The Language of Love
“Kya naam hai?” I could hear Mummy ask our cleaning lady’s little girl her name, in Hindi. I wasn’t surprised when the girl responded, as Mummy had this knack of carrying on a conversation in a universal language of love. Our cleaning lady was surprised. “Oh, your mom speaks Portuguese?” When I said no, she explained “Qual é o seu nome?” is how one asks in Portuguese, which sounded very similar in Hindi. Though that day the question was phonetically similar, on other occasions, despite a language barrier, Mummy never stopped herself from getting her point across. She always had a kind tone, and kind words, wrapped in love, that everyone understood! Of the umpteen values I learned from my second mother for the last almost-thirty years, the one I covet most is to be kind rather than right. Among a family of obsessive arguers, she was the calm one to cool down a heated argument. Though she was right many times, she never felt the need to say “I told you so”. She was never the one