By Dr. Abhinav Walia
There are places you travel to, and there are places that quietly travel within you. Now, the place that has quietly travelled within me for more than a score of years is – Shillong – where I was posted way back in the year 2004; this was my first posting in the North East. I reached Shillong in June, 2004 to join as Director, Postal Services – a bureaucrat freshly unmoored from the straight lanes of New Delhi. Shillong with its winding mist and quiet grace, felt less like a posting and more like an introduction to a new rhythm of living. Initially, everything seemed functional. The office ran like clockwork, and most staff, with admirable proficiency in English, ensured communication was smooth. As such, initially, there seemed no need to learn the local language. However, with passage of time, I realized that Shillong was not a place to be navigated with only maps and manuals; it had to be felt — a place is also its small courtesies, its jokes and silences, its sense of who belongs, and language was the first invitation. Thus, the thought of learning the local language came not so much from necessity, but from a longing to belong with the local people. The local tongue is Khasi — gentle in its cadence, delicately expressive. At first, I searched for a beginner’s guide, the way one searches for a map, but realised quickly that books can only point. One does not learn to swim in a bathtub. And so, with hesitance at first, I turned to my own staff—closest, most accessible—and asked for help. I still vividly recall my first interaction in the local language with the staff. I entered the office, and wished the staff at the reception – kumno phi long? (how are you?). It was one word, but it meant the universe to the receptionist. The reaction was unmistakable. The receptionist’s eyes widened as if the portrait on the wall had just spoken. Then, slowly, a smile spread — hesitant at first, then warm, then beaming. It wasn’t just a greeting; it was a bridge. The reason was straightforward: no officer before me, who was from a terrain other than North East, had tried to learn the language. On that day, something shifted. It was not grand, not dramatic. It was something as basic as forging a human bond. Thereafter, in each such interaction, the bond was deepened, word by word, like slow rain drops sinking into thirsty soil.
Each day, I tried a little more — a greeting here, a phrase there. “Khublei!” (Thanks!);“Sngewbha”(Please); To u Blei un don ryngkat bad phi (May God be with you). The office staff became my teachers, correcting my inflections with amused affection. To any staff who entered my chamber, after exchange of greetings, I would say – shong (sit). This modest utterance would ripple across their countenances—first surprise, then warmth, and finally a beam that needed no interpretation. It was not merely a word but an invocation of belonging—a gesture that dissolved distance and touched something innate. One episode still stays with me. A staff member known for small defiance— late, argumentative—came into my room one day with an unexpected softness. “Sir,” he said, “I heard you speak Khasi.” The sentence was half admiration, half disbelief. Something altered between us. A memo can reprimand; it cannot transform. Yet those fragments of shared language shifted the terms of trust. After that, whenever I entrusted him with a task, he executed it with surprising promptitude. I saw similar changes elsewhere. Work began to feel less like compliance and more like collaboration. We became a team that was real, and cohesive, not the types that are manufactured at retreats temporarily.
Language, I realized, was not just communication. It was communion. The staff no longer saw me as the officer from Delhi. I had become, if not quite one of them, at least not “the other”. When the time came for me to leave in 2007 for Delhi, there was — and I say this without embellishment — a palpable sense of loss in the air. Several staff members came to my office in tears. I confess, I was moved. My eyes, trained by years of stoicism, betrayed me. In that shared moment of tears, we said more than words could. Soon after the farewell, it seemed to me as if the curtains had fallen on my Shillong posting, but I soon realized that the curtains were rising elsewhere: beyond proximity lies a space unbounded by territory. This dawned upon me when a staff member called from Shillong after I had resumed duty in Delhi: “Sir, the office feels different now. Something is missing.” I knew precisely what he meant. It was not so much about me, as much was about our connection. We had built something – a bridge and that remained intact. The unwavering connection made me reflect on this truth: language, that most democratic of inventions, has the peculiar ability to erase hierarchies. To speak in someone’s tongue is to acknowledge their world. It is a bow, not of submission, but of respect. Even after a score of years, I am still in contact with some staff and it feels as though time has barely moved, as if Shillong was only yesterday. And if, dear reader, you find this too sentimental for your bureaucratic palate, I ask only this: the next time you are posted to a distant land, try a word. Just one. Try “Kumno?” And see what unfolds.
(The writer is a former Additional Secretary/Member (HRD), Postal Services Board, Ministry of Communications)
