May 18 was Aai-Papa's wedding anniversary. Now the very sentence and its meaning is a problem for me, both as a daughter and as somebody who loves the subtlety of English, and every other language that I can manage.
Why does the very first sentence of our blog today bother me? Yes, it is the "was". As a daughter and as well as an aware woman who understood the way they together created their marital partnership, the "was" hurts me.
Why? The past tense asserts painfully their not being there any more. Yes, it is the finality of the death that is bothersome, nay, hurtful. In the fifteenth chapter of the "Bhagvad Geeta", the Lord says, "from whence there is no return, that is my final abode." Aai used to like that quote a lot. The ultimatum of death!
Yet, as a student of language, one knows that there is this tense called historical presence. Let me give you an example. Suppose, I am writing a chapter on Shivaji Maharaj. I could write, " He is a great king. He has the distinction of creating the first ever compendium of Marathi words, to be used even in administrative texts "
In that sense, May 18 continues to be their forever bond. May 18 IS their wedding anniversary! In such a meaningful way, a 'was' need not be merely that. It continues to be an "is", and that is quite some solace!
Pratima@ Everybody is blasting the NEET nexus as it indeed must be. Yet, at times, I find such an attack, too, meaningless. Here are any number of people, common, ordinary women and men to so-called authors presenting a written product as their contri, while every comma therein, if at all used, is screaming aloud the AI authorship! There are, moreover, their gang-(wo)men who praise them to skies. And one talks about 'meaning'!
Quote of the day: "Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer," asserts Joseph Campbell.
Word of the day: significance Significance means the meaning or importance of something.
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