Lost in Translation, Found in Conversation

Morning walks are strange little universities.

No admission forms, no attendance registers, no entrance exams. Yet every morning, one returns home having learnt something new about people, language, memory, ego, discipline, and occasionally even about oneself.

This morning, after finishing my jog, I was relaxing on the bench when an elderly couple occupied the adjacent one. The wife immediately settled into Pranayam with the seriousness of someone auditioning for a योगगुरु certification, while the husband was battling heroically with Hindi over the phone.

Now, I must confess that whenever I encounter another South Indian struggling with Hindi, I instantly feel a sense of fraternity. It is like spotting a fellow survivor in a hostile linguistic jungle.

The gentleman fought valiantly for nearly ten minutes. To me, however, it felt like watching the full unedited director’s cut of a historical war movie.

The moment he disconnected the call, I could not resist congratulating him.

“You completed the mission successfully,” I told him.

He burst out laughing and said this was the comic outcome of having lived in Delhi for over twenty-two years and Allahabad for another five.

That revelation alone boosted my confidence enormously. Here was a man who had spent nearly three decades in North India and still spoke Hindi with the same cautious optimism that I reserve in Bangalore while dealing with AC installers, electricians, carpenters, and many others who have courageously moved far away from their native places in search of livelihood, carrying with them their skills, resilience, and the one language that often helps strangers become functional teammates in a new city - Hindi.”

The gentleman later introduced himself as an IIT Chennai graduate, a PhD holder, and someone who had also cleared UPSC. His wife had worked in a foreign bank in Delhi for over fifteen years before later becoming a teacher. Unlike him, she was completely comfortable in Hindi because her work demanded human interaction. His research-oriented profession, meanwhile, had apparently allowed him the luxury of surviving mainly through English.

But the morning had only begun unfolding its screenplay.

Suddenly, the lady looked at my regular walkmate, a gentleman who had spent most of his adult life abroad before settling back here around five or six years ago, and casually addressed him by name. She also correctly identified the locality where he lived.

The poor man looked as though someone had accessed his Aadhaar details without permission.

Before his confusion could escalate into a security concern, she introduced herself. Instantly, recognition dawned upon him. In her younger days, she had apparently been their neighbour or tenant. And here they were now, reconnecting after almost four-and-a-half decades beside a lake walking track.

Only in India can a casual morning walk suddenly turn into an emotional reunion episode worthy of a television serial soundtrack.

Naturally, the usual thirty-minute post-walk conversation extended itself generously into an hour and beyond. The new couple wanted to know everyone. I introduced them to several regular walkmates, including two of my former bank colleagues. Each welcomed them warmly into our increasingly unofficial lake parliament.

The wife laughingly remarked that had I not initiated conversation over her husband’s Hindi adventure, none of this familiarity would have happened.

Which proves once again that broken Hindi can sometimes build stronger bridges than perfect English.

Meanwhile, another regular walkmate called to check whether I was still at the lake. This particular gentleman attends the lake less for cardiovascular fitness and more for conversational endurance training.

He arrived shortly afterwards.

Now, fate clearly had no intention of allowing anyone to leave early today.  

When I introduced him to the couple, they discovered he too was a PhD holder. The husband, who had almost started leaving, immediately abandoned all exit plans. His wife eventually resumed walking towards the gate alone while he remained behind, fully immersed in intellectual conversation.

At one point, I gently reminded him that his wife had already left quite some time ago.

He waved away the concern casually.

“We never walk together,” he said matter-of-factly. “Our walking speeds don’t match. I will catch up eventually.”

That sentence may well become one of the finest definitions of marriage I have ever heard.

By now, the gentleman had become so energised by the discussion that leaving seemed physically impossible. One could almost see his IQ receiving fresh oxygen supply.

Meanwhile, my photographer friend had entered a completely different philosophical zone, hunger.

After waiting patiently for a long time, he finally asked whether we could leave for breakfast.

I explained that the newly arrived walkmate had specifically come hoping for conversation and that we could perhaps stay another five or ten minutes.

Unfortunately, hunger affects hearing, comprehension, patience, and democracy.

He suggested that the discussion could continue at the restaurant.

That was when the professor among us delivered what can only be described as a full-fledged ideological counterattack against the tyranny of time itself.

He declared that he was fundamentally opposed to being ruled by clocks.

He woke up when he wished. Slept when he wished. Ate when hungry. Spoke when inspired. And most importantly, if someone came seeking conversation, that deserved respect too.

Then came the masterstroke.  Drawing from his thirty-six-plus years as a professor across multiple prestigious colleges, he recalled judging a debate competition where one team argued in favour of time discipline while the other argued against it.

With dramatic satisfaction, he declared:

“Whom I awarded the prize is anybody’s guess.”

And at that precise moment, our hungry photographer friend probably realised that breakfast itself had now entered a philosophical debate on punctuality.

The professor too seemed to realise that the photographer had every right to eat when he felt hungry according to the very same golden principles being passionately defended. Perhaps that was the moment he decided it was finally time to surrender to the clock, suspend the debate on time discipline, and head towards breakfast.

We immediately fell in line, marched towards our favourite breakfast joint with the obedience of students after a lecture bell, ate to our hearts’ content, and eventually dispersed in different directions carrying with us yet another memorable morning conversation.

Morning walks, after all, are rarely about walking anymore.

They are about discovering that somewhere between broken Hindi, forgotten neighbours, intellectual companionship, and delayed breakfasts, human beings continue to search for the same thing, connection.

Some search for it through discipline.

Others through conversation.

And a few fortunate souls somehow manage to find it beside a lake bench while struggling through a Hindi phone call.

(PC : My photographer friend, the one in the cap and goggles at the centre)

Stories, not instructions. Experiences, not advice—medical or otherwise. Data, only what the internet quietly gathers anyway. Proceed with equal parts curiosity and common sense.