Language no barrier

 As I spend yet another night in solitude, furiously analyzing data, I realize that I have roughly 5 more weeks to go before all this will be over. I have been sitting for so long that I am afraid my varicose vein problems or back problems might begin to resurface. I oscillate between bouts of feeling hungry, feeling thirsty, feeling like using the restroom, and feeling like stretching or taking a nap. Every night I go through this routine, I listen to a particular kind of music. Some nights, I listen to Bollywood of the 80s and 90s. Some nights, I listen to random English songs I have never heard. Tonight, I am listening to Spanish music through one of these Spanish radio channels on my iPad.

It feels strangely comforting, listening to a language I understand nothing of. Sometimes, they play a nice, slow romantic song that I love, but I have no way to find out what that song is, because I do not understand what they are saying. Then, I assume that it is a romantic song, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Remember, I do not understand a word they say. So as the music plays and I type furiously, I nod my head to the rhythms of the music, sometimes adding my own words to the tune in Hindi or Bengali. I sometimes do the same with other languages, listening to random songs in Tamil or Telugu, not understanding a word of what they say. It is good in a way, because then I get to concentrate on the music instead of losing sleep over what they are saying.

Random thoughts cross my mind as I hear more Spanish songs. What if I were to marry someone whose language I did not understand? Forget marriage, what if I were to live with someone for a short duration of time, maybe a roommate, a travel partner, someone I could not communicate with? Someone who barely understood English? It would be awesome, isn’t it? I would love to see how we both would overcome the language and communication barrier, and communicate with our limited vocabulary and mostly sign language. Sometimes, I think that words are overrated, and the more we use them, the more we create opportunities of misunderstanding. I would seriously like to try out living with someone temporarily, gender-independent, who speaks none of the languages I do.

Just some very random thoughts as I spend another sleepless night wading my way through piles of data.

sunshine