Listening

The promised Mumbai essay:

Amidst the bustle of a weekend evening at a Mumbai beach, S. and I sat together, looking out at the ocean, feeling the grittiness of sand between our toes, smelling the salty air that carried scents of different street foods, punctuating our conversation with long moments of silence. Periodically, a child would come and ask us for money, or a vendor would try selling us chanas. We would decline, then lapse into silence. I would remark how much I loved looking at the ocean because of the sense of freedom and vastness it offered me. He would remark that he enjoyed looking at the ocean just because. One of us would point out a certain person on the beach, perhaps someone who stopped her walk every 20 meters to strike a couple of yogic poses, and we would share a laugh. I thought of the absolute comfort this particular friendship affords me: we can talk for hours, or we can be silent together, and neither situation is uncomfortable.

In one of our silent moments, a middle-aged man approached us. I noticed that his clothes looked a little worn but not tattered. His shirt was buttoned wrong, though, and for some reason, that made me uncomfortable. The man looked directly at S. and started talking about something—his family, someone who died on the beach, things I couldn’t understand. He talked in a mix of English, Hindi, and Marathi, rambled for ten minutes or more, periodically bursting into tears. My initial concern slowly turned to confusion, then to impatience. I couldn’t follow a word of the conversation, so I looked helplessly at my friend, but he was looking straight at the stranger and seemed to be listening intently. I began running sand through my fingers and looking out at the ocean again, with a periodic sideways glance at these two men, so different in every way, engaged in the strangest conversation. Later, while the man was sitting at some distance from us and sobbing, I whispered to S. that I didn’t understand a word. ” “Neither do I,” he responded, “but I just wanted to listen.”

The words stunned me. Between S. and me, I'm usually the people person, the relationship builder. But here he was, quietly teaching me the simplest and most important foundation of every relationship. What a beautiful heart, I thought, a heart that knows that words may not matter but the act of being there for someone does.

I’ve often thought back to that moment. It makes me wonder what the act of listening means, what it means to be listened to even by a complete stranger, and why it means so much. It makes me think of the countless conversations that S. I have had over the years, of all the times when I was sad or joyful and he had no words to offer me; he listened even when he didn't understand. And it makes me smile at the memory of a young man I know so well, a young man who often claims not to have a heart but who taught me one of the heart’s most important lessons.