UNDERSTANDING POSITIVITY
“No lies on the tip of our tongues
Yes has to come from our hearts”.
It went ringing in my ears
when I was exploring for the roots of negativity in our lives. There are but a
few people in this world who would whole heartedly say yes at first instant to
an unexpected demand made to them.
Why talk of unexpected even
in daily routine we experience negativity.
The above couplet rang in my
ears when I repeated the sound ‘no’ and ‘na’ several times. During this
exercise Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian helped me to understand that
‘the sound ‘Na’
is produced when the
tip of our tongue touches the back of our teeth. It is called ‘Dantya’ meaning
‘coming from teeth’. Both are very close to the opening of our mouth. Thus it
is the easiest sound to come out from anybody, totally effortless. The efforts
required are so minimal that ‘no’ can come out from a mouth like a rapid fire
of a automatic gun. Remember the answer of the heroine
to the question in a old Hindi feature film song,
“Tum ko mujhse pyar
hai?” …. “Na na na nai
nai nai…” so many ‘no’s at
one go.
Finally when she says ‘Yes’,
it is only one “Han hai.” One can not say ‘yes’ or
‘han’ as many times and it is not required as well. Yes is like a signal where
as ‘no’ is like a warning which is repeated many times. But one has to make
sure whether the judgement is correct.
What happens with this quick
response negation? If the person who is not a very urgent need of what he is
asking for, he is most likely to walk away. He will try to get it from some
body, who is more willing to give and who is likely to oblige.
Most of the Indian languages
have different variations of “na” nahi. English ‘no’,
German ‘nein’, Russian ‘neyat’, French ‘non’, Slavic
‘Nye’, Bosnian ‘Ne’, all have ‘N’ in the beginning.
Consider some other languages
which use other words for ‘no’ Tamil and Kannada ‘Ille’,
Arabic ‘La’, Hibrew ‘Lo’ have a consonant ‘L’ as ‘La’
in it. The sound of it is produced when the tip of your tongue touches the base
of front teeth. Even Japanese ‘No’ is ‘iie’ to
pronounce which one has to show ones teeth.
Thus in most of the languages
it can be said safely that ‘No
resides on the tip of the tongue’. Thus the first small step towards developing
positive attitude is to curb the urge to say the easiest thing that is “No”.
Hold your tongue tight. Keep your mouth tightly shut till you have listened to
the other person fully to his satisfaction.
Now let us come to ‘Yes’, the Hindi for which is ‘Hanji’
‘Han’, Marathi ‘Ho’ ‘Hoy’, Hyderabadi ‘Hav’ Kannada ‘houdu’. Celtic ‘Ja’ or Ya ,Romance ‘Se’, Slavic ‘yuhk’, Japanese ‘hai’, all these
have Y or J as ‘Ya’, H
as ‘ Ha’ and S as ‘ Sa’ .The sound of all these consonants is produced with full
breath. Lungs have to have sufficient air in them to make these sounds. They
are called Ushma
Now let us understand the
position of the listener. He will require sufficient time to listen to the
other person. He gets this time when he takes a deep breath. Full breath is
also required to say ‘yes’ if he is convinced. Thus taking a long and deep
breath helps both ways. Thus in a very simple step you inch towards positive
attitude. This is the second step to develop positive attitude.
It does not always happen
that people come to you for everything. Sometimes rather, many a times we are
also required to propose and request people for many things and favours.
The above lessons would be useful
to keep our morale high inspite of getting ‘No’ for
an answer. It would only mean that one has not succeeded in convincing the
person on the opposite side. We will always keep in mind that we have to try
hard enough to convince others and also give them sufficient time for the
process of understanding.
Prakash Tendulkar, I.R.A.S.
F.A.&
C.A.O.(W&S),WESTERN RAILWAY.
28th February2005