Language of Love

My son was playing Japanese City Pop on the car stereo. This is his latest love, and frankly we don’t dislike it either. At times we listen to Korean songs and even at times Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada or a Marathi song. Other than Hindi, English and Bengali, we do not understand a word of other songs, yet love them. 'Language of love' trumps all!!!

 Cut to today’s news on a news site - a woman was reportedly harassed for not speaking the local language. This is not an isolated incident. Throughout the world,  since time immemorial, we have fought over many things, language being one of them. Such a vainglorious thing!

Image Credits: Arnab Sengupta (Created on Canva)

Learning a new language is amazing. There are no two words about it. As Nelson Mandela had once said, language is not only a means of communication but a reflection into a culture and history. Having said this, learning a language should be a matter of choice and not a compulsion. Language imposed on people erodes their likelihood of liking that language ever in the future. In certain places, because of this imposition, kids in schools are forced to learn three languages at a time. That’s not only unfair, but also unnecessary. Instead, if we want people to learn a language, then we need to create an environment where people start loving a language and want to learn it, so that they can explore a new culture, history and contemporary art and literature. In short, it needs to be a ‘PULL’ not a 'PUSH' strategy.

The greatest language of all is the 'language of love'. Even if you do not understand a word of what other person is saying, if you apply the language of love, you can always understand what the other person means or needs. How come we claim to understand what our pets ‘say’ although they do not speak a single word, yet cancel another fellow human who cannot speak the language that we speak?