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2001-07-03 - 9:31 p.m. The Five Senses 2: Touch ----------------------------- Like the first people who invented the codes of hand gestures (mudras) in Bharata Natyam, that ancient interpretative South Indian dance form, I have often dreamed of creating a language based on touch. Conversations between people, much of which are based on establishing their relationships with one another, will be superfluous, replaced by the most economical acts of contiguities. With this exact lexicography, that oft-used phrase 'human contact' will have its dignity restored, wrenched back into the realm of the literal. It is a dream of perfect honesty. 1) Between friends: standing side by side, one places his or her head on the other's shoulder. The one with the hidden ear speaks; the one with two ears exposed will listen. However, this pact of confiding is conducted entirely in silence. 2) Between a mother and a child: the mother uses the back of her hand and places it on the child's neck. On the surface, the eternal image of care: the strong comforting the weak. But as the mother rests her hand she is also looking at what is inscribed on her palm, and realises that her love is inseparable from her mortality. The prayer of any true mother is thus: that she never be allowed to outlive her own child. 3) Between a father and a child: the father uses his hand to caress the shoulder of his son or daughter from behind. For some it is a stern gesture, almost as if the father is demonstrating the weight of the angel of conscience that sits on one's shoulder. But behind him is the father's own father, fossilised in the same pose, an entire generational line in fact, placing their trust on the ones in front of them. If there is any angel at all in the queue, it is the one standing in front. 4) Between lovers: a finger works its way to the skin right under the eyes, in a gesture of wiping tears which do not exist. It is a gesture of both repair and warning: wiping away the stain of past hurts, yet also preparing for future injuries, the way soil is studiously ploughed to sow the seeds of grief. 5) Between siblings: their two little fingers interlock, as if to seal a promise. Only the little finger is used: the one which has refused to grow along with the rest of its brothers, the one still detained in childhood. 6) Between enemies: a temporary gesture, of one's hand locked around the wrist of the other. This necessary gesture arrests the formation of other subsequent gestures. Yet it does not so much declare the beginning of peace but provides the interlude between the first impulse, which is revenge, and the last of our impulses, which is forgiveness. Then there are other ways of touching whose meanings will reveal themselves only after they are performed: a fingertip between the eyes, a palm placed flat against a sole, thumb against the heart's apex. But in this universe of touch-signs, the absence of words does not mean the absence of violence. Nobody can tell if the mother will not strangle her own daughter, or the father push his son into the deep end of the pool. The brothers will start to turn their game of interlocking fingers into a cruel duel, and when one brother's finger is twisted he will shout out in distress. That sudden wail will rupture the world I have dreamed of: when touch turns to savagery, gestures turn superfluous, and the one true thing is that honest cry of pain.
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