Language: part deux

“When the language one identifies with is far away, one does everything possible to keep it alive. Because words bring back everything: the place, the people, the streets, the life, the sky, the flowers, the sounds.”
~ Jhumpa Lahiri

This is where I left off yesterday, this is where I begin today. Taking you on a tour, inside our home, on the clunky, colorful vehicle with things dangling out – the metaphor for my language. 

I speak to my kid mostly in Marathi. She replies back only in English. She has done so for the past several years.

Yet in all her English sentences, there are certain words that she uses only in Marathi. She never uses their English counterparts (when speaking to us). She sticks them in English sentences with a happy effortless ease, even if they jut out forcibly – awkward and strange in the English sentence, grammar and context.

“After I do angol (bathe), will you get the zatta (tangles) out of my hair?”

I remember her at a year and a half old, mixing the two languages - adding “ing” to Marathi verbs or taking English verbs and adding Marathi grammatical suffixes to them.

A friend shares how her mother, a non-native English speaker, never spoke to her in her native tongue. She wonders if there remains a missing piece in their relationship since she never spoke her mother’s language. I sense her emotion and feel much empathy for a dear friend, who may have felt like an outsider to this part of her mother’s language (and identity?).

Determinedly, I continue speaking to my kid in Marathi, for most part. She is embarrassed when I speak to her in Marathi in front of her friends. I explain it is simply force of habit. I am ever so slightly hurt. Till she shushes me, takes me in confidence, and whispers, “they will think we’re talking about them”.

I grin in surprise. For I realize we do talk about people in Marathi. When a server bangs the plates, or seems grouchy, I may on occasion, have said, “Hmm… someone’s having a bad day…” not outside earshot, not in English, of course.

Tsk tsk… I suppose Marathi has sometimes been evidence of bad parenting. Since my kid does not always have volume control, or ahem… tact, I have sometimes whispered to her, “speak in Marathi, if you are going to make personal comments about people”.

Bad parenting or not, it does seem a safer bet when your kid is about to utter, “Is that guy wearing a wig?” Full volume, of course.

My husband and I sometimes wonder how monolingual parents parent without a secret language. She speaks and understands English and Marathi. But my husband and I also speak Hindi, which is our secret language to say things we do not want her to hear. It backfires quickly and we notice she is extra alert when we speak in Hindi. She understands the gist of the conversation, if not every word. Moreover it annoys her, so we drop it. There really is no outsmarting our kids.

There is no dearth of stories and instances about language, for we evolve, language evolves, circumstances around us change constantly. For most part, we continue obliviously, in our personal “evolved language”, sometimes we take notice.

The other day, my friend says deluge, as rain and hail rattle the car top. She pronounces it de’luge (day-luje) as in French. “Oh it’s not deluge (de-luje) in English?” I ask.

I laugh as I realize that I probably learnt the word first in French. Bringing it to English, I decide to pronounce it in what I consider the more American pronunciation. “How messed up, is that?” I ask laughing. I don’t want to sound too ooh la la…  and all francais and pronounce it the way I believe Americans would.

My kid corrects my pronunciations, she sighs and gives up – for it is a lost cause.
I find sentences here and there, which could be written better in English. At times I correct them, at times, I let them be. They are often literal translations from Marathi.

I let them be, because I am growingly beginning to understand my clunky colorful messy vehicle. For in the end, I need to write, and I need language to write. And if language is identity, why mess with the individuality – no matter how messy?

 

Language

Our words are our emotions, our thoughts, our fears, our motivations, and so many more things, so many more feelings… language is all but a vehicle.

Sometimes, I attempt to figure out my language. I don’t see clear lines – it seems messy, clunky, mixed-up – a strange vehicle of many colors, with stranger things dangling about. Okay, some people have vivid imagination, and see things in images.

Hmm… Matter of dismay for an erstwhile journalist, and a ‘maybe-writer’? Now which writer, in their right mind, would want to be a clunky colorful awkward vehicle, when they could be a zippy little mainstream car? For language is a sharp tool in the toolbox – chiseling out beautiful creations…

But coming out of the images, to explanations…

English is not my first language. Yet, I read and write more easily in English. I often think in my first language, Marathi and often find literal translations from Marathi in my English sentences. Sometimes I notice them, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, I repair them. Sometimes I notice them, yet leave them the way they are.

A few books I read recently are translations. As I start the one translated from Swedish, I am very aware that it is a translation. Yet, the many characters and the rapid chain of events keeps my attention on the story and soon, I forget it is a translation.  

