Bridging the gap

   

   This blog is dedicated to everyone who have butterflies, rats and every other such thing running inside their stomach when they had to face a huge crowd.

               

                 I was sitting at the back and my friend was driving, it was getting quite dark in the evening and we both thought that we had enough travelling today so that we would go to any motel and rest for that night. We had been travelling in the bike for 11 hours now and to say the least it has been a awesome journey so far though it was taking a toll on us.

               

                Few minutes back my mobile flashed showing that we had entered Maharashtra. By looking at the sign boards, we figures it out that we were in Mangalwedha village. Myself and my fried neither knew where we were nor knew where we were heading. We both decided to go on wheels for three days; we neither prepared anything nor decided to reach any destination. A Road trip along with your best buddy is one the best things a man could ever do.

              

                We were travelling in an abandoned road for about 25 minutes now, there was pinch of darkness which surrounded us and there were no street lights. Just the light from our bike allowed us to see to an extent. Panic was filling in as we couldn't see even a single human passing by our side. I said to my friend, “we could travel and if we spot someone we could stop and ask if there is any motel that we could stay in for the night” and he agreed.

              

                 After for 10 more minutes we saw someone in the other side. We stopped beside him and asked for help to find any motel. He spoke something but we both never understood, maybe he spoke in his regional language; we both said that we couldn't understand him and told him to speak in Hindi or English but he did not understand us. We both were disappointed and the same thing happened with two other persons who passed by our side. No one understood what we spoke and we both did not know what they were trying to say. Language played a game that we both were least interested to be involved in. We both wanted to get into some place as the February cold was beating us with all its strength.

                

               We traveled for another hour or so and by then we had lost confidence since the people there did not know the languages we knew. There was a man who was passing in his cycle infront of us. We both over-took him and stopped. He came beside us and halted when we made a gesture to stop. We asked if we could find any place that we could stay for the night. He stayed calm for some time then he made a gesture that he can’t speak. He was speech-impaired. We smiled and said thank you for stopping and thought that we had to stay on road the entire night. We started our bike and decided to move, but he held my hand and made us to stop.

                

               With his hands, he did something from which I understood that he wanted to say something to us. He pointed in the direction we were going and shook his head indicating that we shouldn't go that side to go where we wanted. He pointed in the opposite direction and showed his 3 fingers and extended his left hand from which I understood that we had to go 3 kilometers in opposite direction and take a left turn to reach a motel. We had crossed the road which we to take to enter the village and it’s because of this person we got a good sleep that night and more importantly we were safe.

                

              On the way to the motel I thought a lot, sometimes it’s not the language which is a barrier it’s just our thoughts. When our thoughts are clear then language is used as a medium to reach people. I remembered what my Professor said once during my Project review time when I was struggling to speak in-front of a large crowd, “Speak up what you know, you may be wrong and even pronounce few words in such a way that people would laugh but that doesn't matter much unless your thoughts gain their attention and I know that you have knowledge about your project, it’s just your fears that is making you from explaining. Just speak what you think you are comfortable with, surely you would reach people.”

                

              There are many occasions in our life where we think of speaking something but we stay quiet since we don’t find the right words and we think that people may judge us by the way we speak but we need to remember that it’s our thoughts that finally matters. Being a writer people corner me by telling that I don’t write in proper English, I’m not a writer’s material but what they fail to understand is  that my thoughts are getting distributed and that’s the first thing a writer wants and that makes me worth writing.

                

              Language is just a bridge between your thoughts and what you need to convey. First make sure you have your thoughts clear and then try to build a bridge. Don’t try to fool yourself and others by building a bridge even when there is no river.
               

                Language ain't a barrier..