Indians silence ⚜️⚜️

We Indians know about silence.

We are not afraid of it.

In fact, for us, silence is more powerful than words.

Our elders were trained in silence, and they handed over this knowledge to us.

Observe, listen, and then act, they would tell us.

That was the manner of living.

With you, it is just the opposite.

You learn by talking.

You reward the children that speak the most at school.

In your parties, you all try to talk at the same time.

In your work, you always have meetings in which everybody interrupts everybody elsewhere and all talks five, ten or a hundred times.

And you call that ‘solving a problem’.

When you are in a room, and there is silence, you get nervous.

You must fill the space with sounds.

So you talk compulsorily, even before you know what you will say.

White people love to discuss.

They don’t even allow the other person to finish a sentence.

They always interrupt.

For us Indians, this looks like bad manners or even stupidity.

If you start talking, I’m not going to interrupt you.

I will listen.

Maybe I’ll stop listening if I don’t like what you are saying, but I won’t interrupt you.

When you finish speaking, I’ll decide what you said, but I will not tell you I disagree unless it is essential.

Otherwise, I’ll keep quiet, and I’ll go away.

You have told me all I need to know.

There is no more to be said.

But this is not enough for the majority of white people.

Our elders taught us that the earth is always talking to us, but we should keep silent many voices besides ours. Many mouthpieces…

People should regard their words as seeds.

They should show them and then allow them to grow in silence.