Communicating without Language

As a wildlife biologist I often have the privilege... nah... the pleasure of travelling to comparatively less explored spaces on Earth. It has its own set of adventures, joy of exploring and pure bliss of new, that no money can buy. However, it often comes with minor issues, no knowledge of local language or customs. While they both can be learned one easier than the other.

After quitting as civil engineer, I started working as research intern on Tigers in a National park in Karnataka. The local language there is Kannada and I was as ignorant about the language as is an earthworm about theory of black holes. 

Here I was in the middle of the forest with tribesman a local mentor, none of them knew English or Hindi. Silence seemed less golden and more of shitty yellow. I tried to hold on to words but could hardly stay afloat. 

I loved what I was doing. I was living the dream but the silence was deafeningly loud.

I had two options. One was to only work in regions where I knew the language and not dare move beyond my comfort zone or to learn the language of silence.

In coming months, I mostly worked on short stints in various places in southern India. Went through a plethora of languages Goan, Kannada (again), Portuguese, Marathi. Through all of this I could see patterns, more of a common thread. The common thread in human interactions, behaviors, body languages, desires, styles etc. etc. I am no anthropologist or a psychologist but I am a researcher and I do observe and I observed without the most common interference- understanding and comprehending the spoken words. Let me clarify I am not against or for languages I am just learning to converse without it so that my ignorance of new languages does not act as a bottleneck.  

  

More importantly than observing patterns, styles, understanding the logic. I started letting people in my heart. I started feeling the words that were spoken. I could be with these people and they let me in their lives and their hearts. Often times I would be sitting with a family enjoying dinner with them hearing the words being spoken but it was their eyes that did the talking and I would listen to them. 

Smile came back to me naturally and I would laugh at smallest of the jokes. I was happy. I felt I knew communication until I met Ramaiya.

Now I started working in Andhra Pradesh on a four horned antelope project. The landscape is semi-arid. Thorny shrubs were abundant and rains were sparse. During peak summer the temperatures can reach 45 degrees Celsius. The rocky hilly terrain certainly added to the charm. The landscape had the beauty of a silken masterpiece whose love you know means trouble but still can’t help falling for her.

Ramaiya was scheduled tribe. Now I knew theoretically that Scheduled tribes (ST) have been abused for many generations but seeing it firsthand came as a rude eye opener for me. On our first day in field I had carried lunch for both of us. We were looking for indirect evidences for four- horned antelope. Morning was spent in silence trying to locate hoof print or middens (dropping of Four-horned antelope).

Ramaiya and his Son as we worked on adding water sources for the forest denizens during peak summer months

During mid-day we both sat down to eat lunch but wait!!! Ramaiya sat some 20 meters away from me. At first I thought it was rude but then I noticed he was sitting in hot sun. Why did he leave the shade? When I approached him asking him to sit next to me and eat, he had a terrified look in his eyes. I could not understand the words he spoke but the quiver in his voice and everything else told me everything. He did not understand me and I did not understand him. I could feel language manifest itself into a new unseen barrier. As a solidarity with Ramaiya's feelings I too sat away from shade and ate. We were still 20 meters apart.

Slowly over a period of time Ramaiya started becoming comfortable in my presence and in 2 weeks time we both would eat together. The taboo of scheduled tribe was no more between us.

Earlier I had boasted about my travels and learning. I was now next to a man  so humble whose all of belongings were a few clothes and a couple of cooking vessels. Yet he knew more than an explorer. His eyes spoke of great adventures without him ever leaving his native land. Here was a man who had traveled without ever travelling. He and wisdom were one.

As we collected more and more of data Ramaiya and I became really close friends. He taught me to tell the approximate weight of a hare from it's droppings and how to read tracks even on a gravelly soil. He taught me to identify plants from a kilometer away. We both communicated at a whole new level. We never knew each other's language, we ended up developing our own set of symbols and signs. Words now seemed obsolete. We would often discuss weather, vegetation, wildlife, wild fires, stories and jokes but hardly a word would be spoken. 

Now he would ask me identify a plant and if I got it wrong, I would be properly scolded. Ramaiya became my voice in the village and he would often end up as my translator. 

Ramaiya had started off as my field guide but ended up as my guru. I was learning more and more about plants and animals from him. A man who never attended any school but knew more than a scholar. His knowledge was unmistakably in sync with most of the research papers. 

After a year of working with him I moved on pursue PhD in ornithology from University of Arkansas.

It's been 2 years now since Ramaiya has passed away but learning from him remain.

Every new place, new people, new language present their own unique set of challenges. There is not set of guidelines or step by step methodology for it. It is just as simple as understanding heart of a person. Looking in to someone's eyes and letting them in your life and you being in theirs'. Life becomes so peaceful, full of laughter and joy. 
Language or now language opening yourself to the world is the key to communication, is what Ramaiya had taught me.