what we lose between the lines / जो खो गया पंक्तियों के बीच

by Devika Bahadur

what we lose between the lines / जो खो गया पंक्तियों के बीच 

(or maybe we never had it
or maybe we never knew what to call it
or maybe we were always
the footnote
to someone else’s language)

the beginning of forgetting

The first word I lost was “साँस”
Not breath.
Not inhalation.
Not respiration. 

But साँस, the mother-breath, the ancestral exhale, the soft rhythm of a grandmother’s lullaby between temple bells and the sound of mustard seeds popping in hot oil. 

When I translate, I lose it. 

What I keep is a tired approximation: 

I paused to breathe. 

What I mean is: 

I remembered sitting by the window,

her thumb rubbing circles into my back,

saying nothing

but giving me air. 

And that… that doesn’t translate.

transcription log (field notes from the failure of meaning) 

When I began transcribing my interviews for the PhD
hours of vulnerable voice in Hindi, English, hybrid street-speak…
I found myself
freezing at the word इज़्ज़त. 

“Respect.”
That’s what the thesaurus tells me.
But the word इज़्ज़त
carries blood
& pride
& class
& gender
& lineage
& silence. 

“Respect” is what you teach children at school.
इज़्ज़त is what someone can take from you with a glance. 

And what do I write for the readers in the West?
How do I explain that some words carry centuries in them
and my PhD gives me only 80,000 words to hold them?

library log, or: the word for home

There is no exact word for privacy in Hindi. There is no exact word for loneliness either. 

But there is: एकांत
(the solitude that is intentional) 

and there is: तन्हाई
(the solitude that is haunting) 

I try to explain this to a peer in a panel discussion.
She smiles. Says it’s interesting. Moves on. 

I want to say: 

No, wait. This is the difference between wanting to be alone and
being left behind. 

But I don’t.
I have seven minutes left and
the mic is too far from my mouth. 

childhood record (silent subtitles) 

I was bilingual before I could spell either language.
English was my school. Bengali was my home.
English was my marks. Bengali was my memory.
English was recitation. Bengali was recursion.

My report cards praised my fluency.
My diary pages mourned what I could not write. 

Sometimes I think in Bengali and type in English
and forget what language the thought came from. 

Sometimes I remember my relative saying: 

“Don’t talk back.”
but what he said was:
“जब बडे बात करें, बीच में नही बोलते।” 

Which doesn’t mean the same thing.
At all. 

migration log (border control between languages) 

Customs declaration at Heathrow: 

Q: Are you bringing any objects of cultural significance? 

I write: No.
I think: 

My mother’s तेल की शीशी,
the smell of sandalwood,
an idiom about curry leaves I’ll never pronounce right again.

Q: Any language other than English spoken in your home?

I say: Yes.
Then nothing.

footnotes from the margins 

(1) I once tried to translate a poem I wrote in Hindi to English.
It became smaller.
Like trying to fold the sky into a suitcase. 

(2) Every time someone says, “Your English is so good!”
I feel like replying, 

It should be. It cost me my tongue. 

(3) I still dream in three languages.
Some days I don’t remember which. 

(4) I taught myself to stop explaining.
But here I am again. 

again (or the unfinished index of me) 

• साँस = the kind of breath that carries memory
• इज़्ज़त = a word so heavy it breaks in translation
• घर = home (but also grief, smell, ritual, separation)
•  एकांत = solitude that heals
• तन्हाई = solitude that hollows
• समझ = understanding (but also a wound)
• लज्जा = shame and honour in the same syllable
• जड़ = root
• विरासत = inheritance, not always wanted

this is not a conclusion 

Because this language (this split tongue, this in-between grammar)
does not end
or resolve
or fold neatly into English. 

This piece has no conclusion
because neither do I. 

Only a series of ellipses
between my mother’s tongue
and my thesis chapter. 

Only a story still waiting
to be understood in full.