My last post was also on alankars; that was the jewellery women wear on different parts of their body. The language also needs alankars to beautify it. Without figures of speech a language would be quite bland. A British writer Nate White’s article, “Why do some British people not like Trump” went viral sometime back. It was not because of his xenophobic, bigoted, racist policies, nor his incoherent rantings, it was because he was crass in language, he didn’t show any wit, any wry humour, never said anything amusing or remotely funny – in short he was devoid of any figure of speech. They are integral to our everyday usage and we use many figures of speech without any conscious effort. In fact the two meanings of ‘alankar’ themselves constitute a figure of speech called ‘Yamak’ – that is, the same word is mentioned more than once in a text, each having a different meaning.
Off and on, a visitor to the blog posts a comment (in Hindi) sort of disapproving why a blog on Hindi film songs should be in English. I don’t have great fancy for any kind of vigilantism. I politely thank him for his love for our language and that I would be greatly pleased to interact with him on Hindi literature on mail. But that set me thinking, if we can discuss onomatopoeia, synecdoche and metonymy, why can’t we अनुप्रास, यमक, श्लेष, उत्प्रेक्षा, उपमा, रूपक etc.READ THE FULL ARTICLE