The scrunching of language

Ratna Raman

WILLIAM Butler Yeats (1865-1939) described Keats as a schoolboy with ‘face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window’. English Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) died of ‘consumption’ (tuberculosis) at 25. Keats’s fascination for literature drew him away from a medical career. Despite obtaining a licence to practise as a physician and surgeon, Keats resolved to become a poet and wrote powerful, sensuous poetry in the last years of his life.

Sweet-shops in England and Ireland may have been wonderful places in  Yeats’s times. In India, however, Indian sweets could be viewed whenever the traditional halwai raised the metal shutters at the shop entrance. On ledges or shelves, piled high in trays, or kept behind counters in large glass jars, Indian mithai, made with fruit, flour, lentil, milk and nuts, attracted passersby. Piping hot jalebis, fragrant and golden-orange shift our focus from the greasy black kadhai and the utilitarian syrup container into which fried  jalebis are immersed.

 Usually, the young have their face and nose pressed at sweet-shop windows while drooling over delicious mithai. The visual Yeats conjures is poignant and creates ‘cadences’  (rhythmic flow)  that  resonate  within each reader’s mind  through stirring memories. Despite being  a ‘subjective’ (personal) view, the image generates several associations and connections. Whenever or wherever this happens we are witnessing the spell of poetry and its ability to stir emotional responses. 

 More often than not, the business of mithai is transacted through cash on purchase. Stories of little boys jailed for petty stealing or ‘beaten within an inch of their lives’ (idiom, beaten to the point of death) continue to be reported in newspapers. The  inability to savour sweets (indicative of the pleasures of life) because of the glass separator is a powerful  metaphor, recalling missed opportunities, deprivation and mortality. 

Does language carry forward this extraordinary connective quality when used functionally? Images of disposable shampoo and body lotions  brought home by travellers, in magical little plastic bottles, in urban India, come to mind. Nowadays,  state-of-the-art  beauty products contain potent remedies and manufacturers advertise all manner of magical transformation. To bolster product sales, there is audio-visual advertising wherein young men and women are transformed into gorgeous superhumans, after the use of advertised products that rid themselves of  all possible flaws. Their skin is clear, wrinkle free and  moisturised. Their  teeth sparkle and  hair is dandruff free and beautifully ‘coloured’. ‘Dye’ is no longer appropriate for describing changes in hair colour. 

Advertisements promote sales, but instructions such as ‘for oily skin’, ‘for dry skin’ or  ‘for  thin brittle hair’ emblazoned on products, tend to mislead. Skin, oily or dry and  hair, thin or brittle; remains undesirable. Why don’t manufacturers affirm in bold print that their products ‘improve oily skin’, for instance? Is it because, such claims ‘might fall flat’ (not  be substantiated)? 

‘Ay, there’s the rub!’ (obstacle, Hamlet). Poetry can be insightful and provide perspective but a functional language barely supports  accompanying visuals.