Whispers of Laughter and Tears: Words

The word Deśa is an equivalent of the sky. The hr̥day, a parallel to the sky. I quite enjoy these linguistic games. In this way, the word “book” takes me on a ticketless tour of the Middle East. With the current state of books in West Bengal, there’s a touch of guilt that accompanies this journey. However, there’s no bloodshed in this game, no provocation, not even something like the Duckworth-Lewis system in cricket. Thus, it’s harmless.

When I hear the word bhrami (wander) in Rabindranath’s songs, to me it suggests a sense of journey within error, so I don’t stress over its intended meaning. Similarly, kāl can mean time, sometimes death; if that’s the case, then the goddess descending to Benaras from the Himalayas marks not creation but the grand death, mahamrityu, rather than any beginning of time. The word rasayana (chemistry) literally means the journey of rasa