Anchored Aspirations

"...and while there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story" - Jeffrey Archer.

Picture Courtesy: Saptarshi Chakrabarti

It is in the nature of a kite to strain for freedom. As the wind flies into its harnessed face, a string cuts across the breast of the sky and brings to a nought the labours of the kite in freeing itself from all impediments. Gaze long and far at the distant object in the sky competing only with high-flying birds until you have a crick in your neck. Only those of us who have had the privilege of kite-flying in our youth know the ethereal pleasure that is to be had in feeling the struggle of a kite at the other end of a kite string.

Welcome to a short story. It is short, because it is not I who play the principal character in the plot, so I cannot provide the reader with the finer elements of the story the way an experienced novelist would. It is a story of a million human beings, with whom I share common DNA, identical social environs, and a lot more. It might, in all probability, be your story.

 Departure
Picture Courtesy: Author

The tale commences on an auspicious morning in a middle class neighbourhood in my city, and it happens to be the day of Durga Ashtami. It might as well have begun on any other day, but I look to invoke the blessings of Maa Durga upon our protagonist, now just a small child, who is standing among a throng of people waiting for the basket containing flowers for anjali to reach them. Fold your hands and pray, the mother whispers. The child looks confused. A few minutes later as the mother takes the heat from a fiercely burning piece of camphor placed upon the wide copper spoon of the priest, she places her palm upon her child's head and offers a silent prayer to the Almighty. What a mother might be praying for to Maa Durga to bless her child with is up to the judicious interpretation and vivid imagination of the reader.

As the child grows up, our protagonist begins to gather some knowledge of the world around. Folding your hands and bowing your head in prayer is not sufficient to achieve all that is out there to be attained, the teenager now concludes. The society is quick to impress upon the young adult all that is expected out of a responsible young citizen. Hence it is not long before our protagonist has been rolled forged and machined into a shape that my society would deem to be a perfect fit within the jigsaw puzzle of civilized existence. While this shape is one most of us are pretty well acquainted with, the bits and pieces of the teen-aged soul that were pruned away in order for it to fit the jigsaw are swept into the trash can by the municipal sweeper the next morning.

Picture Courtesy: ©yordphotos

And in the midst of this chaos and confusion, a small family somewhere in my vast city celebrates the birth of a child who is made of a somewhat different mould. A chef who prepares the same dish every day at a restaurant cannot say with certainty that his every fare tastes exactly the same, even though they all undergo the same treatment upon the stove. This uncertainty, on a lucky few occasions, creates a brilliant dish far beyond the travails of his everyday fares. This child, even after going through motions very similar to what all others go through, turns out different, like that unique and exquisite dish the chef produced by sheer accident. But this child is not the subject of our narrative today.

Recall our protagonist once again, dear reader. Now a proud parent in a family of four, this respectable citizen of our society can now boast of an enviable academic and professional record, approbation in the eyes of fellow citizens, a loving spouse, and two beautiful children who win hearts of all those they come across. If social norms are anything to go by, 'successful' is an expression that might define the state of our protagonist perfectly. Even though I was not privy to the silent conversation that occurred between a mother and the Almighty many years ago on the day of Durga Ashtami, I have a hunch that Maa Durga must have fulfilled a lot of the lady's prayers.

Picture Courtesy: Saptarshi Chakrabarti

That is where we part ways with our protagonist. As our story reaches its abrupt conclusion, I implore a question upon the readers. A society is a reflection of the people who inhabit it, and it would be gross injustice to smear entire humankind with black paint. "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart" : these magnificent words by Anne Frank give rise to profound faith in humanity within me. Every human soul is a conglomerate of customs, traditions, principles and scruples. The society and the culture that has brought me up to twenty-one fine years of survival is the one I owe all my soul to. I have been taught how to put up a jolly good fight when need be, and I have also been shown the manner of gracious retreat when the situation demands. The best of me and the worst of me are all embedded in the bedrock of my surroundings. The foundation of my character lies within the by-lanes of this society, and if I were to absent the entire presence of this pervading influence on every day of my life, my character and my principles would die a premature death. And speaking of character, what is a man without one but a hollow mess of confusion and instability?

