A word is a word is a word. Or is it ?


Words are words. How can there be different interpretations of the same word in the same language for different people! Possible ? Yes.

Each feeling, each experience is internalized by us individually. A rainbow means different things to different people. After seeing it, a student may remember the reflection of a prism from his physics lab, for an entrepreneur it may symbolize his unending search for the pot of gold, for the writer in me it is the joyous celebration of elements.

Rains mean different things to different people again. Folks having lush fields of paddy in Ludhiana will view rain very differently than a person who sits across the window on his desk staring at dark clouds and showers in Mumbai at 3 pm. He wonders if by Seven the rains would have divulged the roads..Or the railway tracks.. if he would be able to reach home after office ! As long as our processors, our minds are different, there cannot be one interpretation. There isn’t any one universal meaning. A universal reality. The interpretations will always be separated by degrees.

That is what makes the game of writing tick. Fifty different students in a class will write an essay about a class trip, taken together, in fifty different ways. The ones who do not exert themselves will write about facts..the ones who enjoyed the trip as a part of the group and enjoyed little things - from the heart - the feelings they experienced, they will bring those elements to their essay and truly majestic and dreamers will certainly have their own tangents and stories to tell. Each one will carry the memories of the trip differently in their hearts. Each will interpret it in the way he experienced it. And if he’s courageous will express it in his individual style, if not, you will get conformity, a regular essay that gets you a regular grade- not too flashy, not too dull. Contrived, contorted, conformed expressions -from conformed individuals. We have them in plenty , around us. (Esp. in China, and of course on our fields - players associated with autocratic Sports Boards and associations..sorry , couldn't stop myself )

That is why you may like Gulzaar and Pritish Nandy more than Pablo Naruda, or Amitav Ghosh more than Arvind Adiga or feel Chetan Bhagat's charaters closer to you than Shashi Tharoor's or vice-versa. The difference is in processing, in their skills, in their expressions, in their games and how it all relates to us individually, how it affects us individually. For me, Rushdie has a great net game, he plays well there while Vikram Seth plays the baseline game and wins his points from baselines. And that is the real thing : the way we experience our experiences and the way we share them. We all might like Tagore’s poetries but the way her eyes well up while reading Gitanjali. Or the way a techie sits with it and his thoughts on weekend nights. Or the way he is reminded of someone and misses someone after reading certain paragraphs..it all depends on his conditioning, his internal processing that is the integrated sphere of his individualism which is a sum of his experiences, learnings, un-learnings in moments, days, weeks and years that constituted his life.

When we see movies as a group- the content we absorb is the same but our reactions to it differ according to the way we process that content internally on the sieve of our psyche that is a quagmire of previous experiences, learnings, perceptions, prejudices and out prevalent attitude.. How we react to the movie differs individually. How we express those reactions again depends on people individually. Voicing one’s opinion takes courage. A leader in a group may have one opinion and others in the group who may or may not want to voice what they actually feel may very well go with the opinion of leader. So our hearts and minds, to speak in unison need a lot of courage. In this diplomatic world of couture’d sophistication, when you hear the voice of a heart , applaud the beauty of it, silently in your heart, because things that are from the heart can only be appreciated by the heart.

So the same words can have different meanings for different people , the interpretation of situations can be different for different people, hence let’s appreciate our individuality, our uniqueness and let’s also understand the influences that make some of us express only the opinions that we feel people would accept and be comfortable with. And that’s not bad..letting it all hangout isn't the right approach sometimes, holding back is a way of caring and many a times is the only way to peace - which always is the ultimate goal. (Just as I hate people encroaching on my right to express, by the same measure I need to give space to people who have a right to remain silent, mute spectators to the goingons..)Just ensure you have a zone , your very own personal one, where you can exhale..and where you can be yourself.. where things really mean what you intend them to mean.