Lost in translation

People do not always say what they mean. But neither do they always not mean what they say. A thought or a feeling is always better when it is intangible. As soon as it becomes tangible, it loses something and becomes a mediocre version of the intangible. Hence, there is a fated gap between what is felt and what is expressed. If we think less and directly express what we feel, this gap is relatively less. The more time a person takes to think before expressing, the wider the gap becomes.

There are degrees at which people are aware and anxious about this gap. The most non-anxious are those who are brutally honest. They say what they feel. The most anxious are those who care a lot about how they are perceived. By themselves as well as others. They overthink what they feel while deciding what they mean.

There is a difference between what we feel and what we mean. What we feel is not in our hands, but all of us carefully curate what we mean. When we think, we curate our thoughts and decide which ones to express and how to put them across. This takes us far from honesty but closer to how we want to be perceived by others. This is where the gap is most wide. But when we express without curation, we just blurt out what we feel. We may not mean it, but the impulsive expression becomes proof of a feeling felt in time. In these ‘errors,’ the gap is minimal.

No matter how hard one tries, this gap can’t be completely closed. The good artists struggle with it the most. They constantly try to lessen, if possible, eliminate the gap. Wanting the intangible to be conveyed as it is and more, without losing it in translation. The journey from putting that intangible into the tangible always keeps them unsatisfied. Whatever the language or tools they use in any form, it’s never enough and never precise. In the end, it becomes necessary for them to reimagine the form itself. That’s how poetry is born. Its language reimagined. That’s how art movements start. Driven by the urge to eliminate the gap, they invent new forms to express.

But as a society, we have also seemingly found a way to play with the gap and own it. We are hardly trained to express. We are taught languages, but not how to use them. We think that words help us communicate what we are feeling, but oftentimes, we use words to say what we don’t feel to convey what we really mean. We all like the gap. People spend their lives thriving on the gap, benefitting from it. Anyway, a brutally honest world would have been boring. The gap gives us Humour! It gives us Drama. Fiction exists solely on the basis of the gap. And if we look closely, fiction, as a form of collective awareness, is central to how we have survived and evolved.

From any point of view, the gap is inherent. Even on a good day, when there are no egos to satisfy, no impressions to make, no delusions to sustain, the gap remains evident. Even if we are brutally honest, most of us end up composing sentences that convey only 50% or less of what we feel. And even though it's dramatic and fun, it’s a routine failure.

And while going through all these failures, sometimes without even realizing them, we encounter moments of real communication. These are rare. They may or may not involve any language and can come in any form. When they do, we can’t help but notice them. Some bodily react to them. They feel natural. It feels as if that’s how it’s supposed to be. Nothing to be translated. Hence, nothing to lose. It can be a look, a silence, a hug, a gift, or even a dialogue or a monologue. It’s in these moments; the gap diminishes completely. We just get each other.

All of us may behave in different variations of these in the span of our entire lives. Varying with topics, people, and scenarios. But what we truly seek is maybe the possibility of a world where we just get each other.

Those who do it

Since she had watched that sports biopic, she was feeling inspired. Some days later, on an early-to-bed Sunday night, she decided to act upon it. She decided that she would wake up at 6:30 am in the morning and go running in the park. Everyday.

Monday morning, 6:25 am. She woke up before the alarm went off and got ready. She wore her worn-out sports shoes and thought to herself that she would buy new ones once she did it regularly. While running in the park, an animation played out in her mind of how her belly fat was burning. Fat, which consisted of the pizza that she had the other night. She felt happy to have burned those calories. Even though she had no knowledge of how the body actually works, her vivid imagination made her feel sure of herself.

Almost a week passed like this. On 2 of the 5 days, she managed to wake up precisely at 6:30. On others, it varied from 6:25 to 6:45. Still, she went running every day. If ‘running every day for 5 days straight’ is consistent, she was consistent. She liked that word and aspired for it. On Friday night, she went to a friend’s place for a house party. She avoided bread and alcohol the whole time. When someone asked her if she was on a diet, she said no and avoided talking about her running streak. She was scared that it would jinx it.

