The Sound of Silence
The guns will fall
silent at least for the next two days. The last phase of election is scheduled
for the 12th and so there will be a semblance of silence for two
days from the political cacophony of the last few weeks. After the 12th
there will be mayhem as all the TV channels and newspapers will come up with their
exit polls. I wonder how they will cope with this 2-dayimposition of silence on
election rhetoric. For the past so many days, weeks and months, ever since Narendra
Modi was nominated as the PM candidate by the RSS-BJP combine, our ears have
been deafened by words that have been in every sense a stain on silence. Most
of the words were empty rhetoric, again a stain on nothingness that is
characteristic of our existence. The acrimonious debates on TV with party
spokespersons outshouting each other had left the audience clueless to what was
being shouted. For the first time even the saas-bahu soaps were preferred to
the wordy fights on the television as they were less noisy with only one
character holding forth at any point of time to the silence of others.
We all know about the
argumentative nature of We, the Indians. Though Professor Amartya Sen looks at
it as a positive quality that keeps democracy alive, there is no parallel in
the world to our loquacity and garrulousness. We are never good
conversationalists as we prefer to engage in soliloquies than discussions. We
try to score points in arguments by verbosity expressed at the top of our
voice. If noise pollution index is drawn, we will take the pride of place. Similarly
we can claim to top any chart for verbosity. Whatever we say can be said in
half the number of words we use. While the political leaders take the cake for
volubility, the worst offenders are some of the anchors who make an exhibition
of their profound wisdom and knowledge on all issues under the sun and loudly
pontificate through a wordy express at a speed of 300 words per minute. Their
preamble and their questions take most of the question hour of the tele-debates,
leaving very little time for the questioned to give an answer which s/he will
gamely attempt in full throated volume with long winded sentences. This voluble
exercise will be aborted mid-way as the anchor turns to the next person to
reply (not before indulging in yet another long intervention on the issue
discussed). The way these anchors scissor the replies of their hapless victims
reminds me of the famed Tirupati barbers who will flit from one half tonsured
head to another to ensure their maximum income when the tonsure is finally complete
for all the heads.
Hence this reprieve
from the word duel for at least a meagre 48 hours is a welcome rest from the
drumming our ears had received all this while. Every politician desiring to
score brownie points has come out with statements which according to them are
true to the last letter. The pity is that most of us do not understand the
truth that none of us ever speak the whole truth. Our words are always
conditioned by those whom we address and whose assent we seek. The question is what is truth and
what is falsehood? It is naive to say that which is factual or information of
facts is the truth. The concept of integral truth- as the whole truth and
nothing but the truth is an ideal that is best propagated in a court room. But
our use of language is always intentional and depends on the audience to whom
it is addressed. To claim that we speak only the truth is itself a falsehood as
our communication is never free from being motivational. George Steiner writes:
‘We speak less than the truth, we fragment in order to reconstruct desired alternatives,
we select and elide. It is not ‘the things which are’, but those which might
be, which we would bring about, which the eye and the remembrance compose...the
shallow cascade of mendacity which attends my refusal of a boring dinner
engagement is not the same thing as the un-saying of history and lives in a
Stalinist Encyclopaedia.’ So when the
politicians and anchors keep shouting at each other and shouting into our ears,
we should realize that they are all engaged in speaking half truths and quarter
truths –just enough to tilt the balance of our response in their favour.
It is true that words are all we have and we are genetically wired to
thoughts that seek an outlet through words. But we need silence to
recover our thoughts, to sustain us amidst verbal onslaught we are subjected to,
to preserve our sanity and to nourish our wisdom. The sound of silence speaks
far more than the sound of words. Buddha succinctly hails silence and says ‘ Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind.’ Let us be thankful to the Election Commission for enabling us to listen
to the sounds of silence, distinct from the verbal onslaught that has gone on
far too long.
PS:
PS:
You may wonder why I do not keep silent The answer is what my
favourite writer has said :'there is nothing to express, nothing with
which to express, nothing from
which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together
with the obligation to express.’
Hence this writing on the sound of silence.
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