“Max Home,” said Nikhil on his iPad. It was dinnertime. I was feeding Nikhil, my wife and daughter were in India. Max is Nikhil’s classmate and buddy. “Yes, Nikhil. Max is at home,” I replied.
“Max Home,” repeated Nikhil.
“Yes, Nikhil, it’s 7 pm. Max is at home, and so are you.”
“Max Home,” he said again, this time looking at me pointedly.
“Of course he is at home, Nikhil,” I answered a little irritably. Nikhil moved on to other topics. The next day was a repeat performance, Nikhil giving up after his third attempt.
My wife and I had often wondered why Nikhil would, once in a while, mention that some classmate or staff member was at home. My wife is more creative than I am, has the patience to boot, and can weave a story out of being at home. The iPad is Nikhil’s primary means of communication, but over the years, he has developed a small arsenal of signs to communicate with us. These signs would not be part of the American Sign Language curriculum. These are unique to the Nikhil Sign Language program.
Of course, it takes a while to understand what he is saying. It took us a while to figure out that when he touched his sleeves, he wanted us to tell him a story about visiting the mall. As with all teenagers who go through a phase where their vocabulary shrinks to a few monosyllables, Nikhil now touches his arm to ask for a mall story. Gone are the days of rolling up his sleeves. That was a veritable sentence; touching his arm is “Yo, mall!”
Some of his signs are obvious to us now. Touching his lower leg is a request to go for a walk on the trail. Pointing toward the backyard is a reminder that we have not gone for our customary walk. But some signs are not obvious, and it has taken me a while to figure out what he is trying to convey. When he is at home, Nikhil does not use the iPad all the time. He uses it primarily during meals and when we are going out. So there are many occasions when we are changing him or giving him a shower, he has to resort to signs to communicate with us.
It started with Nikhil pointing to his diapers. “Yes, Nikhil, they are your diapers.” More pointing. “I’ve just changed you, Nikhil, you’re good.” Furious pointing. “I don’t know what you are saying, Nikhil!”. This went on for some time until one day I absentmindedly said, “We need to empty your diaper pail as we are going to throw trash today.” Nikhil beamed at me. Going to the Transfer Station to throw trash on Saturdays is an important weekly routine, and Nikhil had all along been trying to get me to talk to him about going there. Used diapers, trash – Capiche? We have that covered now.
And then there was the pointing to the packet of wipes. The same story again: I would hazard a few guesses, and Nikhil would doggedly keep pointing to the packet. Until I got it one day. We get the wipes from Costco. And a weekly visit to Costco is a sacred routine. Nikhil was reminding me that we needed to go to Costco.
Now, Nikhil is quite intuitive. He has figured out that his old man is a little slow and deaf. Nowadays, whenever I feed him, he dispenses with the iPad. He clearly feels that I’m not worthy of that and that he has to deal with me through signs.
Sometimes it’s obvious: when he points to the trash can — Transfer Station again. Sometimes it’s not. When he points toward the general direction of the refrigerator, he could be referring to any of the photographs stuck to the door. He might be talking about his cousin who lives in Boston, about his uncle and aunt in New Jersey, whom he loves to visit, or he might just be pointing at the fridge in general. And then there is the daily pointing to the bathroom door after his shower that I’ve not been able to fathom all these years. Opening the door, closing it, opening it slightly ajar, nothing seems to satisfy him. It’s not him, of course, it’s me. I can’t figure out what he is trying to convey.
Evenings when his sister is working late are stressful for Nikhil. He knows she should have returned by dinnertime, so he points to her picture. “Akku(older sister) is working late tonight, Nikhil.” After he finishes his dinner, he points to the front door. As we change him into his pajamas, he points to her picture on the nightstand. As we steer him to his room, he pauses outside her bedroom and points to her door. And then, as we tuck him into bed, he points frantically to her picture on his wall.
We’ve been telling him that she is working late and that he won’t be able to pick her up. His day is incomplete without a trip to the train station to pick her up. Sometimes he lucks out: we drive down to her office to pick her up, and Nikhil is thrilled — an unexpected long ride just before bedtime. But it is not always the train station. If she is traveling abroad, then the pointing is all about heading to the airport.
Nikhil, of course, has a context in mind when he points or makes signs. Unfortunately, I don’t know that context. With speech, one can set up context: “We had planned to throw trash today; what time are we leaving?” “Remember, we threw trash yesterday? I enjoyed the van ride!” “After throwing trash yesterday, we went to the library.”
With Nikhil, when he does not have his iPad handy, all three would involve pointing to the stack of diapers. My standard reply is, “Yes, Nikhil, we will throw trash on Saturday!”
We intuitively frame everything in the context of time, and we have the luxury of words to convey that. Nikhil does not. When he points to his sleeve, it could be him remembering a past trip to the mall, a request to visit the mall, or a request to tell him a story about the mall. Decoding conversations without words is a challenge.
One afternoon, while heading out to throw trash, Nikhil stood rooted in the garage, pointing excitedly at the car. He did not have his iPad handy. “Do you want to go in the car or the van, Nikhil?” I held up my palms for choices. He pointed to my palm, which signified the van, but refused to budge and kept pointing to the car.
I managed to steer him toward the van while he kept pointing excitedly to the car. When we returned from our trash-throwing expedition, he started pointing excitedly at the car. He pulled my face so I was looking at him, said something frantically in his own tongue, and kept pointing.
I was growing a little exasperated as I went irritably through a list of possibilities involving the car until I finally got to: “Yes, Nikhil, we need to fill gas in the car.”
Nikhil stopped pointing and beamed at me with the satisfaction a teacher experiences when a particularly slow and obdurate student solves a simple math problem. Of course, he had heard me tell my wife that morning that we needed to fill up the car. He was trying to remind me.
We now insist that he carry his iPad in the van so he does not have to resort to signs.
Ah, yes, regarding the original mystery. “Max was home, sick for a couple of days, and he returned to school today,” said Nikhil’s van driver as she dropped him off after class.
“Max Home!” Of course. That should have been a no-brainer.
But with Nikhil, as I often remind myself, context is everything.