But then the demon shows its head. There are thorns of middle-class shackles which unnecessarily and unjustly bind our aspirations and dreams, and most of them have got deep roots in the psychology our society has brought up to be so used to with. Surely no one needs recounting of instances where passions were killed, careers busted, and talents smothered without a second thought on the pretext of abiding by grossly misinterpreted social guidelines. Sociology defines a society as a group of people who identify with one another, but when mass generalization on a large scale leads to stifling of individualism in humans, a powerful and glorious social tool is being used for the worst of purposes.

So dream like there is no waking up, breathe like there is no tomorrow, strain at every rope which binds you with the last drop of your strength! But before you do so, it is prudent to go through a spot of self analysis. The world runs by tried and tested rules and regulations, and disobedience for the sake of contrariness serves no purpose. But the moment someone with a huge pair of scissors approaches threateningly to clip away your wings, put up a fight like there is nothing to lose.

A kite-flyer knows the pleasure of feeling the tug of a kite string in his hand. The flyer also knows the subtle technique of releasing the string few feet at a time as the wind carries the contraption to celestial heights. Pull hard, exhorts the wind to the kite. The kite pulls hard and in turn grows in grandeur. But, Irony, how cruel is your blow! The moment a rival kite's knife-sharp string jags across the harness of the defeated one, it is the wind itself which carries away the torn bird. Without the restraining influence of the string, the kite is soon reduced to a torn piece of paper dangling from an electric pole, its magnificence and glory lost to the sky.

Go fly a kite.

In So Many Words

"Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it": Christopher Morley, American author.

The incomplete Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1 - 11:9 of the Old Testament is an interesting segment of the Holy Book. Among other things, it narrates the story of the Tower of Babel. When the children of Noah (of Ark fame) multiplied and had expansive families of their own, they all lived together and spoke one language. Being clever people, such was their pride and audacity that they began to challenge the authority of God. They came together and started building a tower ever so high destined to reach the Heavens, using bricks and tar for the construction. We are so smart, they said, and God is not important. But God, apparently, was smarter, for He had other plans. To disrupt the ego of the humans, one fine morning He mixed up the languages of the people. When everyone no longer spoke the same tongue, they could no longer live and work together in union, and the city was a confused mess. Very soon they dispersed, in groups of people speaking the same tongue, and the city was eventually and quite appropriately named Babel, meaning "confused" in Hebrew. The tower was never finished, and thus the languages came into being.

Languages are the most amazing things we can possibly speak... Duh? Okay, maybe that does not say a lot... When the heart feels a need to be expressed, it conveys a neural message to the brain. The brain in turn decodes it and gives the expression the form of words in a language. These beautiful creations of the brain are then spoken out loud, or as in my case at the moment, written bold in black and white. The joy of expression reaches its destiny of realization.

 The first language we all speak is the gibberish baby-language that a new-born gurgles. Ask the mother and she will probably translate all of it for you, for since when has communication between the child and the mother depended on mere mortal words! Fast forward a few months. The infant brain has grown at an astonishing pace, and the child has probably started picking up the first few words in the language which will eventually own the distinction of being the child's mother tongue. The language in which we laugh at our happiest hour, cry at our saddest, and swear in during the most bitter and resentful times. Over the course of growing up I have heard umpteen times from elders the story of my one-year-old version's journey through my first words, and each time the story entertains me as much! A scientific study had quoted that in times of extreme mental stress your mind automatically switches over to your mother tongue irrespective of the circumstance, and I have personally experienced this. The lengua materna is your identity, your firm ground for life.

