Words unspoken

Have you ever listened to a person talk and wondered – “What the hell is he talking about”.

As I was growing up, English was not the most popular language among kids. However, I was never a local of the city I resided in and so most kids had to talk to me in English. Even with their limited knowledge (and admittedly my own) of the language we never had a problem exchanging ideas and thoughts. We used expressions, sound effects and many other modes of communication in addition to the language to express ourselves. Yet everything was crystal clear to each other.

Fast forward to today. Over the last few days I have been noticing someone I interact with very closely doing the very same thing we used to do as kids. His mind seems to be moving faster that his tongue and most of his thoughts are left unspoken. He uses obscure sounds and half sentences to put together a thought and at the end of it all it makes only partial sense. So I am forced to ask for an explanation again. I am certain that he believes that all his thoughts are being framed into words and sentences as he speaks but really only a few of them get translated and the listener is left wondering what it all means.

I hope I do not suffer from the same problem. If I do I hope someone would tell me. I remember many years ago my father told me that I should slow down while talking because I was swallowing words.

It was okay when I was telling the boy next door about the interesting thoughts in my head.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fragility of social order

I was browsing a Time magazine the other day and reading about Dafur and Africa in general and it got me wondering about the very basic things in life that we take for granted. I walk on the streets unaware that there is an underlying social order that stops from anybody walking up to me and slapping me. Nobody thinks of simply walking into my house one day and asking me to get out of the house so that he could live there. Nobody walks into my work place and tells me that I have lost my job and he is now going to work in my place. But this kind of atrocities happen in many parts of the world as we continue blissfully unaware that we are secure in a unspoken order that our society follows. In many a conversations people wonder why certain countries never make it out of their anarchy and chaos. More often then not most arguments hinge on that premise that if they cant help themselves then they don’t deserve any better. One of the most common statements I have encountered is that if India
Read more

Mathematics and I

I have had a long standing battle with mathematics. Sometimes I think a great part of where I am today is shaped by my dislike towards the subject. I sit here today and laugh at all the attempts I have made to avoid it like the plague and how it has hounded me all my life. A below average student in my early years, neither mathematics nor any other subject for that matter evoked such strong emotions in me. I was what you would call a free spirit not tied down by the little things such as studies. I would ignore all the subjects equally and there was no deep seated hate for any one subject. I hated them all without preference. Then eighth grade happened. I was never the competitive kind myself but in the eighth grade it was thrust upon me. I was trying to continue my indifference to education but it was not to be. For some reason without my even attempting anything in that direction I came to be in the top ten of the class. Suddenly there were adulations and everyone including my parent
Read more

To you my brother

Image
My earliest memories of him have to be when I was leaving my grandfather’s house after an enjoyable summer. My aunt had brought back two racing cars from Dubai and both of us were given one each. There was the one with the detachable driver and the other with the fixed driver. I was probably four and he was three. I demanded that I take both cars with me back home much to my mothers and my aunt’s dismay. But he was rather surprisingly magnanimous about it. He was willing to part with it to avoid a scene in the house. Obviously my mother made me leave one behind but for some reason I can’t get it out of my head. Many a summers have passed. Many a memories have been saved. The explorations of the limited expanse around the house, the fish tank swimming lessons, the visits to the beach, the showers under the garden hose, the first cigarette, the first drink, the first “interesting” swimsuit calendar, the “interesting” magazine, encounters in the foriegn land and else. Years are rolling by
Read more