“Hi Amma. Konichiwa!”, said the little son as he pranced home from school.
“Konichiwa?” “It means Hello! in Japanese,” said the fellow, beaming.
“Oh that’s nice. It sounds like a tinkling wind-chime.“
“Ni Hao is Hello in Chinese,” said the expert.
“How did you know these things? Did they teach you in school?” I asked.
He showed me a beautiful children’s book, Say Hello , by Rachel Isadora, that he had picked up from the library.
That night we snuggled into bed with the inclusive book that follows a little girl walking through town saying Hello to people she meets. The As-Salaam-Alaikkum-s, Ni Hao-s and Konichiwa-s roll out with ease.
The older and supposedly wiser daughter sometimes joins us for story-time, and this time the two-minute read turned into a 12-minute reminiscence of what is lovingly known as The Hola Snafu At Mexico.
In Mexico
We were visiting Cancun, Mexico a few months ago. The fellow at the gates to the resort in Cancun was looking morose, and seemingly wondering whether there was any purpose in going on sitting at the resort gates, when our van approached. I stuck my head out and gave him the room number allocated to us at the resort, so he could let us pass, “Hola! Uno nuevo nuevo deux.”
My performance in Spanish seemed to have uplifted his spirits, and he waved us in cheerfully. I said in perfect Spanish,
“Thank you Amigos. Have a très bien day!” But I turned around to see the daughter, who learns Spanish at school, laughing heartily. “Did you just think you spoke Spanish?” she gurgled when I asked her what the matter was.
Our van was trundling in toward the resort, so I must have said all the right things, I said ‘Oui’ with confidence. “Have a tres bien day! Tres bien is French, Amma, not Spanish!”
Proximate areas
I had not considered the possibility that French and Spanish occupied the same area in the old brain. Amazing what all happens inside the walnut, isn’t it?
“Well, Spain is near France, so I am sure they will understand,” I said, miffed that my marvellous attempt at Spanish was getting the rip-down. “Yes! But Mexico isn’t near France,” she said. She had me there, but that did not stop me.
I hola-ed and tres bien-ed and buenos nachos and muchos gracias-ed my way through the Mexican resort, much to the delight of the staff. Some of them taught me that Buenos Nachos means ‘Good Chips’, not ‘Good Night’ but indulged me in my dreams of Spanish fluency.
We all laughed, but the husband said the important thing was that I made the effort to communicate with them, and they understood that. Even when I said Muchos Nachos Tres Bien, and Google translator had no clue what that meant, the server who had laid out dinner for us knew I meant well, and bestowed an avuncular smile on me.
The lone wolf
In other news, the recent mass shooting at Las Vegas has horrified America and the world yet again, and the media have since dubbed the terrorist a Lone Wolf.
I read a book by Daniel Byman, a Professor and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution where he conducts research on terrorism. One study tried to find a correlation between how terrorist organisations targeted recruits and any other factor (economic, academic, geographic), but came up with no correlation whatsoever. It was baffling.
There was only one unifying factor among each of the recruits: They were all Lone Wolves.
Every time we spot someone feeling lonely in our community, why not send a Hello or Hola or Konichiwa or Ni Hao or As-Salaam-Alaikkum or Namaste their way? We never know when a simple smile and word can change the course of one’s day. A smile is as universal as loneliness, after all.
saumya.bala@gmail.com
