Saturday, February 14, 2009

Negating self

Humility was considered a great virtue  a few decades ago, particularly in India .The more scholarly one was, the greater the humility. Greatest of painters , sculptors and writers left no signatures behind on their works.They vied for no public acclaim. They attained excellence  not for  winning any competitions but for their  sheer love of art. Obsessed as we are with rat race today, many of us may find it difficult to comprehend this.
Infact in  ancient Kerala, convention was to refer to oneself either by name or by substituting "ei ullavan' (meaning' this being') but never to say "I" . Pronouns like 'Me, Mine, or I denoted egoism
and humility made people substitute third person pronouns instead of  first person pronouns. It makes me wonder, sorry,  It makes Radha wonder how people understood each other !

1 comment:

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Thoughts and Voices by Radha Iyer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.