Language

Some of my best memories aren’t in English, although I don’t know another well enough to express them in…

Like my paati yelling “enna venum” (what do you want) while making lunch and my thatha hollering back “nee dhaan venum” (I want you), making all of us and paati turn the colour of hot Mysore rasam.

Like my father telling me when I was a young man of twenty five, visiting home, to hop into bed and “muthuggu katti” (back hugs) which has me lying down nestled into his back, I try to match the rhythm of the rise and fall of his chest, believing it forms some kind of unseen bond that only he can see

I write often in English, to prove my mastery and crave acceptance, to rhyme and titillate, but mostly failing.

It’s difficult to be honest in another’s tongue, maybe because I’ve learnt it when I was young, from books which were never my own, books filled with tuck-boxes and lacrosse, which made me dream but never sigh, which made my eyes go big with wonder but never fuzzy with warmth.

So I play all these visuals in my head, over and over, till the words drown out, and I can only hear him snoring and feel the cadence of his breath, I understand what it’s saying, although I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

It’s made up of infinitesimal (see, another big useless word) moments, inside jokes and made-up sounds, a language I was born with, and probably the only one I will ever truly understand.