Saturday, 19 January 2019

Profanity, I swear!



Headphones have become a must these days. No, not because you can’t hear anything clearly anymore. Nor there is any disturbance in the background. However, the things that you may want to hear can be disturbing. If others listen what you are listening to, eyebrows will be raised and you don’t want to be judged for the content that you are watching. In today’s era of web-series, using cuss words without any censors has given entertainment the raw and realistic representation that it needs. Hence, the need for headphones has risen more than ever.

When entertainment in form of web-series was unknown to me, I remember watching Roadies on MTV or English movies and series on television with frequent beeps at places where it would get uncomfortable to watch with the family around. Any viewer could make out the derogatory or objectionable words from the actors’ lip movements. Maybe a hesitant little step to maintain the originality of the content! If I have to play devil’s advocate, I think that swear words do not always have to sound violent or offensive. They give you fits of laughter and sometimes can be embarrassing as well, if they are articulated in a casual manner. And we Indians feel the sense of familiarity and solidarity with Hindi expletives in particular. As a result, some dialogues and scenes in Sacred Games and Mirzapur gained popularity, apart from the content they showed.  As a Narcos fan, I loved Wagner Moura’s performance as Pablo Escobar. His Spanish expletives and emphasis on each syllable with evident hatred for his enemies made him look like a formidable protagonist-cum-antagonist.

When I was learning German, I took interest in its slang expressions as well, to understand how the language changed its forms as human emotions varied. Gradually the German movies and series acquainted me to some ‘Schimpfwörter’ or swear words commonly used, ‘Scheiße!’ being most common and innocent one. In one of my classes when we were discussing about ‘Schimpfwörter’, we came to know that swear words evolved too, with immigrants entering Germany from various nations. I wondered the number of ways in which we carry our heritage like food, culture and even expletives!

Swear words are not limited to any particular class in a society. They are found in books as well, to convey the situation or environment better. Sometimes the portrayal of a place or the people living there cannot be convincing unless a real picture is shown, albeit with cuss words. And reality, though savage, is something that we long to watch or read because we want to peep into the real world. We swear when we have a reason to be angry with someone or something. But when it comes to music, which is supposed to be soothing and refreshing, cuss words or vulgarity in the songs having no solid context, seem totally unnecessary and look like a means to be a popular hum among listeners. The sentiments associated with expletives are eventually dissolved in the process and soon these words become a part of daily language, though we may not utter them at certain places or in company of some people. Suddenly cuss words and expressions start sounding ‘cool’ to us.

Another amusing thing about expletives is that they are used differently by men and women. Indian men tend to utter Hindi expletives more, in their raw and original form, whether while having casual talks with friends or colleagues or even when there are arguments.  Expletives are very common and come out very smoothly in any normal discussion between some men, especially when drinks act as appendage and sobriety is given a break for some time. When women are around, some men tend to get conscious and avoid saying any beep word, trying to act all suave. I have experienced this in some cases when my male friends or colleagues uttered cuss words in a matter-of-factly way and then immediately realized and apologized for having said them in front of me. I shrugged that off thinking it as a way to express certain emotions. For women, abusing in English makes them sound womanly. Men have a united stand when it comes to hurling abuses- they stick to regional language. But disparity can be seen among women, especially in local trains. Women traveling by first class compartment act sophisticated and hence you may hear English abuses in most cases. On the other hand, women in the second class compartment vent out their anger with a regional touch, sometimes beating out men in the abusing competition. What follows is a melee between several women, almost looking like a riot on the road. In spite of this, some heads turn when they hear a woman using expletives; they think it is very untoward or tomboyish. Wait, aren’t we living in a society where women and men are treated equals? It’s quite ironical that swear words have a restricted use only to men, when in fact some of these words are associated with women. 

Expressing anger or disappointment is a natural human tendency. Some people clear the differences by amicably resolving the disputed matters, while some use these cuss words as weapons to hurt or insult those who have wronged them. It all depends how people tackle anger and disappointment. Also, the usage of atrocities has a lot to do with the environment we grow up in, the people we hang out with or these days, the web content that we watch. In some cases, these very words can get a person in legal trouble. Hence, it is necessary to make careful and prudent use of these words.  Having said that, you cannot label someone as lowly of character just because he or she is foul-mouthed. The real person beyond those words could be warm, kind and affectionate. Coarse language could only be one of the shades making him or her probably a grey personality. Language evolves because of people. Hence, even languages have palette of words, good and bad, like distinct façades of people. It is up to us, which shade we choose from this palette, so that it suits us the best. We play with words every day, even with swear words. So let’s make sure that we do not succumb to the injuries nor injure anyone with these words in a fit of anger or anxiety because extreme emotions are momentary but words remain ingrained in mind for long.

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