Speechless

This tale starts with an innocent desire to eat ice-cream. Chocolate, mango, raspberry, blackcurrant and orange flavors were inviting me to devour them. I ogled at the sight of each of them and my face took a grave expression as my mind whizzed to make a choice. Eventually, I settled done for the raspberry flavor. As I put it into my mouth, the iciness of the ice-cream tingling over my tongue, I experienced a joy and satisfaction with no bounds.

The next day I had to pay a little price for my utopia. A sore throat! The stubborn girl that I was, I refused to take antibiotics and tried to cure it by some simple home remedies. Well, I toughed it out and fought the fever, the headache and the cough. But my friend Mr.Sore throat got the better of me. It was as if it had decided to punish me for my callousness towards medication. As a result, I lost my voice completely.

Initially, it wasn’t that bad, as I could at least speak in a hoarse voice which seemed so heavy and unnatural for a girl to possess. As the day progressed the hoarse voice left me and I started speaking sentences with squeaky endings. Strange coincidence, that it may seem, I got the maximum number of calls that day and of course numerous advices laced with sympathies. The next day had to go to the doctor and had to tell my tale of woe in sign language. He said: “Don’t talk and strain your throat”. Haah!!! It was easy for him to say that.

I wouldn’t classify myself in the chatterbox category, but that particular day when I was asked not to speak I felt a surge of restlessness in me. I wanted to speak to my friends, I wanted to fight and argue, I wanted to go and say a “Hi!!” to everyone around. I wanted to sing, I wanted to mimic the birds, I wanted to swear at my enemies….. I wanted to do all this but my voice failed me…I tried to utter a few words, which were lost as wisps of air from my parted lips. I had played Dumb-Chareds before, but, least had I expected to use it in my life to convey my point. A humorous streak that I had, I thought that, in circumstances of losing my job, I was sure to get the post of a news reader for the afternoon- news for the impaired.

The next few days were hell for me as the initially enthusiasm of sign language wore off. I had now reached a point where I avoided my friends and stuck to my loneliness. I couldn’t answer my calls so switched off my mobile. I started finding a big margin between myself and the people around me.

Salt water gargling was done at frequent intervals, milk with turmeric; honey and tulsi were administered diligently. My throat slowly but surely responded to these home remedies. I earned my voice back with great effort and a lot of patience. This incident also brought an important learning with it. I, for the very first time, could understand how difficult it must be for the people with impaired senses to communicate and how essential communication was in life. At least, this was a temporary phase in my life, but they had to deal with it throughout their lives. Suddenly, all the unfortunate ones, who were devoid of the gift of speech, rose to the status of true warriors in my mind, constantly battling out all odds of life and still managing a smile.

This stunner of an incident surely had left me "speechless".