Watching the 67th
session of the UN General Assembly come to a close with their promise of
assembling again the next year for their annual talk fest, I wondered how the
world would sound without humans having the ability to talk.
We have the power of speech which we use the most amongst
our humanly faculties but many a times we
use it for no use. ‘What?’ ‘No!’
‘Don’t believe this.”… could be some of the predicted responses of many a
humans on this earth to this accusation but a peaceful analysis of our own habit
will prove the same.
Take a look around. We
find ourselves talking, almost always. Be it at home or in office or
elsewhere. Seldom have we witnessed ourselves keeping quiet, sometime not even
in sleep! Humans want to be surrounded by fellow humans not because they are
scared of feeling lonely but because they feel that they will not have any one
around to talk to. Being alone per se is not such a big deal in today’s era of
mobile phones; access to people’s voice anywhere anytime has solved this
problem to a large extent. It is a different matter altogether that mobiles
have also separated actual beings in real life setting with both being busy
most of the times on their respective handsets talking to people invisible in
the surroundings but being oblivious to the person in the vicinity.
Many people talk just
because they have to talk; unfortunately we all been subjected to the merciless
symptoms of verbal diarrhoea! Others sentiments and frame of mind are of no
relevance when they are on a roll; so what if others around are feeling like
fainting or punching the talker! These talkers are almost always suffering from
i-know-all syndrome! Then there are free advisers; so what if they themselves
lead a messed-up life! The regard for a balance in any conversation is hardly
maintained; almost in every conversation there is a talker and there is a
listener; talks between young friends are altogether a different proposition
where everybody is talking and nobody is listening! Even scarcer is somebody
walking his talk!
So ‘talking’ is our
prime hobby, undoubtedly!
However, a sincere appraisal of God’s gift of gab to us humans leaves me wondering. That how have
we managed to remain aloof in a conversationalist world; that if historically
we have been talking then how come the world is still so ignorant of everybody
and everything else. Why even after living in a universally-connected world
through the internet we humans have failed to connect with fellow humans all
across the globe. Why is it that in spite of talking always we have sustained
the mentality of “Us vs Them”?
We all have continued to survive in our cocoons since ages.
We have created boundaries all around us. There
are countries and communities and regions and religions and all other reasons
to divide the world and humans repeatedly. Though we share the same DNA
sequence as human beings but we have remained separated by our self-created shared
beliefs in our own superiority over all others. It is quite amazing!
I am sure in a moment of honest reflection John Lennon must have composed his
memorable ‘Imagine a world’ song!
Imagine, we keep talking all the time – in place of living,
in place of work and everywhere else. Still we find people as parents and
children not understanding each other; companions – husband-wife/girlfriend-boyfriend -still being apart after years of living
together; whether it be siblings or colleagues or neighbours, everyone is a stranger to everyone else
around. Incredible, isn’t it?
Then why do we indulge into so much of talking? Are we scared of being alone and lonely?
Do we don’t know anything else to do and, thus, as a time-pass, we do nothing
else but talk aimlessly and foolishly? Well, I haven’t really understood the necessity
of talking all the time when we cannot understand each other through our words
and also gestures.
If conversations
could help, there wouldn’t be so many humanitarian problems plaguing the world.
If only like crumbling talks, we could witness crumbling boundaries! In today’s
times also we see numerous crises continuing unabatedly. Millions of refugees scattered
all around because of inter-nations conflicts; religious fundamentalism
thriving and slicing the world; ambitious nations bombing other nations in
order to expand their territorial boundaries but in effect narrowing human
hearts and minds. We witness the world flare up with scant so-called provocation
in terms of a film or a book or an art piece or an innocuous comment, contradicting
the age-old beliefs on a particular subject – the most inflammable being the
one of a religion. If millennia of existence with the power of speech haven’t
been able to make humans know each other, then would the world have missed
human talks if we were born without a tongue?
Imagine a tongue-less world!
Dag Hammarskjold,
the second Secretary General of the
United Nations once commented famously in defence of his organization that “It is better to Jaw-Jaw than to War-War!”
And “Jaw-Jaw” was at its liberal display – like always - at the recently
concluded UN General Assembly! Imagine a UN without endless political speeches!
If only these speeches were a bit less hollow.
Similarly, imagine an
India without its own share of political gabfest in the Parliament!
(Talking with ‘forked tongue’ is still a tolerable trait in our ‘honourable’
politicians but talking with fists and chairs and tables and microphones and
all that is ‘handy’ is … Well, I am sure you must have understood my words on
‘mute’ here :)
Well, in the same breath, if we imagine a world without
being able to communicate, the scene is pretty scary. I see ourselves being
silent always as animals, busy fending for ourselves and being with each other
just like animals, wandering aimlessly. No sounds, no words, nothing to hear,
nothing to say; no songs, no poems, no stories, no lullabies; no love talks, no
quarrels, no gossips, no time-pass talks; no cinemas, no plays, no dances, no
theatres; no lectures, no speeches, no debates, no arguments; no television, no
radio; no sound of life, no sound of death; not even the sound of silence …
Therefore, let us Keep
Talking! However, while talking, let us also apply ourselves in
understanding ‘others’. Then only our
tongues will serve its purpose and the world will be a better habitat.
No, today is not the World
Day for Talking. I just felt like having this heart-to-heart chat with my
fellow humans all across the earth, and beyond, if my words and voice could
reach to the life blossoming in the outer spheres of our Universe … :)
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