Saturday morning was hard. From opening her eyes at 6:35 to actually getting out of bed at 6:40, she heavily considered not getting up. But a minute into this doubt (which actually felt more), she had a breakthrough. She became more aware of the situation and could see that this was the point where most people gave up. She did not want to be most people. After a few seconds of intense decision-making, she got up.

Some more days passed like this. On Wednesday evening, she had to go to her cousin’s place for a wedding preparation for their family. She had a great time there. Late in the night, she insisted on leaving but her cousins convinced her to stay. She slept late. While lying still on the mattress at her cousin’s house (which was 5 km away from the park where she wanted to go running the next morning), she thought to herself that this was the real test. She carefully calculated everything. If she manages to wake up at 6:00, she would reach her house by 6:15. Then getting ready by 6:45, she can be in the park by 6:55.

She woke up at 9:00 with immense guilt. The guilt was enough for her to sink into it and not do anything for the next 2 days. Even though she was not ‘most people,’ she was now part of those who ‘eventually gave up.’ This was better but it was still not enough. She wanted to be one of those who ‘did it.’

Weeks passed in indecision. There was no motivation. No sports biopic. Even the self-help books did not work. Neither the atomic habits nor the 7 ways to. They made her feel good about knowing her problems but did not help at all in solving them.

One night, after the call with her father, she kept thinking about their generation. Her father had been having the same morning every day. How did he do it? Maybe he did not think much. In life too, he had clear goals. Getting a job, getting married, having a house. He had no other option. But now, due to over-exposure, there was analysis paralysis and an abundance of choice. For a moment, she thought that it would be better if she had no other option but to do it. If she was not so aware of herself. If there was less freedom of thought and some unsurpassable social pressure to just do it.

Her self-awareness was enough fuel for her to plan the waking up and running but it was clearly not helping her actually do it. Apparently, the ones who did it, just did it. They didn’t think much. She tried to not think at all but it was now hard to go back. Impossible, almost.

She overthought it for a while until she felt some more fatigue. She opened Instagram and started scrolling. The food reels were great. If you squeeze the air out of a water bottle and put the hole above the egg yolk, it sucks it up. That’s an easy way to separate yolk from the white. Lol, Jennifer Lawrence was so funny when she fell down at the Oscars. Woah, this interactive exhibition in Japan is so cool. Oh fuck, Israel and Iran are now at war. Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack. I wonder what’s happening with the people in both those countries? Why are ducks so funny? This running guy is so creative! He built his whole profile on just comedy around running. Are open relationships normal in Western countries? Maybe-

This continued for several weeks. Without her knowledge, she was back into the bunch of most people and not the ones who eventually gave up. Worse, she was now amongst the ones who didn’t even start.

;

One night, at a birthday party at a friend’s house, someone complimented her body and asked if she was working out. She was surprised to hear that and felt good. But then, one of her close friends commented that she actually thought she had put on some weight. The conversation went on to be about workouts and motivation and naturally, someone asked her if she ever worked out. ‘I’ve done it in the past, you know. I did it regularly for about… a month.’ She said confidently.

She was talking about the same week after the sports biopic. That week was now a month. It happened in a spurt. Her friends believed her and the conversation went on. She felt proud of herself for maintaining her image in front of those people.

But little did she know, this lying worked for her in a different, wonderful way. Saying it out loud, she believed it to be true. The memory of that one week expanded itself into a month. She thought that if she had done it in the past for a month then she is surely not one of those who just do it for a week. Her lie took her out of the ones who didn’t even start and directly put her into the ones who eventually gave up. This triggered confidence in her which was enough for her to feel hopeful about the future.

She decided to start over and this time, do it.

When they walked together

‘Chai?’

A friend asked the other and they left the stasis of their rented apartment to walk in a relatively calmer alley around their building. Different shades of blue and purple were scattered all around the evening sky. Orange tints in between. The alley was wide, giving both of them enough space to walk comfortably. They started talking as they walked at a moderate pace. The tone and topics were simple at first and their feet landed on the ground in a similar fashion even though their heights were no match.

