The language of familiarity

Neither of them can recall their last meeting. They had probably just waved casually and turned into the porches of their buildings and made their way up to their respective parents’ homes, confident that in a couple of days or a couple of weeks they would get together again and hang out.

Essentially, hang out is all they ever did. Linger on the parapet, pace — or even race — up and down the short divide between their multi-storeyed buildings, stroll down to the corner shop and have a Coke, if either of them had struck it rich from an indulgent parent, or just go to the shop anyway to see who else was there.

They had so much time on their hands that they invented a language to communicate with each other while under parental supervision. ‘P’ language and ‘M’ language and ‘LL’ language was not for them. It could be decoded easily by savvy listeners. So it was an entire lexicon of words and sentences, with no special grammar rules to worry about, no articles, no tenses and any of the other language bugbears. They just memorised it all and threw away the key — and they were good to go.

Unfortunately, they did not go in the same direction. One of them married young and set sail to lands she had never dreamt she would ever visit. The other married late and hopped and skipped her way through army cantonments she had not know ever existed on the map.

They did not meet during those years of establishing their homes, raising their children, struggling to adjust to their new environments and the Great Indian Reality of the greater Indian family, encompassing not just parents and sisters and brothers but sundry aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws and outlaws ...

Had they met, it is likely that they would have found themselves with little to talk about. Little that they had retained in common or could share or even cared to share. It was a busy time and they could quite possibly have met and moved on with the thought: “How were we so close when we were teenagers? We have such different ideas ...”

However, the years were kind to them and allowed them to go their separate ways with perhaps only a stray thought of the other person on a particular day of the year. “Today is her birthday ... we used to celebrate together when we were young ...”

And then, as is possible only in the new global village of instant communication and instant connections, they got in touch once more and they met, four decades down the line.

Being super-wife, super-housewife, super-mom, super-woman is not on the agenda for either of them any longer (if it ever was). They don’t need to brag about their careers or their children. They don’t need to cover up their inadequacies and imperfections or mull over whatever secret resentment with each other they had built up at a time when they knew no better.

Now, comfortable with themselves — and comfortably spread, no longer vying with each other to be lean and lovely — they exchange histories, linger on the high points, gloss over the lows. They need no effort to do that. It is what life has taught them.

They may not have spoken the same language mid-life, but now they are on the same page.

As for the code language they shared — they have forgotten all but a line of it. But they do not need it now. What they have to say is too good to be kept a secret.

Isn’t that how it is meant to be?

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.