The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Friday 5 December 2014

RAMZADA VS HARAMZADA: THE MASS SLOGAN WITH A FUTURE

In English, it comes to be known as those who belong to Lord Ram Vs those born illegal, or scoundrels or bastards, whatever verbal decoration you want to use.

‘Haramzada’ has its English translation in invective, rebuke, abuse, vituperation and many other words and is a common Hindi word.

It can be said that it is hard to find a Hindi speaking folk who would not have heard the invective, either for himself or when used for others. It decorates lips leniently.

So, why the fuss on it being used by a Sadhvi, an ascetic holy woman!

Only because she used it in an election meeting, on a public platform that was not her Ashram of rural Kanpur!

Why can’t we think that her act will help a word, and in turn a language?

And she went a step ahead, by inventing a word that is going to be the flavour of the electoral seasons, especially in the Hindi speaking belt of the country.

After all, use of slang and abusive words is a birthright of almost of our religious figures. It is especially the case when the figures come from poor and backward backgrounds and have got enlightenment at a later phase in life, if at all the ‘enlightenment’ is needed.

The Sadhvi in this case, in fact, has initiated a trend-setting streak. It may be that we, the foolish folks, are not able to see through her wisdom, but, in one go, she has given an invective a mainstream recognition, while at the same time, inventing (or introducing) a new word.

See the beauty of her wisdom – she would have to have deliberated deeply before trying her efforts on elevating the status of ‘Haramzada’ – on how to go ahead with it.

And one of the best ways to achieve it is through political sloganeering, something that instantly waters scores of lips.

And after much deliberation, she would have come out with this master-stroke – a brilliant mix with a term that sounds similar, is rhymed perfectly, and has the potential to remain evergreen.

And after much deliberation, after she would not have been able to locate any, she would have thought to invent a term that would rhyme perfectly with ‘Haramzada’ and would instantly hit the sentiments and would built on rapidly in the public psyche. And her religious background and her career experience of delivering sermons to his subjects, who are accustomed to such words used by her in normal communication with them, would have come handy.

The result was ‘Ramzada’ that rhymes perfectly with ‘Haramzada’ and as it represents an evergreen electoral issue, building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, it is expected to go deeply and fast in the public psyche and vocabulary.

She has apologized. She was forced to apologize. But she has achieved what would have been impossible just a week ago.

The phase, the catchphrase, the master-phrase, the one-for-all slogan ‘Ramzade Vs Haramzade’ and its variants like ‘Ramzada Vs Haramzada’ and ‘Ramzadon Vs Haramzadon’ is going to be increasingly heard as the season of elections near in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the heart of the Hindi Heartland.

Some more to come??

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/