Sweet speech

The Vedas, Vedangas and the Thirukkural praise the soft voice and the sweet word. In fact the Upanishads say that speech that is haughty and harsh is demonaic in nature. Sant Kabir8217;s doha says 8220;Madhur vachan hai aushadi, katuk vachan hai teer8221;. Sweet words are healing medicine, sharp words are arrows. The Holy Bible lauds 8220;The soft answer that turneth away wrath8221;.

So why do we yell and speak wrathfully? Obviously, because we8217;re brutalised by circumstances. Try getting a piece of paper out of a government office, try making sense of millions of miles of illiteracy 8212; or worse, semi-literacy 8212; in a profession like journalism where language is supposed to be our professional metier. Try getting an honest day8217;s work out of chronically lazy people who would rather hang out in an 8216;8216;adda8217;8217; than deliver the goods on time. Try making sloppy minds understand the need for 8216;8216;good finish8217;8217;: to an article, a tv graphic, a window frame, a garden trellis, a seam on a shirt, a drawer that would slide smoothly if properly set, a simple nail on the wall, for heaven8217;s sake, that does not need disfiguring saw marks around it. Try buying a car if you8217;re an NRI who hasn8217;t yet acquired a ration card. Try to spend 24 hours in any place without the UPS having to activate. Try driving home from work. It8217;s a laugh reading about 8220;India as an investment destination8221;. The fact is, we love being klutzy and we seem to want to go on being klutzy despite a few mad people killing themselves to point out the obvious alternative.

In such a situation you first want to tell anyone with the temerity to faff on everlastingly about the 8220;Self8221; and all the Bhakti saints and every escapist who ever suggested 8216;8216;prapatti8217;8217; total surrender to God to go take a flying leap into the Indian Ocean. Prapatti taken literally at a superficial level, as we seem to do in India, amounts to dumping everything on poor God and not lifting a finger to help ourselves. The consequences are truly dreadful. The first thing to go is our sweetness of nature as human beings. The inner rasa becomes woefully curdled and we fall into unpleasant habits of sarcasm, bad temper, bad language and finally, acts of verbal if not physical violence road rage is a good example of what happens when we totally lose it.

What8217;s the cure? Alas, scripture utters one stern word: sudama. Rigorous self-restraint. As the Awadhi doha urges: 8220;Piran rasna tham ke, kar miskini bhes/mithey bolo ne chalo sab hai tumahre des.8221; 8216;8216;O sufi, keep quiet, keep away, speak sweet words and live straight; the whole world will then be yours8221;. I guess it8217;s prapatti, after all, because you surrender to inner stillness. Is that what they mean by the Self?