by Billy Jaan

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

There are some words, some gestures, that stop me in my tracks; they take my breath away. I think in english, I write in english, I dream and fight my fiercest battles in english...but utter one sweet word in the language of my birth at an opportune moment and I am felled. In the midst of a furious argument, call me "jaani", whisper "hai, nahi", and you steal my fire. My eyes blaze but my words are lost. A space between thought and speech, momentarily displaced from all sense and perception.

The more times passes, the sweeter seem the words which so often I have adandonned in favour of english. What is it about our mother tongue that touches so deep and transcends all logic and explanation? How is it that single words in the language of my source can move me so? I wish not for escape from this reconnection, indeed I would sink deeper. Perhaps it is the familiarity and relinquishment of struggle that brings me home.

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