Dr.Jernail Singh Anand "THE SAID AND THE UNSAID: A CRITICAL EVALUATION"

 

THE SAID AND THE UNSAID: A CRITICAL EVALUATION

Dr.Jernail Singh Anand

There are two realms which can be found at work in case of language. One is the virtual and the other is the real. The real is that aspect of language which has been said, recorded, or put into print. And the virtual is that portion of language which has not been said, recorded or put into print. In very simple words, the said and the unsaid remain in a state of juxtaposition.

The said is what makes human history and the unsaid is what makes the future of mankind. Man is always looking for something better and it lies only in the womb of the possible, which relates to the future. In the said, there is no chance of rectification, or going back, and doing something all over again, whereas in the case of the unsaid, we always keep revising what has to be said, and done, so that till something is actually done, or said, there are a hundred versions of the act, which keep volving and revolving in our mind. In fact I see the two opposite worlds converge at the point which divides the two: the present.

Even these words are not definite, or certain, and nothing can be defined or witnessed. At every point of time, at every turn of an event, at every decisive moment, we are faced with this situation. On the one side is the said, the history of mankind. And on the other is the unsaid, which will make the upcoming story of mankind.

The Unsaid also includes a hundred virtual variations what could have happened had the other unused options been put into operation. In this way, history is also a virtual proposition. Something that happened because some combinations came into being.

Between a dream and reality, there is a flimsy space. I think history walks in this space. It appears to be a factual state, but actually it is a phantom dance only.

Today when we call back historical figures and start getting guidance from their lives, there appears to be nothing wrong in it. My question is only this. Past, which has seen neither the present, nor the future, - how can it guide us in forward march?

The SAID is a dangerous trap. The words which have moved out of your mouth, or your pen, now turn into a cage, and imprison you. You cannot deny what you have said, you cannot get back what you have written. At another level, you cannot undo what you have done.

What you have done? It is a pity history tells us only of the great turntides. [people who turned the tide of history]. Not of the ordinary men. Ordinary men are mentioned in history, without any reverence, only as a mass. Twenty thousand people were killed. One lakh were sent to concentration camps. The World War Second killed four million people. These figures do not distraught us. But we are more concerned with the fate of the great personages who ordered this massacre. How they lived, what they did, and how they died, is the real stuff of history. Sad.

A god came to me once. And said, our prisons are overflowing with criminals. There is no footfall at the counters which receive the saints. In fact, most of the hostels where saints were kept, are now being vacated and made fit for the heavy rush of divine pilgrims coming from the criminals axis.

The figures and figurines of history, who created mess in the world society, too were faced with several choices, but they clicked one which destroyed the world. Other choices were before them. But they were in the realm of the Unsaid and Undone.

The done and the said, I was saying is a trap. It is a prison from where you cannot escape. So long as you do not utter a word, it is in your power, you can change it, mould it, drop it, use another word. But once dropped, it firms up and then, it cannot be put back into the mouth.

The said occupies a small portion of the space whereas major portion is occupied by the unsaid, the possible, the probable and the virtual. People who do not act, people who hesitate, people who do not utter a word, feel safe in this realm of no reproach.

Usaid is the world of those people who do not want to come into conflict. Who let things move as they are. Who believe in status quo. Who have nothing to say. And who do not think at all. The mass, the mass who suffers great battles, and great outcomes. Were those millions killed in second world war not out of them?

The said and the unsaid also points to another dichotomy of existence. The said relates to those who mattered and who were active in the field. Let us talk of great warriors who commanded millions of forces. And the unsaid relates to the millions who were commanded and committed to wars. Whenever I see great forts, we are told only about the great kings or queens who lived there. What about the unsaid, the unwritten, the unfelt and the unrecorded millions?

The civilization has been very kind to the people who held the pen or the sword with which they etched empires on the breast of earth. But nobody was keen to say a word about the blood which was shed, and the skeletons which were rolled under the earth, “in a single burial blent”, as Byron suggests in his great poem ‘The Eve of Waterloo’.

Dr.Jernail Singh Anand

Bio:

Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, the author of 155 plus books, is the recipient of the Charter of Morava, the highest Serbian International Award in Creativity, at the 60th Belgrade International Writers Meeting . His name was engraved in the Poets' Rock in Serbia, a rare honour for an Indian author. He already holds The Franz Kafka Literature Prize, Maxim Gorky International Literary Award, Cross of Peace, and Cross of Literature (Italy) awards.

Dr Anand is Founder Chairperson of the International Academy of Ethics, and an Honorary Member of the Association of Serbian Writers, Belgrade. He is Prof Emeritus in Indian Literature at The European Institute of the Roma Studies and Research Belgrade. Dr Anand is credited with the theory of Bio-text (critical theory). His work has been translated into more than twenty world languages. Author of 9 epics which are regarded as modern classics, Anand has organized 4 International Literary Conferences, latest of them, in Chandigarh.

Link to profile:

https://sites.google.com/view/bibliography-dr-jernal-singh/home