gently said, “O.K”. Pictures of typical Indian festive
dishes started flashing in front of my eyes and my mouth started watering
instantly. Actually after a long spell of time, I was going to have Indian
dishes made by an Indian woman. I knew her address. I reached there on time.
Her husband opened the door and shook my hand very strongly
but warmly. He was serving in Indiana state dept. and had good command over
English. Only he and his wife were living there. Their kids were settled in
other parts of U.S. They were living in U.S for more than 15 years. I was
little surprised that she had survived good enough time with so little English.
Then the lady came along with dishes and thus came the pleasant aroma of ghee.
My long wait was over and I just lost control over the food. She was serving
the same way as my mother used to serve, always trying to pour more food on the
plate. I was eating voraciously oblivious of the fact that I had visited their
place for the first time. After the heavy lunch, I departed with big thanks on
my lips, my heart and my stomach.
I was transferred to Florida after few days. The above
incidents revealed one very interesting thing. We had no common language to
communicate but the message of love and affection was passed without any
language. These incidents happened in U.S but I also remember one incident in
India which had the same message. During fourth and last year of B.Tech from
Vellore, I was staying as day scholar (away from college campus) along with my
friend. There was a problem of drinking water as the timing of municipality
water was early morning and early evening. Both the time either we were
sleeping or in the college. So we used to take drinking water from the other
tenant, Tamil speaking family in the same building. The housewife did not know
English at all and we knew only ‘Tani’ in Tamil, meaning water. Often she gave
us Sāmbhar, Dosa or sometimes Mysore Paak, popular sweet of south India. We
were there for six months and enjoyed an excellent rapport with them. On the
last day of our stay in Vellore, I went to say final good bye to them. The aunt
became very emotional. With droplets of tear in her eyes, she said something in
Tamil. I could not understand. She said it again. Then her ten year old son
came and said, “Amma was asking to come back “. These words touched my heart
deeply.
There is one language which has no grammar, no words and no
syntax. The vocal cord of this language goes deep down the heart and it speaks
through eyes. This is the language of humanity. Pundits say mother tongue is
the first language we learn from our mother. But I feel before the mother
tongue, we learn the language of humanity through the affectionate eyes and the
caring hands of our mother. It becomes easy to break the ice and enter into the
conversation if you know someone’s language. But if you feel the pain or
happiness of someone, your hearts start communicating. Linguistic conflicts
will always be there but the language of humanity has the power to surpass any
conflict. Glitter in your eyes and a lovely smile on your lips can bridge any
gap of caste, creed or country. Languages may come or may become extinct but
the language of humanity will survive as long as human race exists.
A language which a deaf can hear and a mute can speak.
आखिर कब तक 
