Words are Worlds

Words are an opening in the opaque wall of non-seeing that surrounds us. They puncture a hole in this and we can glimpse through a word, the other side, albeit not the whole picture. What does a word do? It points a finger. Hate… admire… mesmerise... fall in love, kick the bucket… blessed with a child… ‘Aaschi’ (coming) say the Bengalis while bidding goodbye, one word for teacher in Hindi is ‘guru’ (dispeller of darkness), in Punjabi they greet by saying ‘sat sri akal’ (the timeless almighty is truth). The phrase, the word, points to a paradigm of experience. It’s a ghost friend. It leads us invisibly, subtly and haunts us is ways we don’t often realize. A word is a world. There are more words about a thing, a shade of emotion, a type of experience in a certain culture. Hard to define, impossible to translate exactly... each word is unique, so is each language. It connects you to particular part of the fabric of consciousness accessible to the human. So, when you absorb a language, you absorb a world, or at least are led to that threshold. An alchemy happens as we absorb words with their meanings and connotations, our emotions and thoughts are led into these micro worlds. This is how we form perspectives, this is how we connect to the collective fabric of a race, a community through language.