When words defy meaning

FE Team | Published: November 10, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Mahmudur Rahman
The quality of intent appears to be on the decline, at least from a social aspect. Meaningful words used meaninglessly have now become the order of the day rather than exception. Professionals bemoan it, teachers are exasperated and senior citizens can but shake their heads in bemusement.
From the friendly offering of a cup of tea in an office through a motivational speech by a politician to advertising campaigns it has become almost the rule rather than the exception. As time wears on in the absence of challenge, matters are headed in an ominous direction. If this is what the new generation is growing up in to, society as a whole is headed south.
It's anyone's guess as to why the cup of tea offered has to be "bhalo kore banano". The immediate idiotic assumption is that that offered to others isn't. And when the minister asks government employees to work with "shotota" one would assume that they don't otherwise. Worse of all is when judges are asked to work "neutrally". For Pete's sake, isn't that what they are supposed to do in the first place? Or is that an admission of what the general public knows already, adequately summed up in the Hindi adage "Daal me kuch kala hay"! Somewhere in between the sincerity of it all has become lost.

A well known advertising campaign had as a punch line "If jodi is hoy, but kintu, what ki". This scribe has no qualms in the frank admission that it took several hours of thought and an orientation into the poor man's "Banglish" before the meaning came through. Maybe that is what is required -- a reorientation and unlearning process of whatever had been the established form of English and Bangla. A recent campaign, which this scribe found humorous, had as a dialogue "Sure koriso? Thanks to the orientation deciphering the meaning was a lot easier this time round. As for a shop that welcomes men to enter the world of "Cagey choice" one cannot but revert to the popular adage "Olpo shoke kator, odhik shoke pathor"!
Leaving aside the humorous side to it, one cannot but be concerned to see a hotel that has as a signage "oshamajik karjokolap nishiddho" (anti-social activities prohibited). That leads to the assumption that such activity is allowed in other hotels. Not something, again, that the general public are unaware of.
Perhaps it is time that we either embraced change and made official Banglish in curriculum or made sure it dies a fairly quick death. Otherwise there lies the inevitability of being caught in between a rock and a hard place. Squashedbanglish.
(The writer is a former head of corporate and regulatory affairs of British-American Tobacco Bangladesh and former CEO of Bangladesh Cricket Board. He can be reached at mahmudrahman@gmail.com)