Language of our society

Today after watching the trailer of Gangs of Wasseypur I on youtube, I was extremely terrified. A strong sense of fear engulfed me. On little deliberation, I found out I was afraid of the amount of foul words used in it and more so over, of its open and bold presentation.

I do believe that movies and television serials do represent our society or our perception of the society or inspiration of the society. So with tremendous response and commercial success of the movies such as gangs of wasseypur, what picture does it portray of our society? Are these just few arbitration of the entertainment world, or has it become the norm? One or two decades back, these movies might have died at the censor board itself. But now, these are passed under ‘A’ category.

I did my early schooling (class 1-5) from ‘Sainik School Tilaiya’ as a boarder. And the extent of foul language present in our speech was many times more than of my counter parts at home or any where else. Not a single line was without the presence of few of those. During the vacations, to avoid the situation of speaking foul words, I used to speak less and was deemed as conservative and soft-spoken. In one such vacation, in usual talking to a friend at home, I ushered ‘saala’. And the result was that he didn’t talk to me for two days. After returning to my hometown for further studies, I decided to refrain from using foul words. I am still sticking with that one.

So in my case, even if I have not taken any such decision to refrain from using foul languages, this would have been due to my boarding days. But this is not the case in general. So when I see the people, with proper background and social upbringing, using the foul words as fluently as possible, I don’t see any other thing than to blame their (our) parents and their (our) society we are living in.

Apart from people using it in their routine, I do agree that few say it out of frustration and anger. But doesn’t it show the weaker side of us. The situation becomes more perilous when its usage is associated with pride and dominance.

One thing also crossed my mind, was this always the case say 2-3 decades back or 4-5 decades back. The extent of foul words was so prevalent in the language of all the generation before us or it is just this generation that is achieving new heights. Going by the entertainment world, the latter comes out with more pomp and pride. Talking of entertainment, one movie that stands apart in this case is – ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, a personal salute for showing there is still hope.