We are all creations of words
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- 29 Apr 2021
If we didn’t have words we wouldn’t have had this life of ours. We are all creations of words. If man hadn’t invented words I would have been like the unattended piece of gravel waiting to be pounded by time, I would have been like the fallen leaf, I would have been like the chance breeze.
Today I can see things, animate and inanimate, because they have a definition, and I can feel things because they have a definition, and we have definitions because we have something called words.
If there weren’t words who or what would have explained to me the heat of tears…the blisters on struggling feet…?
I know that there’s life and its best face is love and its filthiest face is hate. And I know that because there are words to describe the exercise.
If there weren’t words who or what would have explained to me the heat of tears, the placidity of smiles, the blisters on struggling feet and the sweat on troubled brows?
Without words I would have not known the anguish of bent knees, the hopeful palms of the needy, the vulnerability of the feeble and the unsparing weight of the tormenter’s boot.
Picture used for illustrative purpose.
I can’t deny that when visits me, I know it’s happiness because there are words to explain its nature.
Like all human beings my list of complaints against humanity used to be a long one. But once again words came to my rescue. They explained to me the reason behind errant humans. The words were “out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight was ever made…” The words left me relaxed forever. The world of crooks doesn’t bother me anymore.
When I went out with a friend many years ago I asked her to talk, and talk incessantly, so that once the dinner was over, once the candle had melted away, once it was time to return home I would remember her words. I told her only the words will remain all else would perish. They’ll live on. They’ll never die. Mountain ranges will vanish one day, wrathful divinity will turn dense forests into geographic banality one day, but words will reign.
I kept repeating, “Say something, say something, don’t let silence drown me.” I kept yelling, “What will I live with if I don’t have words to remember and build my dreams with?”
“Say something, say something, otherwise, what will I carry forever? What will I carry?”
I am so happy man came up with words, otherwise, something as beautiful as life would have remained unknown.
