Language Barriers

A tamil song playing on loop in the background, the distant, indistinct sounds of all of you inhabiting, yet again, an oft visited land of the wild. The all too familiar night sounds with their unpredictable tempo; all envelop me and I feel heavy with love and familiarity. Maybe, this familiarity of the unknown, in-distinctable , un-recognisable is what makes us belong to someplace(s) and someone(s) oh so completely.

The soothing effect of the train horn cutting through the stillness of the night reaches me with a shrill and placates me. It reinstates the familiarity of the coordinates around me and I drown under my dohar, dizzier with sleep and comfort.

You two, screaming, wailing, stomping feet, bruised cries..this is all that reaches me while I am stuck to the hearth making phulkas. the blood bath thematic cacophony ironically reassures me  even though the two of you remain unseen. It is testimony to our physical intimacy, of the one-ness under a single roof, of our home and the family that resides it.

The snapping of the keys on the keyboard while I stealthily tip-toe towards you from across the hallway, draw me into your world of mishandled egos and conversations, of jobs well done and a day by-gone filled to the brim with action already brimming over to the inking daylight of the next day…I leave behind the world of motionless animals curled up in their snores, dreaming of red dinosaurs and all that they stand for..at least for some time, before the soft toy vendor, grudgingly trudges up for her loooong post midnight trek to take her wares and dreams to another land…a land of summer filled nights…warmed by the closeness of other dreams.

Night sounds, all of them, make for me the perfect lullaby. It’s lilting longing trails into sunshine mornings, still afternoons and then, as if on cue…the train shrieks past and the rumpus of the night begins. Again. May this show never end.