I
have problems with words (or their meaning),
Because
when we closely observe, we see that words uttered (or said) don’t really mean
what we really meant. This problem trouble me so much that many time I go
through aphasia / creative block / nihilistic resolution seeing how wired our
mainstay of communication (i.e. word ) can turn out to be .
This problem has been the theme of two of my story
.One was about creation, (সৃষ্টি)
may be in art, writing or photography and the other was about nothingness (Something
about nothing –
অসম্ভব লিপ্যন্তৰ).It took two year each to
complete those two story (and the literary journal took 3 year each to publish
them).
Off
late when I was going through Kundera’s works all over again I rediscovered
that I am not the only one who have this problem (Ahem! Ahem! )
In ‘Unbearable lightness of being Kundera
dedicated an entire chapter on this problem where he discussed how a word can
be interoperated differently by different people as per individual experiences
and taste .He named the chapter –Words Misunderstood and individual sub
chapter as –A Short Dictionary of Misunderstood words .(remember it’s a
Novel )
Then
I was going through his ‘The art of the novel’ (but it’s a collection of
assays) Here also he discussed the same problem in prose - how painful it is to
express something and then when its got to be translated –how horrendous it is
to see that the translated word doesn’t really mean what you actually expressed
in your original writing. This chapter named Sixty three words –he
published notes he used to make for such words .We can see one whole page just
to express meaning of a simple word like comic, youth….vulgarity.
Let
me give you some of my personal experience
Vulgar: A rich MNC worker punch drunk, biting a tandoored
Chicken leg was giving lecture on-poor farmer committing suicide in hunger .I
found the situation extremely vulgar. (To my friend vulgarity is only when it
deals with obscenity or at least immorality. And that man has every right to
speak his mind out as it’s a free country.)
Dark: Once I told ‘I have a dark thinking thought processes
1st
friend seriously enquired ‘Do you think of Sex all the time?
2nd
friend commented ‘you should see a psychiatrist, you are suffering from
depression.
3rd
friend said ‘How can you think in the dark, it’s scary.
‘Boy
boy!’ and I replied nothing...Words misunderstood hah. :-)