A Language which a Deaf can hear and a Mute can speak

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.