Source: https://www.rbi.org.in/

So much for the origins and baby-talk. What about the languages spoken in the world today? Ethnologue, an interesting website about languages and origins, claims information about 7097 living languages. But strict demarcation and distinction among languages is a grey area indeed. Why look further when our country itself has an absurdly varied range of languages? We have 22 officially recognized languages, but that says half the story. In the Hindi-speaking state of Uttar Pradesh, it is said that the language spoken changes with every 100 kilometers you travel by road. In Britain only, the language English takes many twists and turns, with the Scots, Welshmen, Irish and the true-blue Englishmen hanging on to their own distinct styles and vocabularies. Add to that the Americans and Australians with a multitude of unmistakable idioms of their own. The same Spanish word is capable of bearing three or more different and completely unrelated meanings as you travel across South America! So to engage oneself in classifying the languages of the world would be indulging in quite a bit of time wasting.

Have you ever felt the joy of learning a language foreign to you? It is unparalleled. If you have a liking for self-expression, learning a new language is like an ice-cream crazy kid discovering a new untried flavour of Baskin Robbins. If you are of taciturn disposition, it is a new language to stay silent in... Dabbling in a new language opens new vistas for the learner, because you do not simply learn the vocabulary and the grammar of the language, but the essence of the land where the tongue is spoken as well. The manner in which a language develops is a mirror of the entire society which speaks it, imbuing in the history, culture, cuisine, geography and humanity of the people.

We are bound within confines of such a short lifetime, and most of that is frittered away in dull activities like sleeping, eating and creating progeny. Consider for a moment the fact that we are sharing our planet with millions and millions of other human beings and yet we know not an iota of how their journey of survival proceeds day after day. True, we are social media savvy and like to stay updated round the clock, but such media contribute further in consolidating the isolation we suffer from. Friend lists may be increasing by the day but real contact declines.

Antipodal social structures and frenetic lifestyles make each social group a virtual island with little interaction with other groups. Such indifference! It pains me. One of my strongest desires in life is to sit in a room full of people of diverge and polar identities, listen to each of their stories, and share my own with them. It is not merely information which I seek, for the internet is full of them, but the quintessence of the existence which is not conveyable by facts alone. The smallest mundane detail of my everyday life is sure to be a source of amazement for someone without an inkling of how my society lives and works, and the reverse is equally veracious.  But the buck stops there. In reality such desires are far-fetched and impractical; wanting to have a bite of every society of the world is even more silly than it sounds. It is here that I proffer a viable and sensible alternative, that of tapping in to the vast resources of languages. The window to civilizations; the pathway to amalgamation...

21 February, International Mother Language Day

There is no end to eulogizing languages. In the age of cosmopolitanism a successful professional needs a repertoire of communication skills. Be it a budding entrepreneur or wizened corporate honcho, being able to communicate better with a colleague or collaborator in his or her own tongue is a big plus. But to be able to grasp a language as it is spoken, one needs the blessings of an accomplished virtuoso instructor, as well as the will to learn, for dropout rates are alarmingly high in foreign language courses all over the world! But the most effective way to learn a tongue, without doubt, is to go and live in a country which speaks it. True, with the advent of internet you are not in dearth of dictionaries and translators. But the gross limitations of Duolingo and the likes are exposed the moment you move over from individual words and terms to general conversation. Moreover, no fruitful conversation can ever be carried out with one hand and half the mind focused on a smartphone screen! Finally, only two friends sharing a common foreign language will know the usefulness of the same while sitting in a crowd and you need to make a rather shady observation which is not for everyone's ears...

To conclude, surpassing all other advantages is a feeling of immense satisfaction and gratification derived from mastering a tongue. I have only started on my journey, but thanks to the immense spread of the only foreign language I have obtained a certain degree of mastery over (Spanish), I already command the ability to speak to almost 19% of the world's population, in their native tongue! Add to that the non-native speakers of these languages, and the sprinkling of regional Indian languages which most people understand a few words of, and the percentage is bound to increase. Time is ticking on, and I have a world to conquer yet...

There is a vast infinity of stories out there in this world, waiting insistently for a patient hearing. Come let's listen to them together...