As those feet moved, their minds ran off to different places on a shared imaginary ground. Places that have no names and can only be accessed by walking on the physical ground. It’s not like they had not discussed ideas or shared personal moments when they were static. But movement offered them a sense of possibilities which the static did not do.

At first, they ran around that imaginary ground like children lost in an amusement park. The alley was indeed very large. It became hard for them to contain the possibilities of their next steps. That wideness helped them play more frivolously. They jumped from topic to topic, frequently using the trampoline of humour.

As the alley narrowed down, their minds did too. Not in terms of perspective but in terms of specificity. After taking an impulsive turn into a more calm and cleaner lane, the amusement park vanished into thin air and a specific place started to take shape on that imaginary ground.

The place was empty at first. They walked and talked vividly, one countering another, to fill it up with concrete. They did not know what exactly they were building but the base was built and slowly, one could see something new was taking shape. An idea, a thought, an intangible construction.

The physical geography shaped the geography of the imagination. Streetlights were turning on as the evening turned from early to late. The construction was growing toward a definite shape. But as the lane ended, they crossed a vegetable market. There was chaos all around. Naturally, they split and walked individually, one walking ahead of the other. And just like space, they got individual time. Time, to renovate the construction on the imaginary ground in their own ways.

Both of them tried to reconstruct it differently as they walked alone. Different renovations of doubt, counter-arguments and antithetical ideas struggled to shape the thing in its own way. The speed and intensity of the construction also varied. One of them loaded bricks of self-indulgence and ego-trip while walking alone. He felt intelligent to have constructed the thing. While the other tried to reimagine the base by digging it with self-doubt. The concrete was scattered all around as the place went in confusion about its identity. Was it a new idea? Or just another verbal exercise that goes nowhere?

When they passed the market and again joined each other, one of them asked,

‘Where were we?’

Without looking at each other, both of them kept walking. Their eyes mostly led their steps, looking down at the symmetrical but sometimes broken pavement pattern. One of them looked for beauty in it while the other felt uneasy. One by one, both of them tried to make sure that they were building the same thing, but neither the ego-trip wall nor the self-doubt pit helped them land on a single blueprint. Tensions rose as the noise from the market seeped into the imaginary ground. Now, no one knew where they were.

For some time, they did not talk. Unlike their moving bodies, their minds went into a stasis. Now, the road was wider and there was a footpath to walk on. A silence followed which was bearable and unbearable at the same time. Abruptly, one of them blurted out something. The sentence was not pre-formed and took shape live in time. Taking that in, with an even unevenness, the other replied. Slowly, more sentences were formed and the duration between two sentences lessened more and more. and more.

Like a khayal unfolding, they found their own rhythm. There was a garden on the side of the road. The greens helped them argue more honestly. Not realizing it, they even crossed the chai tapri where they had planned to go. The faster they walked, the more intense their conversation got. Finally, the wall crumbled down and the pit filled up. A strong mould of an inexplicable construction was successfully built by those four uneven but constantly moving feet.

‘Exactly!’

One of them yelled as they finally felt in sync.

But just when this mould was constructed, their feet hit a dead-end. The road ahead was blocked due to the removal of a drainage blockage from the underground pipeline. This was a usual thing around their area. They turned around, both inwards, one from his right and the other left.

Step by step, they walked back. Even though it was the same road, it looked different when walking back. As they talked more, the mould evolved into something more substantial. They still kept moulding it. Sometimes agreeing, sometimes not. But mainly, constructing. Now, even if they disagreed on the placement of a pillar or direction of a window, the construction felt constructive. The turning at the dead-end had put them into an unstoppable creative momentum.

The walk back had no duration. They realized that they had reached the apartment only when they actually reached the apartment. And then, it suddenly hit them. One looked at the other, just for a micro-second, to acknowledge that the construction was still not complete and would never be. It will keep shifting its shape till the end of time. And rather than feeling cynical about it, they felt relieved.

Relieved, that they would not have to carry the burden of completing it. Relieved, to be in the present continuous tense as it offered them never-ending possibilities. Relieved, to be able to keep walking more and more. and more.