I read a brilliant Neapolitan series.  I don’t know any Italian. Yet, in the English lines, I hear the melodious slur of the Italian accent.

I sense the ferocity of emotion and truth in the writing. I also sense that the translated lines do not carry the full breadth of emotion and beauty. The characters move to dialect in intense moments. The writer gives the gist, but points it out. I search for gaps, the areas I do not have access to, the entirety I will never be able to experience, the completeness that is elusive. I feel like an outsider.

Or perhaps, that is art in general. Perhaps, we are never able to absorb completely what the artiste intended.

The scope to which we are able to access what the artiste intended may depend on our state of mind, our personal experiences, knowledge, interests, emotions. Certain words leap at us, others go unnoticed, depending on our thought process, experiences, interests, emotions, on a given day.

No two people can read a page the same way.

I find an old French novel by Maupassant that we studied in college. I read a few pages. The language is difficult. I see my fading scribbles in the margins – explanations, in English and French and even Marathi. I don’t want to look at the scribbles. I don’t want to be explained. I want to feel the language. Even if I may not get too far.

I notice what I am doing. I wonder if it is simply stubbornness and inflexibility of old age creeping in. hmmm…

I notice it again. I realize I don’t want to break the movement of his words, the ebb and flow of emotions, settings, the starkness of humanity, woven into nature.

I want to read it as he wrote it, in the language he wrote. I don’t want my notes, my explanations, my teacher’s explanation, to break this Naturalist’s stream of words. Even if there is much I will miss from not knowing vocabulary or context, I feel I have more to gain. Or that is my frame of mind, that day.

My page is up. I realize I haven’t even started what I meant to write. I will have to return tomorrow and write more about the clunky vehicle in my day to day.

I will simply end with this quote I found the other day, scribbled in my journal:

“When the language one identifies with is far away, one does everything possible to keep it alive. Because words bring back everything: the place, the people, the streets, the life, the sky, the flowers, the sounds.”      ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

 

The one that got away…

Every spring, I see a little sapling by the Japanese maple in our yard. Every year, it makes me happy in a:
Oh! My tree is having a baby, way.
I am hopeful for this little offspring – so fragile, so pretty, so full of possibility.

Every year, it withers away and dies in the mulch.

I feel a twinge, a sadness, now familiar, when I remember to look for it. Maybe next year, I think, and my fickle mind moves on to other matters.

 

Nature has its reasons, I tell myself. Darwin and the survival of the fittest, and all that good stuff.

This year again, I have hopes for the miniscule Japanese maple. I wonder if I should transplant it. I should look online, I should talk to someone about it. I should find out what to do.

I don’t. I remain preoccupied with other matters.

This morning I walk into the yard and look for the sapling. Still there. Withered. Tired. Its neck droops in defeat. It has given up. It is not going to make it.

Nature is cruel.

I remember my sorrow when as a child, I find out that a mother dog may sometimes eat some of its newborn (in the world of strays).

I remember us, a group of kids, pouring over a litter of adorable pups. I remember refusing to believe the words that come out of the neighbor kid’s mouth.

He claims the mother has eaten a couple of its newborn. He has seen it, himself or so he brags. I refuse to believe it. Brag mouth. Liar.  

Later, more facts, and grown-up words, corroborate the evidence. I have my doubts. I don’t want to believe it. I still don’t want to believe it.

It was the probably the weakest one. Something may have been wrong with it. The mother may not have had enough milk for the entire litter. Stray dogs are exhausted and hungry and tired after the birthing process. There are many explanations. Yet, my heart ached. My heart still aches.

It was probably the weakest link. Ah… the weakest link...

I suddenly wonder, if nature is real and cruel and survival is for the fittest, how the heck did I get away? How is it that I am still here?

Is there a reason for my being here? Is it simply evolution and modern medical techniques?

As always, I try to make sense of things. As always, I don’t quite succeed.

What is the reason for my making it? I wonder if it is for a reason. There must be. Maybe I am not the weakest link after all. Who’s to decide? Have we taken it out of Nature’s hands? Is this all simply nature-defiance?  

As always, I try to make sense of things. As always, I don’t quite succeed.

Nature-defying, or not, weakest link or not, all questions don’t necessarily have answers. And even if at times, I feel like the maple sapling – droopy, withered, ready to give up, I know I won’t. There is a secret stash of strength and faith and who knows, possibly a secret purpose even (which quite honestly evades me). Not sure where the strength comes from… from within or from outside, from those who care...

As always, I try to make sense of things. This time however, I’m quite okay with not succeeding.   

