A Conversation Over-heard.
I was on my way back after a long day at work. It was one of those inconsequential days, days which you don't seem to remember. Days similar to many others which are easily forgotten. I call them 'filler days', days that exists to fill up the calender between days you tend to remember. It was that point of time in my life when filler days had become mainstream days. So now if someone did ask me when this particular incident, that I'm trying to recall here, happened I would be lost.
For the sake of argument, lets say somewhere early 2013 or late 2012 ( Post the Mayan-calender-inspired apocalypse).
As always, I am seated in the last seat of my '40A' (In those days it went by the name '210A'). It was a pleasant evening, the sun not out yet. My bus had reached a traffic signal. It had stopped. I was lazily gazing around, ear plugs taking care of the outside world commotion. It was then, that I spotted them.
A man and a Women. Lost deep in a conversation.
What had made me sit and take notice of them, was the fact that they were having a very animated conversation. They both seemed consumed by it. There was a lot of hand movements involved.
I sat there in my bus dumbstruck, looking at this middle-aged man and woman, having this wonderful conversation. It seemed to amuse them. They were happy. They did not care about the rest of the world. And the World in return, drowned them in its chaos.
The same Chaos the rest of us tried hard to keep out. Noises that were avoided with earplugs that went deep into our heads on either side. I looked at my fellow passengers in 210A, hardly a few who chose to endure this genre of music. And them standing there, on the footpath nearby, cheerfully lost.
They were standing near the signal that stopped the evening commute back home for rest of us. There were more vehicles than the road could take. The ever so present 'honking' song by these vehicles, each contributing to it. These was so much noise that I found it hard to hear myself.
I looked into their world from outside. I wanted to be a part of this world they created. I wished I knew how to break this barrier.
But I did not. It was a world of their own. They did not notice me, nor anybody else.
Nothing else seemed to make sense to them than the person opposite. Nothing else mattered.
I was 5 feet away and I couldn't hear them. It was not because of the vehicles or the commotion.
I couldn't hear because I wasn't meant to. The harder I tried to listen in, the farther I felt. I knew I couldn't hear them even if I was standing right next.
I couldn't hear because they weren't communicating through words.
They were speaking through hand-gestures. They were Deaf.
In these times when our words falter to convey our basic feelings, I find them screaming out their's without it.
Sound did not seem like a necessary medium if you really wish to speak.
I felt happy for them.
In that frame of time I was even jealous of what they had.
I wished someday I could have a conversation so deep with someone else that nothing else seemed important anymore.
And I knew I wouldn't.
