My Lingo

What makes a man?

Well, simply, man is someone who...

Someone who speaks a language.

What is my language you ask?

Is it English or Bengali or Hindi?

Or the convoluted, broken mix

Of all three that is always on the tip of my tongue?

I’d tell you:

My language is in the Bronte and Alaister Mc.Lean novels

Kept side by side on my book shelf with a smattering of Harry Potter,

It is in the poetry of Dylan and in “The Sounds of Silence”,

In the smell of old books and new, in old winding north-city streets

Where water stagnates in ugly potholes, and you forget to look up:

Up at the majestic old structures of a world now half-dead.

It is how I look at a drop of rain stuck to the brim of my umbrella,

Or the “ten thousand thousand” nameless stars, a twinkling warmth,

It is in a cup of hot tea warming my hands on a cold winter morn,

In the smell of coffee after an all-nighter, extra strong,

In the extra crispness of fresh printed pages, a work complete,

In the second time I look in a mirror, or the third, just because,

In the beauty of earth-coloured gerbera daisies rather than “red-red roses”.

It is these lines that seem so random, so comprehensible, yet just out of reach:

This is my language,

This is me.