Limitation of individual

The ideas expressed here belong to Saurabh, my friend. Though I do not endorse it, I think it is worth thinking about. He will never take the effort to put it in black and white, so I am doing it for him.

Do you accuse the hammer, if working somnambulistically you hit it on your hand?
You do not know how to use a guitar and create the music, and then is it the guitar responsible for the cacophony when it could have created music?
The premise is valid, but the conclusion is not.
Yes, we have not used language well. Language is just a tool, how can we blame the tool for our own shortcomings.
Language has evolved in all these years of existence of life. It has grown and so have we. So many generations have contributed to its growth that now it has grown beyond the capacity of an individual to comprehend its enormity.

Do you think that there is not a word, a phrase, a sentence which can express the way you feel?
There always is.
Only you don’t happen to know it.
We have had great writers, great literary figures but none of them have been able to capture all the human emotions with equal panache.
Some had their trade limited to humor, some to romance, so to tragedy. But none, NONE have been able to express it all.
One individual’s life is not long enough to feel it all, leave aside expressing it, and then you have your limited vocabulary to take care of. If you try, you will get a word. The vastness of the language rivals that of the oceans. You need to know how to dive and get the pearl.

The inability to express is a challenge to you, conquer it. It has never been the nature of the man to succumb. And that to an inanimate thing like the language, what a joke!
Take it on yourself, to win it over, and then expand it. Instead of cribbing about its short comings, make it your slave.
And leave the legacy behind.

Limitations of language

This might make sense, might not. See, that’s exactly what this blog is about.
We talk, and express ourselves. But at times what the other party understands is just what we did not mean.
Why can not it be like mathematics where 2+2 is always the same?
Why do we need the tone of the voice, the look in the eyes, and the enunciation of the words to make out the intensity with which the speaker spoke, to interpret a simple sentence like “I DO”?
Why does it happen that at times what is stated in black and white seems everything except the obvious?
When you are reading this, you think, what the hell is it, but when I am writing it, it seems the most logical thing to me.
Isn’t it funny, some people have a way with words and when you begin arguing with them, with the most unshakable of beliefs in the infallibility of your logic and after the argument you have serious doubts about your thought process.
One faculty of the brain thinks, the other makes a logically coherent sentence out of it and the third is required to flex the muscles and you pronounce the words. And at times you feel that in that process the sense is lost. What you have said is not what you wanted to say. What the listeners has understood is not what you meant.
Whom do you blame? The process, the seeming incoherence of the entire process or the medium you chose?
I will put the blame on the medium, language. It has done wonders in the civilization, but at times it has failed.
It has betrayed its very purpose of existence, to express.
Why should expression of feelings be inhibited by the strength of one’s vocabulary?
How come something as mundane as the word power limits something as powerful as thought?
We have allowed it to control us. We have not explored other mediums of expressions, because we believed (or tricked ourselves in believing) that we have the all powerful medium.
How we have fooled ourselves.
And when I say we, I put blame on myself as well. I am using this web page to communicate to you, that I have failed as well. After 22 years of existence, this is the only medium I can communicate to you. With all its weaknesses, lack of options with me has made it the only tool I can use. I can’t dance and can’t paint. And it is people like me, who try to kill the dance, and the art.
We are so mediocre that the moment we come across brilliance and ability to break the path, we shower accolades. And trick them to believe that all there was to achieve is achieved. We are scared of the intellect, the light.
It is still dark, inside. Who said that the time we moved in the dark, shouting “Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya” is over.
It is not. Won’t ever be. Because again, the light of knowledge will come hidden behind the dark words, words which will mean different things to different people. And then, we will phrase, and manipulate, to suit our own interests and we will customize the universal.
I wonder how much we have lost in those black and white prints!
Tamso Ma Jyoutirgamaya.
Asato Ma Sadgamaya.
Mrityorma Amritamgamaya.

Soliloquy....was it?

It was another day in the office and I came back a bit earlier than usual. It was 7.30 in the evening and I had nothing much to do.
I took my bike and went to the near by railway over bridge. That is what I mostly do when I have time to kill and get the frustration out of my system. Why am I frustrated, you will soon find out. Read along.
Standing on the railway over bridge, with my bike’s key in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I looked down on the slums below. I took a deep breath and smiled, gees, I am a capitalist.
And I looked down (literally!) a drunken guy being chased by dogs and I couldn’t suppress a smirk. I puffed up my chest and thought, glad I am so much better off!
And I heard someone laughing. The kind of hysterical laughter that make you cringe. I must admit I had goose bumps then!
So you really think you are better off, it said.
I said yes.
What makes you think that?
I have a job, my own bike, money in my wallet and food in my stomach. I don’t have to be chased by a pack of stray dogs!
That is all you need to be better off!
What else do you want? I said.
You know the answer; just dare to ask the question.
I am not getting you, I said getting a bit irritated. The kind of setting this conversation had reminds me of the epic “DEEWAR”, and its famous “Mere pass maa hai” dialogue. Lots of melodrama and I hate that.
Ok, tell me, why does a 22 year old having a bike , money in his wallet and food in his stomach needs to come to look at the slums to feel happy?
I don’t know, it just gives me kicks.
Sadist, hmm.
May be. I wanted this to end soon, I was feeling uneasy.
Will you trade off your today for exactly a year back, when you were in college and no job and no bike?
I kept quiet.
Hello?
Why Do I have to answer you?
And the laughter again!
22 year old or a ten year kid, throwing his tantrums. You will answer it because you want to.
Yes I said. The answer is yes, is that what you want to hear. I shouted at the top of my voice.
Forget about what I want, know what you want.
This is not getting anywhere.
Yes it is, that’s the whole problem. You are so self occupied that the entire priority thing goes for a toss. You come here to satiate your ego, you loner!
I am happy!
Yeah right, you are. Puffing up your chest when you see struggle, for things have come easy for you. Filling up your lungs with smoke coz you think you have the luxury to do so, coz you have money.
It is my life.
Then why you want to go a year back? Coz you need friends, to listen and to share. You need warmth, you need shoulders to put your head on, and you need the silence, when you can go from one nonsense to another, you might not admit it, but you need love.
What the f***?
Not all that you need, can be bought, and acceptance is not defeat.
I can still work that out, and I have the choice. That gives me the power. I was not going to throw down the gauntlet.
This is what you choose, my sadist capitalist?
The train was approaching, fast and blowing the siren. I could feel the impact inside my head.
Who are you to tell me what to do and what to choose? God almighty?
The train was approaching close and it was difficult to hear.
That laughter again. The sound was too much to bear. I felt that my head will explode!
I am you.
And then there was lull.
The storm had passed.