Language of the heart

Language is potent enough to emotionally fuse all beings on earth.

Language, as it is defined, is the effective means of communicating one’s feelings and thoughts. Mankind can justifiably boast of creating as many languages as there are countries and provinces within them, each one vying for supremacy over the other.

Ironically, a sizable population of the world is not fortunate enough to be formally educated to acquire a level of mastery over even their own mother tongue, let alone alien languages. One cannot help wondering whether it is really necessary for one to be a graduate or have a masters in literature to effectively communicate with others and strike a rapport with them.

More often than not, it happens that the highly qualified and accomplished people of the so called enlightened strata of our society tend to live within the four invisible walls of conceit and indifference built by themselves with an inexplicable notion of their own in order to accentuate their self-elevated standing among the ‘lesser mortals’ Thus they lodge themselves in a cocoon, totally insulated from the divine warmth of love and empathy available around them in abundance. Little do they realize that there is a common language, which knows no worldly barrier, spoken by the human hearts that is potent enough to emotionally fuse all beings on this planet.

As I write this, my thoughts go back to about 40 years in time when I was in the service of Bhilai steel plant, a veritable mini-India with professionals from practically all parts of our country living together in its vast cosmopolitan township. It was here then that this singularly attractive scenario had captured the attention of everyone in our sector.

Three elderly ladies—Ms Rao from Karnataka, Ms Sanyal from West Bengal and Ms Gill from Punjab—mothers of my colleagues, used to meet every evening at the nearby park, rain or shine. They had absolutely no knowledge of any language other than their own mother tongue since their educational qualifications were at modest levels due to very early marriage those days. Nevertheless they had managed to communicate with one another with amazing ease, more with gestures than with words, establishing a beautiful emotional bond among them.

Each one shared her native culinary skill with the other two, resulting in the trio becoming adept in preparing delicious dosas, chole bhatures and rosagullas. They took active part in Sankranti, Lohri and Durgapuja with equal devotion. They enjoyed MS Subbulakshmi’s Meera Bhajans, Sandhya Mukherji’s Rabindra sangeet and Jagjit Singh’s gazals with equal relish.

This enchanting saga of the holy confluence of three unblemished hearts was, however, too good to last long. Within a span of a year the sons of the two of them got transferred to sister steel plants at Rourkela and Durgapur leaving the lonely Ms Sanyal heart-broken since even communication through letters among them was not possible owing to language problem. Nevertheless she continued to sit at the same spot every evening thereafter, probably reliving in her thoughts the glorious togetherness she had enjoyed with her dear ones whose hearts spoke a common language.