 

 

 

Magnetic links… of pain and joy

We all carry hurt and pain inside us. Tiny wounds, big hurts, some closed up, some raw – new ones, old ones – since childhood perhaps. Some heal, some are ignored, some fester within.

There are things on the inside – our inside. Hidden, closed, forgotten. We know they are wounds from the past, we assume they have closed up. We no longer pay attention to them.

There are things on the outside. Things happening to us and around us. In short. Life.

The two seem unrelated, yet seem inextricably connected.

For when there is pain on the outside - physical or emotional, it quickly connects to the pain inside. Pain that we imagine is long gone and buried.

Like a chain of magnetic links that connect swiftly and tightly to other links of pain – going down a well of the past – gripping other loops of pain. The chain becomes long, heavy, lugubrious, achy…

Dragging us down a faceless past - one forgotten or purportedly forgotten, we get embroiled in the links of pain, even if the episodes may be long erased.

The powerful magnets seem to extract every last bit of peskiest annoyance or hurt, buried deep within. The deadweight bears us down… like an albatross…

Shoo…shoo Baudelaire, shoo fleurs du mal. Just peachy huh? Exactly what we needed to uplift ourselves today?

Some years ago, (five to be precise), I decide to make a quilt of my daughter’s embroidery pieces and buy a quilting mat. A self-healing mat. Each time I use it, (And yes, it may be another good ten years that I use it, for that quilt to be done) I am amazed by it.

The blade roller or whatever it is called (tsk tsk… phony quilter), will often slice into the mat as it slices the fabric. In the time that I notice the paper-thin cut, put away the fabric, the slash in the mat closes up, right before my eyes. Quietly. Peacefully. Completely.

I marvel at it. I long to be it. To heal up so easily and simply. To be whole so effortlessly. To feel the pain, yet heal, despite the memory of the pain, without the memory of the pain. I wonder if it is the memory of the pain that drags us down – through the magnetic links of panic and fear. I wonder if it keeps us paralyzed in our future.

But again, just as there are loops of pain from the past, there are the links of joy. Especially with a magnet for metaphor, opposites should attract, right? So, in an ideal world, when there is pain on the outside, these magnetic links should bring out all the good from the past and ease the pain of the present.

I don’t know if that happens. But perhaps we can train our magnets to do so. Just don’t ask me how. And if you find out, do let me too.

For a start, however, when we are in a funk, it may help to know that these magnetic links exist (now that it is all a proven theory (sic.)). And maybe over time, we will recognize the links we make, and will learn to gently break the connections, and allow some of the links to dissolve and crumble into the abyss of the past, holding on to the joyous ones, believing in the joyous ones, refusing to be clutched by the painful ones.

Allowing the past to crumble, allowing us to be free in the present.

The Cat’s out of the Bag…

Some things are best kept under wraps. Mostly for us. The “things”, probably don’t care, and would rather be out there, breathing freely. 

We keep them under wraps, shrouded in doubt, uncertainty, insecurity, lack of faith… questioning the need, the sincerity.

Now, I don’t like secrets. Not to say, I like to shout out from the rooftops either. Yet, that is exactly what I do - a few weeks ago. From our generation’s equivalent of rooftop – the social media.

I belong to a small writers group and we have a ‘secret’ group on Facebook. Now instead of posting something to our ‘seeecret’ group, I post it such that anyone with access to my facebook page can see it. Of course, it is the very thing I don’t want anyone to know about (other than the five members of my group).

Ahem… that is exactly why I choose to write about it, here?? Oh well… And since I feel particularly reckless, here it is:

Yikes! The meeting minutes and monthly goals are going to haunt me! A’s in Japan, A’s away at camp, and I am supposed to be working on that novel.
Haven’t written a single line…no, not a single word. If Rick Riordan, or someone else writes MY novel before I do, hope you ladies will hand me tissues for the sea of tears…Sigh…

Ha! Now, before you admire my courage, be aware that only my facebook friends read this, the blog does not have metadata and other fancy things to make it pop on searches. Why, I just realized, it doesn’t even mention my name. Hmm… but let's not digress...

Funny how that happens. The very thing we guard, holding tightly, not allowing to escape, slides out of our hands, like it is nothing…  sticky clicky fingers, social media, or not.

Mortified, I gasp, delete it. By now, some folks have already commented on the post. More mortification. I write a flurried message to only the closed group. I check fifty times before I click ‘post’. My kind friends assuage the faux pas.

