YES, that is how words are! Very easily available. But equally difficult for accurate usage. And unfortunately, very few realise this. Of course, each writer -- of any language, all languages -- has realised this. He, as well as every teacher of language, also has warned all of us against casualness in using words. Yet, habitually, we use words without much thinking about the meaning or the effect those may have on the listener or reader. And because we are so casual about choosing and using words, we keep bumping into situations that astonish us, even shock us out of wits. That is the story of all ages and of people of all ages and cultures and civilisations. But Sir Tom Stoppard -- like many others -- tells us how important words are and what kind of respect should be given to those. He calls words “sacred”, and tells us to make efforts to find right words in right order so as to achieve maximum effect. Long, long ago, the sages whose intuitive expressions became the Vedic hymns, realised the wellspring of purity and piety within from which their words sprang.

 

So they said, : ... Richo akshare parame vyoman (the words and letters of Vedic hymns are pure and pious). That was not just the matter of belief. It was actually a matter of fact of their literary pursuit. Those sages engaged themselves in deep, profound meditation, cleared their heads of all the unnecessary clutter of thoughts, focused their spiritual faculty on the Brahman (The Ultimate). Then, in that condition, with their inner being fully basking in sublimeness, those wonderful men and women of substance emoted fine words of wisdom that has now become an immortal treasure of truth for all mankind. Literary journey of every person who respects words in this manner offers similar experiences and expressions. There may be some writers or authors who may be needed to labour over their expression, all right. But much larger numbers of people in literary pursuit often realise that their expression just fountains up from their inner core of being, almost effortlessly. Spontaneity, thus, has been described as one of the main attributes of great literature. That is also why we hear many an author saying that he -- or she -- did not know how the writing occurs.

 

“It just comes out in a flash and flush”, one well known poetess said in an interview. And this is a near-universal experience. Sir Tom Stoppard, however, insists upon making efforts to offer appropriate respect to words. Such efforts may help in coming across right words and in right order -- so that the author may be able to nudge the world, in the sense have some effect on the audience. When Sir Stoppard talks of right order, he does not necessarily talk of syntax as understood in grammar, however. Here, he suggests by ‘right order’ the flow of thoughts and not just the train of words. Here, he enters the zone of thought -- in which all that matters is the person’s spiritual ability to understand thoughts correctly and make them sit on the shoulders of right words. Thus, Sir Stoppard talks of a finer cognition riding on right words in right order. Only such an expression may have some power to nudge the otherwise frigid world that takes its own time to agree that someone is talking sense.