My mother told me when I was ten that I had developed speech much later than others. She had too, so had my sister. The doctor said it was because my parents talked in two different languages the entire time. That the brain failed to pick one, and confused the two all the time.
I was born into the confluence of three warring tongues, it always seemed to me. My parents talking in easy English; indulgent neighbours speeding away in rapid Hindi; my paternal grandmother saying rhymes in her curvy Palakkad Tamil and my maternal grandma telling me stories of my native place in her pointy Kallidaikuruchi Tamil. Born into people who loved to talk, to speak, to love through the spoken word; but I didn’t say coherent words until I was five. I don’t remember anything from that time, but what I do know is that there was something missing in me. And my mother filled that part with spoken tales, hoping that I’d pick up speaking, and probably inherit her love for books.
I started to speak; but didn’t pick up something else entirely.
Somehow, as I wrote my exams well and read encyclopedias, I never stood in front of anyone to speak. Yes, my mother trained me to say dialogues and speeches, but never on my own will. I only sang for people, feeling confident enough to trust people with screechy, pulled songs sung raw. It almost seemed to me that words that came out of the mouth evaporated like boiling water instantly. I loved to talk to friends, but I often felt that the words left me and never came back; because even if repeated words appear on my tongue, they’re new. They’re not the ones that left my voice before, they’re different. I didn’t particularly like public speaking except to answer quizzes (which was my forte, in a way), I just liked to sing. I preferred to read than to speak, because I can still see the words before me as I read them over and over again.
So, dear reader, I grew up to be a lover of words, and devoting my life to writing parts of my own soul down. I was thirteen when a boy in my class sneered at what I was scribbling on a notebook, and as all thirteen-year-olds do, snatched it from my hands. Waving the fragile pages above his head as I couldn’t reach, he screamed the words out loud. And that was when my entire body cringed against the feel of his voice against my words. Words, written in desperation, decorated by a mocking voice. He threw the book at my face but I couldn’t shrug off the feeling that voicing my words created in my chest. It was as if they weren’t meant to be spoken, meant to be articulated by someone, or even by me.
It isn’t a matter of confidence, reader. I simply hate reading them out loud. I simply hate when people read them out loud in front of me. It’s almost as if they lose all the meaning they hold by themselves. Voices make words ugly, because they don’t need sound. Let me give you an example, my companion: if you say the word ‘smile’ aloud, you accompany it with happiness. But why did you assume that a smile is always a moniker of happiness. A smile can be that of pain, of anguish, of hope, of regret- or even nothing. Just the word existing on a piece of paper.
Words don’t need articulation: because they speak for themselves. They have a voice is what I love to think: that when I write a phrase, or touch a phrase in a book, or witness the rising sentences on my phone; they’re speaking to me in their own tongues. In their own recognizable and unrecognizable manner that I’ve come to appreciate and cherish in this fast world of mine. They, my reader, pace me; bring me back to reality and send me back to daydreams in the same spectrum.
My father once said that I can’t exist without talking to others. And yes, I can’t because I, human as I am, am a social animal. As a budding educator, I need to explain the most complex of emotions to my students in easy understanding. But, there’s often a hyper-fixation on the need to speak, the need of speeches and dialogues and word evaporations. Yes, please talk, but let words talk by themselves too. They tell stories, but they are expert tellers of miles and miles of emotions too. When screaming speeches feel like shouting in the void, calm words feel like freeing oneself. Reader, do let them listen to your happiness and your sorrow and your anger.
They listen, I promise.
Until the next time we meet, dearest reader. Thank you for your time.
I love this so much, kiki! Also this reminded me of a student I had who grew up with her parents speaking 5 languages at the same time so she was selectively mute for the first couple of years. She almost created a tongue of her own and whereas that's something fascinating the world doesn't deem it right so it was forced out of her to be replaced with what's proper. I used to encourage her to teach me her words and their meanings from time to time, just to let her know that it's okay. She's doing fine. Sorry to have gone off on a tangent but coming back. I feel this very deeply and I also feel the very opposite of it. I often vacillate between keeping my writing to my own self and having the world read it and speak it into existence. However, I know one thing for sure - words will outlive us all - spoken or not and they're the most important.
as a person who grew up under the influence of four different languages, this resonates so deeply.