It is kind of funny, I tell myself. Surely I will have a good laugh later. I do. Yet, I don’t go near the computer. I don’t write at all. Not the novel, not even my silly blog. Maybe I am busy. I am. Or so, I tell myself, convince myself.

Now this book is not a life’s dream or anything like that. I am too old and curmudgeonly for dreamy-eyed visions or the accompanying fervor.

It is simply a possibility. A faint one in that. Yet, there is a certain vulnerability that goes with it. A certain holding of the breath, a certain hesitation to say it out aloud. To allow it to escape my lips. To admit it. Accept it. To allow myself to dream of it.

Is this what boring middle-aged people do to protect ourselves from disappointment? That pile can look larger than life if we choose to examine it. But again, why would we want to, right?

At what point/ stage in our life, do dreams get fitted into cynical shelves of practicality, cased no longer in rose colored glasses, but stark reality-filled ones?  

When do we stop shouting things out from rooftops, committing, admitting, allowing them to be, to float about?

Of course, there are other instances, when it may simply be hard to say it out aloud – not because we want to keep it secret, but there is some emotionality attached to it.

Does keeping it under wraps increase our vulnerability, our sensitivity towards the matter? Is this then a silly little example, a silly little experiment?

I don’t know. However, I do know this... I don’t write a single word in weeks. I write this is in twenty minutes. My thoughts move, my mind dances, my fingers fly on the keyboard - they know exactly what to do. A momentary calm prevails. Novel or not, I hope I will always give myself permission to do this.


 

Attack of the weeds

So I walk into my yard. Reluctantly, optimistically, doubtfully. Optimistic for the flowers and vegetables that could be, reluctant – given the weeds that await me, doubtful of how far I will get this year.

I walk bravely into the yard. Studying the overall unkemptness, I sigh big, tragic sighs. Think small, I tell myself. Obediently, I focus my attention on two vegetable beds. I decide to tackle the weeds and prep the soil.

I start plucking away at the weeds. Have I mentioned the therapeutic effects of weeding? Sometimes I wish I could pluck out all the problems in my life, the same way. Sometimes I imagine I am plucking away the problems in my life. Pluck…pluck…pluck…

(Now, if any of you are convinced of this therapy, I will tell you where I live, there will be plenty of therapy and meditation for you to practice. Hmm… Tom Sawyer and whitewash wall, come to mind, anyone?). Hmm… moving on…

My gloved hand reaches into a clump of weeds – to seize their last breath, to deliver the cruel kiss of death… when suddenly I am under attack! The weeds fight back!

They blast countless, minuscule green things all over me. Aphids – I think in dismay. There will be no planting this year, more dismay (some relief?). Willing and rather quick to give up, I pick the few weeds I have disturbed. Nothing springs up. I don’t see any aphids. Now most gardeners would know stuff like this, but since I’m only a phony, I am curious and peer down to see teeny tiny, green, wound up thingies (I know, I know - very eloquent and educated descriptions).

I poke another set – and right there, I’m under attack again! I sputter as tiny green things fly all over my face. What!! I’m being attacked by the weeds? Just how low am I on the food chain and how did I get here?

Determined to get to the root of this (bad pun and everything), and attempting to maintain my dignity before the weeds, I poke at the same weed (already disturbed). Nothing flies out. Ah… it’s their defense mechanism. I find a long, tall rake to outsmart them. I poke around and let things fly out wildly.

Later, as I bend down and yank away, I mentally murmur an apology for circumventing their beautiful nature-designed defense mechanism. I can’t but admire nature who equips even these frail weeds with means to defend themselves.

Defense mechanisms may be a thing of beauty. Well literally… as my mind wanders to years ago, to a balmy night in a bioluminescent bay. A guide takes our small group on a midnight kayak tour into the bay, on a near new moon night. I wonder what I have got us into (of course, this would have to have been my idea), as my muddy legs wade through the dark, marshy bog as we drag our kayaks into the bay. But the moment we climb in and oar away, all doubts dissolve into the bioluminescence.

The water around the kayak lights up, the water at the end of the oar lights up. My hand draws a line through the water. A line of light forms where my fingers have been. I revel in the disbelief of it all.  

We reach the middle of the bay, tie the kayaks together and swim in the balmy waters. We swim in speechless awe. We swim as light forms all around us, circular halos floating in the dark waters.

The marvel of the moments is from an extremely high concentration of algae in the bay. Their defense mechanism is to emit light when disturbed. Even if the light we generated by our movements in water seemed like poetry to us, it was disturbance to them.

