APT WORDS, APTLY SPOKEN
Vengrai Parthasarathy
“Mr.Gorbachev, tear down that wall” roared President Reagan ,the twentieth anniversary of these prophetic words was observed by the media. Eventually, though not as a direct result, events led to the break up of the Soviet Union. What Churchill called the Iron Curtain came down. It is said that History is unstoppable, but it does seem to pause, if only,to recall a word or phrase that defined a moment or an era or an event.
As if in response to Reagan’s exhortation, Gorbachev, opened the gates of reform with two words: Glasnost which means ‘openness’ and perestroika (reform). They marked the end of the cold war and the start of a new era for the world.” There are some words which prove to be ominous too, to wit, Adolph Hitler’s Lebensraum which means ‘living space’. It was on this palpably lame excuse that he started a process of annexation of Germany’s weak
neighbors. That proved to be the fateful signal for World War II,
The reply to Germany’s marauding hordes came from Winston Churchill, the indefatigable Prime Minister of England , who was the right man at the right time…This symbol of England’s bull-dog spirit , galvanized the island nation with words which had fervor and literary flavor. He roared: “We shall not flag or fail., we shall fight in France, we shall fight on all the seas and oceans….we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,, we shall fight in the hills: we shall not surrender”, These are but fragments of a fighting speech which inspired the British to steel themselves and defeat the enemy.. .Hitler was vanquished and, reportedly committed suicide.
At the end of the battle of Britain, it was Churchill again , who decked out his speeches with fine metaphors, eulogized the RAF with these famous words: ”Never in the field of human history was so much owed by so many to so few.”. What a sentiment! What euphony.! Such choice words and calibrated phrases can never die.
India too has had its golden moments. Gandhiji coined two powerful words which had breath and purpose and gave a strong notice to the colonial British.. Quit India. These words which hardly need amplifying , resonated throughout .India in August 1942, at the height of the Civil Disobedience movement. Eventually, Time came to fullness and India became free; the British left, bag and baggage..