Sometime back, I had picked my brains on how language is not good enough a tool to express ourselves. I guess we don’t place all our money on language—the words and the letters (Huh!). I and my friend came to amazing realization last week (we were on fire, weren’t we? A fresh-fire, what say Joey?). The number of times Joey said ‘If you know what I mean’ during our conversation was more than he could just express with words (I know words are all we have).

To give you a better idea: I am an Indian fool (fool is bound to be mistaken for an actual fool by Indian readers here) trying to rub my shoulders with the guys out here in California. If I walk down the road of a place where I have spent most of the time in this life and say:

“Yeah, that is dank”

A quick reply would be: “(*&^#@##@ ”)…I mean it would be difficult to get one. Being aware of the situation, I will not say: “Hey, that’s not how you do it in southern California baby”.

I mean anybody who wants to adopt a culture would feel his/her way through few things that come to you slowly—language unleashes mystery again. I am digging my way through to something better all the time, so I started learning the “ways” of my hommies, the “ways” of people around in general.

I was repeating “yes, yes, I understand” to Joey all the time. I could see the hesitation inside both of us—an agreement which had grounds of almost a certain sense of acceptance to the fact that “we cannot understand”. So it continued…

Me: “you guys do understand most of the things I say, right?”

Mark (dabbling):  “Oh, for sure”

Sammy (with a little swag): “What do you think?” (I had said “Hell Yeah”)

Jordan (Fresh): “Of course fool”

Joey (fire): “Yes, but what we are saying is very differently understood by each one of us”

A sequence of words is processed so differently by different people at different times. It would happen to anybody, when we understand how world perceives us so differently all the time (very simple for Indian women—try to wear mini skirts all the time, you will know a thing or two).

Look at that letter “f” for e.g., I don’t think it would have made much of a difference to mankind if we had learned only the word “fuck” starting with that letter. We could have just said “pyre” instead of “fire”, really wouldn’t make much of difference, will it?

We both looked each other after a bit of time, and we both were sure at that moment that we had discovered something that is present around us all the time. We did not need words that time, the expression was through, the feeling when we experience the fact that “it just is”, not everything can be explained through words.

I am not here to fight for my race

Just being honest, and in the face

And telling you that it ain’t the case

I am just playing game, filling the space

Ajay is my name, ready to ace.

So, the snake charmer, are you ready?

Snooping in the hole, dancing on that beat already

I am working up a new one nice and steady

Common, are you ready to lose your religion and believe Mary Baker Eddy

That was nothing new, I usually don’t make sense—well I already said so, languages don’t make it easy!