Eloquence of small gestures in an attention-seeking age

Small gestures often tell us much. In small gestures, large and complex emotions can be stored. They can unleash great things. The tragedy is, the present times have made many of us less aware of this world of the small – which turns out to be a very big world. Arguably, much of our lives and thoughts, especially the more crucial aspects of the human condition, are centered on such small gestures. In these times, when there is a constant push for speed and progress, it is easy to lose ‘sight’ as it were and thus lose a whole world. And in opening our eyes and hearts to it, we stand to gain a world. And with that, there might be insights about our world in general and about our human-ness in particular. 

This subcontinent has for understood the subtle codes of such gestures and the huge meaning they are charged with. Much before certain types of ‘dynamic’ cities became a fixture of certain brown climbing-up imaginaries and the ‘streetside migrant males’ therein became selectively demonised as monsters, a second century CE Sālavāhaṇa king of non-Hindustani lands in the Krishna-Godavari basin areas was compiling poems of small gestures that are deemed very risky now in general in the republic that Delhi built and, in particular, in its rape capital. 

“As the traveller, eyes raised,/ cupped hands filled with water, spreads/ his fingers and lets it run through, / she pouring it reduces the trickle ”

These are from a collection of small poems called Gatha Saptashati (many written by women poets), compiled by King Hala himself. And from that time, before a particularly modern thing called ‘ancient India’ and its culture was manufactured (mimicking of which remains the unstated goal of a cartoon version of State ideology that’s invoked according to the needs of power), there were peoples whose gestures were eternal and who cultivated a culture of expressing them.

“After a quarrel / The breath suppressed,/ Their eyes attentive,/ The lovers feign sleep:/ Let’s see who/ Holds out longer.”

Sleepless nights of late are caused much more by cricket tournaments — especially the so-called ‘World’ Cup organised by the International Cricket Council. But even there, lurking between attention-grabbing competition of sponsors, dancers and pimps, there are flashes of the brilliance of small gestures. Some saw it in the wrist of Soumya Sarkar, the all-rounder who is a member of the Bangladesh squad in the recently concluded tournament. Sports writer Christian Ryan puts it like this, ‘All we had was this, a youth in earmuff-sized earguards, tapping an un-cherried bat twice then dangling it aloft, towards slips, as he waited on a bearded but balding Afghanistan medium-pacer. Mirwais Ashraf landed the ball on a testing length in the dangerous millimetres between middle and off stump, angling across. Instead of working it, driving at it or riskily leaving it, Sarkar simply shoved his front foot across and, with a quiet violence, wristed it away, the wrong way. The ball careered through the leg side and Sarkar's brown eyes followed it until it hit the advertising boards. His score went from 1 to 5.’ Given the clout of millionaire players, this shot will not be replayed again and again, except in the mind of those who actually saw it  — the witnesses.

On this side of the border, a Border Security man, young and dashing, calls up an old local labourer in Murshidabad, somewhere near the Indo-Bangladesh border. He needs to cross a shallow stream without getting his shoes or clothes wet. Local men in these parts know the drill. They carry the dashing public servant on his back. But something changes mid-way. The old man slips and falls. So does the brave man on his back. Before the brave one can curse in chaste Hindustani, the old man apologizes profusely. Whether his small ‘slip’ was real or a subtle, calculated, momentary revolt without trace will never be known. There were no witnesses. Such can be the power of small gestures. 

The author comments on politics and culture @gargac