I remember noticing the irony. I remember thanking the algae for allowing us to scare them, for allowing us to experience immense beauty in their fear, in their defense mechanism.

Till I get stung by jelly fish. Talk about defense mechanism. Only two individuals in the group get stung. And of course, one has to be – yours truly. Even if I retreat meekly to my kayak, even if my hand hurts like crazy, I remain in awe of nature, of interactions between species, of inner-programming of self-defense, of attempts to ward off the stronger species.  

What about us humans? We too have our defense mechanisms. Each of us develops uniquely our own set above and beyond what we innately possess. At times, they may be useful, at times, I suspect may come in the way of our happiness. And a few people may already know how to circumvent them with the long, tall rake they may use for us.

I suppose they are there for a reason, and we develop them for a reason, for self-protection, for guarding. But a mechanism, a learned response, may be hard to unwind from, even when we don’t need it. What are our defense mechanisms? How many of those do we need? Can we let them rest, knowing they will spring up when we really truly need them.
Can we let our guards down, knowing they will be there if and when we need them?

And perhaps there is beauty and vulnerability in these defense mechanism, just like the algae in the bioluminescent bay. And maybe it's okay to hold them in compassion and see its luminescent wonder, even if it stems from fear.


 

Te bagh…

The energy is bristling. 105 teams comprising kids from nearly 40 countries. The Lego World Championship is loud, noisy, high-energy, exhausting, amazing.

So much to take in. So much innovation and ingenuity at so many levels. Even if our young team of 4^th and 5^th graders widen their eyes and drop their jaws as they watch the big robots battle and form alliances (robots that high schoolers have built), I wonder how much of all this they are able to take in.

A zillion fun and exciting things happen. They meet kids from all over the world, they collect candy from all over the world. Sugar-rushed, they run, they leap, they shout, they even participate in a parade before a Cardinals game at the ballpark. They take it in. Yet, I notice amazing things – things they may be too young to comprehend.

A certain Middle Eastern team catches my eye. A mixed team of girls and boys. The girls are traditionally dressed in their hijab or head scarves. Yet team, or perhaps teen spirit seems to rule, and multi-colored dazzling lighted neon strings pour out from over their heads, from over their black hijabs. They match nicely the multi-colored neon head gears the boys wear. It makes me smile. I love these girls, conforming to their beliefs, yet displaying their teenage spirit and verve.

I wonder what it must mean for these girls to be part of a robotics team, to be here. I chat with them. I understand there are familial and societal challenges they have overcome, that it means so much for them to be here, that their participation is an inspiration to other girls in their country, in the Middle East region. I feel an inexplicable joy at their being there.  

“You ask me to bagh a lot” my kid tells me. Puzzled, till I realize she’s using a Marathi word in an English sentence.

“Te bagh,” I often say to her in Marathi, check that out, in English. Something noteworthy, notice-worthy -- according to me. I laugh. I suppose I do.

As parents, we want to point out what is interesting, important, curious, worth noticing… in our eyes. Our kids have their own energy and perspectives – which even if may not match ours, is a joy to share in, share with.

On their last robot performance round, seven small faces stare intensely at the robot table. Previous rounds have not gone quite as desired and on one round, their pineapple bot (robot name), even decides to power down.

Every part of their being seems to focus on the robot. For months on end, this pineapple bot has been programmed and reprogrammed, its limbs (read extensions) built and rebuilt, amputated, restored, tweaked, teased… its moment has arrived. And pineapple bot decides to rise to the occasion.

Even if the score is not high enough to win a prize, they achieve the best score possible for them. And they are beyond themselves in delight.

We watch them, we experience that inexplicable joy of watching your kids achieve the maximum potential possible for them.

There are tears in many a parent eye, the jubilation is bigger than the time they are declared state champions. For in that moment, each parent and child is completely present and participating, bated breath, and in tandem. We are experiencing the joy and success with them, through them. There is no prize, but victory seems huge.

We celebrate our children. As we must. Sometimes, we celebrate even when it seems like the last thing we want for them. As my then six-year-old climbs over 30 feet high on a conifer in the park, calling out, waving in delight with one hand. I gasp inwardly, and in the best even-keel voice possible, shout, “It’s okay to not wave when you’re so high”. I hide my panic and share her achievement and joy.

The joy in sharing their joy and perspective is inexplicable. Even if it is ours, it is bigger and better than many things that bring us joy in other ways. But again, every parent knows that.

And even if my child doesn't say te bagh to me, hopefully, when it matters, I will bagh, and I will share the moment...