THERE’S an Arabic Bedouin maxim, “Abuses are signs that the bond is deep and strong.” Similarly, a long North African proverb of Tunisia states that “those who don’t abuse occasionally are as dry as a piece of wood in the desert. They die friendless.”
Now this is the most interesting proverbial observation that those who don’t abuse, die friendless. Utter this saying before any true-blue Haryanvi or Punjabi and he’ll latch onto it because in northern India, abuses are like oodles of ketchup on the food of conversation.
Abuses and cuss words may unsettle a refined and urbane human being, they’re indeed the spices of life, informal closeness and bonhomie. British linguist Sir David Crystal believes that abuses are the essence of a language. When a child learns a new language or even an adult tries to pick up a new tongue, the abuses of that language are the first words we unknowingly learn and assimilate in our linguistic consciousness and that stay with us till we go to meet our Maker.
Urdu poet Rafiq Kanpuri was apprehensive that, “Dushnaamiyon ka iss qadar maanoos hoon/Allah ke saamne bhi muh kholne se darta hoon” (I’m so inured to explicit words that I’m apprehensive of speaking before God).
“Abusive language is bad but abuses once in a blue moon are acceptable,” Frank Moraes, father of poet Dom Moraes, wrote this years ago. Occasional abuses are indeed acceptable and at times, even desirable, depending upon the intensity and connotation of it.
One reason of Sanskrit becoming a dysfunctional language is that it had no abuses. The pristine Sanskrit was bereft of objectionable words. Classical Persian was about to face the same fate, thanks to the timely acceptance of certain abuses borrowed from Arabic. It’s worthwhile to mention that myriad abuses of all hues and shades can be found in the corpus of Arabic language which is exceedingly rich in texture and semantics.
Some subtle and suggestive abuses enrich that language. For example, a highly cultured Urdu-speaking person may abuse in this way and it’s no exaggeration. Yours truly himself heard this in Lucknow when an angry man at Hazrat Ganj, Lucknow, abused someone: “Aapne is se zyada kuchh kaha toh hum aapki ammi ki shaan mein gustakhi kar jayenge”
Rather than take such a long and circuitous route, a north Indian would have used an emphatic abuse that would have served the purpose instantaneously.
Abuses are a part of our social and linguistic culture. Though one must shun them, casting aspersions on abuses is an over-reaction.
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