A FEW days back, I finished reading a book, Manuscript Found in Accra, a novel in literary genre by Brazilian writer Pualo Coelho. It is a wonderful piece in which a Copt, the central character, a narrator, advises a people under imminent threat of seizure of their city by some powerful enemy. He speaks of love, enmity, courage, solitude, defeat and other things in human life. But the most important line that I have been haunted by since I finished the book is: 鈥楤e the master of your tongue; not the slave of your words.鈥�
This appears to to be an old saying. The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote long ago about the power of words in his poem 鈥楾he Arrow and the Song鈥�. He meant to convey the message that words spoken can take both form: an arrow as well as a song. It depends on how we speak and what. Utterances that take the form of an arrow, certainly, survive a long time, leaving behind a wound wherein it strikes.
Like an arrow head, made of metal and having a sharpened tip, our uncared, whimsical words are as capable of making wounds in other鈥檚 minds. Uncared for and whimsical expressions do not take time to come out. Their flight is swift and penetrating. But, impressions that they leave in people鈥檚 mind are just the opposite: they are not swift to be healed, they linger and loiter about. At times, although are erased, they leave a scar behind. Some words are even as powerful as a hurricane to sweep away a long distance, uprooting anything and everything on its way while others might cause a war within hours or days.
It might ignite the minds of millions overnight, pull down any barriers ahead 鈥� burning temples of peace, crops in fields, birds in their nests, snatching lives of innocents and itt might cause unimaginable moments to happen among people living in a certain territory. At times, the flame engulfs others defying any legally put boundary. Since the earliest civilisations on earth, this has been part of human history. They have experienced it all! But what is an amazing fact is that it has not been on the ebb even today.
Lives are lost and wept over, property damaged and gained, with the passage of time. People who uttered those filthy words, felt guilty and sometimes, got to pay for themselves for their idiocy, but for the time being only, as if remorse were merely the grains of dry sands to be washed away and start anew. Things were repeated hundred and thousand times of which the pages to history books are the witness.
On the other hand, words taken care of and of discreet thoughts soothe our mind. They please and impress us with the message carried in them. We feel assured and certain about things spoken. They are the rational and noble expressions of the speaker鈥檚 inner feelings on the subjects. Their flight, like those of the uncared for and unscrupulous in nature, is also swift but with sweetness of tone and meaning. People welcome and harbour them in mind.
They find a sensation of atonement in those soft spoken, well-articulated and sensible expressions. Speaker of such feel themselves elated to see that people accepted his words heartily. Human bond, peace and harmony are the fruits of such utterances. Gradually, they acquire the shape of an eternally soothing character like a calming tune and people benefitting from them make them their chime in life. Nobody feels sorry. Nothing is lost. Everyone wins. History does narrate the story of this song, but yet there is an imbalance in number between incidences of the arrow and the song all over the world until now.
Paulo Coelho鈥檚 narrator looks into the affairs like a sage and suggests that individuals will not lose the dignity as long as they remain the master of their tongue 鈥� the cognitive approach to the environment in context, analytical capability to draw inferences from them and, finally, the deliberate choosing of the dictions and tone that are thought to be the most appropriate conduits to what they wish to say.
It is by losing control over one鈥檚 tongue and by talking indifferently that they become slaves of their own expressions. In this situation, they simply become slaves who cannot deny eating the thorny fruits that they had sown.
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Md Mukhlesur Rahman Akand is a joint secretary to the cultural affairs ministry.
