It’s that time of the year when painting happens at home
before Christmas, We end up changing wall colors once in a while to break the
monotony and it was the time to do so. The painter assigned to me by the
facility management team of the real estate company landed at home on the day sporting
a broad smile and with the help of an interpreter explained French and Arabic were
the only two languages he spoke.
Day one started with my wife taking a day off from work
and explaining to him with the aid of google translate the rooms he needed to
start with and the shades she wanted etc. Wife ended up learning broken French
and bits of Arabic as she managed to learn all terms related to painting in
these two languages.
Day 2 was my responsibility and here I was armed with 2
Years of elementary French tried explaining to him that I spoke very little
French in French and Arabic…It went something like this…Je ne parlez pas
Francais, Je parle shwayye shwayye!!! Roughly translated as, I don’t speak French
but only little…little in a mix of French and Levantine Arabic. Though he
understood he just laughed off my illiteracy and continued working rather uninspired
cursing his fate on landing up with an Indian family who spoke no French or
Arabic.
I ended up striking a conversation with him and I
understood with the help of a globe and animated gestures he was born in Tunisa
but spent time in Algeria and Morocco. That’s when an idea struck me. I played the
number ‘Didi’ sung by Khaled, the first Arabic song we Indians fell in love with
in the early 90’s. We had only fallen in love with the beats and rhythm and
till date; do not know the lyrics or its meaning. As soon as he heard it, his face lit up bright
and started to sing along. I could see a marked difference in his approach to
the job on hand. The efficiency level had gone up and there by the productivity.
We ended up discussing other Khaled songs and as I started to play one after
another sacrificing my Friday afternoon slot for Illayaraja music, I realized I
was really making him feel at home.
He then came up to me and mentioned Maami,
Maami and frantically gestured pointing at my wife when I look bewildered he started raising his
hands and also pointing to his ears. With my little knowledge of French I realized
he was trying to connect my wife with an elder version as in a grandma or Maami in French and it was also something we should
listen too. It was then it struck me that Mami was also an Algerian singer like
Khaled. I kicked myself for that, how could I forget the Arabic piece in Desert Rose by Sting? We
ended up listening to Khaled and Mami and he had completed more work in a day
than the previous one.
This is when I realized that music transcends language
and can be a great catalyst in promoting efficiency at work and harmony in the society.
Both of us were expats in a foreign land. We can take a person out of the country
but never the country and culture out of the person. When I sacrificed an afternoon of Illayaraja for
Khaled and Mami I made a Tarek smile along with me and made his day. This year
thanks to Tarek the monotony was broken not only in the colour of our walls but
also in our music. This was not only a learning take away in life but also in
our professional space where cross cultural interactions are so vital.
This is what a Global citizenship is all about. It’s all
about love & humanity sans frontiers!!!
