Don't Understand a Language? Enjoy the Sound

It is oddly liberating to listen to the collage of sounds unique to a city without understanding the words

- SANDIP ROY

I looked and smelled like many other Indian markets. I could smell the jackfruit and guava, ripe and intoxicating. Women sold strands of white jasmine flowers and pink lotuses. A man was hawking a pile of multicoloured "Jockey" briefs of questionable provenance. The orange-yellow mangoes, a little longer and more lissome than I was used to, looked like the genuine article however. A goat nibbled at flower garlands strung around the front of a three-wheeler till the irate owner delivered a kick to its rear end. It all felt very familiar, yet I felt a stranger in my own country.

I understood nothing anyone was saying around me. In the bustling marketplace of Trichy everyone seemed to speak Tamil. Even the signs were mostly in Tamil. The usual smattering of English that is part and parcel of Indian metropolises was largely missing, except for an occasional store sign. Vasanth and Company promising "quality and trust" when it came to appliances, the mustachioed Mr Vasanth beaming at us from a billboard. Even the colas had different names from the ones I was used to. Now I could choose between Kalimark ice-cream sodas and Bovonto colas but I would have to choose blindly. The storekeeper was all smiles but could not understand my queries.

Having just visited the Rockfort temple, my forehead was smeared with sacred ash and I sported a tilak. I must have looked somewhat local. An elderly lady came up and asked me for help with something. I just smiled foolishly.

At first it felt a bit disconcerting as if cast out to sea without a life-jacket. As a writer I am used to eavesdropping on conversations around me wherever I am. I tape interviews and select the clips that would move my narrative forward. There is power in that.

Here I was flailing, understanding neither head nor tail of the conversations in the market, at restaurants, in bars.