There are four French practitioners in our Zendo this week. Their presence stirred a memory—first through a reel I happened to see of a tuk‑tuk driver in Jaipur who had picked up French from his passengers, and then through my own halting attempts at the language years ago. He was speaking with surprising fluency. After Thara and I got married, she wanted to better her French. She had studied at Church Park Chennai with French as one of her languages and I had my schooling at the notorious KTMHS Mannarkkad ( which the locals often read it as. Kerala Themmadi Memorial roughly translated to Kerala Rascals Memorial School. ) where language of life was taught without any fees. As I am writing, one of my best friends, classmate and benchmate is the current Head Master of that school. It kind of reminded me, the story of Franklin Roosvelt making. Joseph Kennedy. ( the father of the famous John Kennedy) as the first chairman of SEC in USA. It was reported one of the President’s aid, reminded him about the crooked and dishonest side (especially in Stock market) of the Sr. Kennedy to President’s notice. Roosevelt seems to have replied, “It takes one to catch another”. And my good friend, current Head master indeed reformed and transformed that school .
Back to the French story, so on weekends we would drive down to Alliance Française near Cunningham Road in Bangalore. In those days, the city still had a certain ease, and that part of town was worth visiting just for the atmosphere and food. I too signed up for the course. To the best efforts of my teacher, the only phrase that stayed with me was: “Comment allez‑vous ?”
When Frédéric rode in from Auroville on his bike and entered the Zendo, I greeted him with that phrase. He looked at me with surprise—“You speak French?”—and in that moment, the classroom laughter of long ago returned. I remembered how Thara, my classmates, and even our French teacher would laugh heartily at my expense. What was once comic has now become a bridge.
These days, it is Tamil that surprises me. Sometimes, when I am not self‑conscious, I find myself conversing in the Kodai tongue with the garden workers. But the moment someone comments on my Tamil fluency, the flow collapses. It is like practice itself: when the watcher steps in, the natural ease is lost. The other day, driving toward Dindigul, I began reading aloud the place names painted on the back of a bus. Prakash, our Zendo manager, was astonished. Yet for me, it was simply another reminder: language is not something we master; it is something that meets us when we forget ourselves.
When I shared this Chronicle with Thara as she waited for a doctor’s appointment, it sparked a sudden flurry of French on WhatsApp—messages and voice clips of “Allez, Au revoir, Bon nuit, Bonjour, Merci beaucoup, Très bien.” What began as a memory became play once again. The laughter of the classroom, the greeting at the Zendo, and now the joy of a few words exchanged across a waiting room—all of it, the same language of meeting.
The memory of those French classes also brought back another corner of Cunningham Road—Infinitea, the tea shop we often visited. Thara, though from a family of coffee‑estate owners in Wynad and raised in Chennai, has always been a tea person. My mother, Mysore‑born and long settled in Palakkad, brewed close to a million cups of tea for my father and remains a coffee person till now. And I—well, I am both. A coffee, a tea person. I relish each. Perhaps that too is a kind of practice: not choosing sides, but tasting fully whatever is placed before me. Similarly, we did have some very common interests and common friends... People like Komal, Sheik Iyer, Rajalakshmi, Abhijit and Navita et al are my friends too... We both like movies in Tamil and Malayalam.... And music too...
Then there are things which are absolutely not part of that Venn diagram... For ex: i have Zero artistic ability. Thara is a good painter. And she has zero interest in Tech or Social Media unlike me. .. May be more than the languages we know, it is the language of silence that bonded us. May be the language of heart too is the language of silence. During this Dussera holidays, she chose (at last ) to come to Zendo and meditate. That was a bit of surprise for me. May be the fact that Rishi, my second son, came to Zendo and meditated and had some good words about it, might have been an influence. Even then, Thara is her own person. Though she taught at a Krishnamurti school for more than 16 years and her own Grand uncle was into Krishnamurti, she was not a Krishnamuritite per se. While i read. K, she kind of lived that philosophy without reading or talking about. Closing In the end, whether it is a phrase of French remembered, a few words of Tamil spoken without self‑consciousness, the aroma of tea or coffee, or the quiet presence of Thara sitting in the Zendo, all of it points to the same truth: life speaks in many tongues, yet its deepest voice is silence. And in that silence, we meet—not as teacher and student, husband and wife, or even as speaker and listener—but simply as presence itself.
As Lao Tsu reminds us, it is the empty hub that makes the wheel turn, the silence between notes that makes music, the space in a window that lets in light. And as Gibran wrote, the pillars of a temple do not stand together. Both point to the same truth: it is the space between that allows movement, harmony, and relationship. Without the gap, there is no wheel, no music, no light, no love.