I am the title of a story of a name

I am the year 1998. I am excited to be here as the end of this millennium is just 2 years away from me. While I won’t be there to experience it, I am sure my successors will enjoy the celebrations. Of the 12 months I am carrying within me, the third one is March.

I am the month of March in the year 1998. I like my name. It has an energy to it that the melancholic June lacks. On all the 31 days I carry within me, many babies are born in all parts of the world. I'm in my second week right now and the babies that were born last week are now almost a week old.

I am a day in the second week of March in the year 1998. I don’t know exactly which day am I because memories are a weird thing. Often times they don’t diminish but change. This gives me the ability to be any day that I like in the week. I’ll be Wednesday. Even though the sun is rising through a sweet winter fog in the morning, I am warm enough to give a cozy feeling to the residents of Satara.

..

I am Satara, a small town in Western Maharashtra. It’s the second Wednesday in the month of March 1998. Essentially, I am green. Large Peepal and Banyan trees are spread all across me and concrete has not yet completely taken over the red soil. I cozily reside in the middle of seven large hills from the Sahyadri mountain range. I was hurt when recently in my southern part, a new real estate project got signed. They cut many trees. But I suppose I’ll have to change as they are calling it development.

..

I am the living room of a small 1BHK apartment in eastern Satara. I am getting old but the family which is living within me is keeping me young. Their love is infectious, actually. The people who were living here before are supposedly my owners. Each month, the father in this family gives some money to the father in that family. The mothers have no say in this. I think the kitchen knows more about them as they are always there.

A week or so ago, the mother in this family delivered a baby. It is a boy. They are all very happy. Maybe they wanted a boy. Like any other baby, he cries a lot. As they are low on money, they have not been able to afford a cradle. The eldest sister of this young boy has created a makeshift cradle made up of some blankets and shawls in my left corner. The baby gets extremely happy when they swing him. The window above the makeshift cradle told me that the baby likes to look outside when she is open. She thinks that he is trying to locate the sun as each morning, the sunrays fall on him, softly touching his face.

I am the window in the living room of this old, rustic 1BHK apartment. The baby’s arrival in this house is indeed a happy time. His mother, Savita opens and closes me each morning and evening without fail. Savita means Sun. Last week, I heard the father tell her what they should name the baby. It’s something which literally means Brightness or a strong ray of sun. I am excited to see how the baby reacts when it gets to know it.

..

I don’t know who I am. They say that I am the makeshift cradle but I think I am still a blanket. But I wouldn’t argue much. As a blanket, I always lay down on other people. This is the first time that I am holding someone. That too, this beautiful young baby boy. It’s a really beautiful feeling. I think he really likes the red threads in between the dominant yellow in me. Also, I think my smell is really comforting for him as he sleeps very calmly whenever he leans on one side and breathes in me. Maybe it reminds him of his mother.

Many people are looking at him today. I hear a lot of noise. People chatting. They seem like relatives. The baby’s maternal grandmother has come from a faraway town. She is unnecessarily taking the baby in and out of my hold multiple times. Some of his cousins are pushing me to and fro a lot. Although it hurts my back, I am happy that it is making the baby happy. I heard that all of these people are gathered here today for his naming ceremony. I wonder what will they name him.

..

We are the baby’s mother’s hands. The naming ceremony has started and we have just passed on the baby to the lady next to us. The baby will be passed throughout the circle of these women and they will make a Kurr! Sound in his ears. At the end of the circle, the baby will come back to us. We are getting impatient as the other hands don’t hold the baby the same as we do. We know it. He knows it. And that’s what matters.

Okay! He is finally back to us. Slowly, we are keeping him down in the cradle. A lady, we think she is the father’s sister, is supposed to say the name into his ears as we keep him down.

..

I am the left eardrum of a human baby-Kurr! I am quite weak right now as some-Kurr! Some of my skin is still taking proper form-Kurr!  We (me and all the other parts that are making this body) have only recently come into this world. I don’t know if this baby is a boy or a girl as I don’t have access to either its mind or its body. It may also be very early to ask this question.

Oh wait, they are keeping us down, I think. Now, I must be ready to receive that word. The name, I mean. I suppose this word will stay with him for the rest of his life.

Tejas!