It is not about interplay of words. Neither is it about teasing or tickling the 'sentiments'. It is about an attempt to strike a judicious balance between the exercise of logic on the one hand, and upholding the emotional values on the other, and retain both of them, well under our faculty of 'reasoning'.
We happen to inadvertently 'touch' those delicate 'religious sentiments' of a person when we try to find out how they manage a 'deal' with their deity, trying to offer a petty gift in return for a huge and disproportionate benefit... Those who 'feel' the hurt are quick to shift their position, and quite swiftly act upon the query, trying to become a legal advocate on behalf of their deity.... this positioning makes an explanation on their 'own' behalf to be 'redundant'! What they fail to see is that they stretch their logic to an unreasonable extent, to cover up their own inadequacy of emotional strength to handle the situation on their own! Most of the incidents in our day to day life get 'adjusted' or tolerated, despite the 'lack of reasoning' to support certain attitudes.... thus came to be born that 'sentiment' perhaps! And once that 'sentiment' takes an avatar, there is no other way (for the time being), but to rename it as a 'false-sentiment' , just as we try to 'disarm' /diffuse it like we remove the small switch or fuse of an explosive, and later on take it out to an open are and set fire to that explosive material (in the case of that 'false-sentiment', it can be 'engaged' like that missile any time again!). The 'reasonable' part of that precious emotion of a sense of gratitude, and the show of it as a gesture, at times, due to urgency of the 'seeker' takes the shape of a 'deal' and like that adage of putting the 'cart-before-the-horse', the deal is struck in advance, even before receiving the benefit... (that round about way of justification of emotion by over-stretching the logic.... anyway, a gesture of gratitude is due.... so why not offer that token of gratitude as a guarantee , well in advance, and hope for the gift/ benefit like an insurance policy? Or, shall we say, a 'mututal-benefit-scheme' ?). It is this over-stretching of logic that clouds the intellect, and we miss the basic concepts, the fundamentals about the source of creation, the creator.... and when such tendencies harden or solidify into a sort of sentiment, it becomes like our own built-in 'chemistry', to be 'religiously' handed down to even the next generation/s too!
That 'religious' sentiments was a 'typical' instance to illustrate the point... because it is the 'religious' aspects that tend to heavily polarise a person, way beyond emotional considerations too! Otherwise, we often find the conflict between emotional decisions and logical decisions locking horns through their representatives (spouses usually :) ... and we know who wins 'normally'!}... It is not about supporting one against the other.. it is about conscious use of 'reasoning' to arbitrate using the sense of discretion a bit judiciously! Unless we do this, we are not merely setting a bad example to our off-springs... we are even leaving them utterly confused, about our own 'sense of maturity'! No point, lamenting about 'trust-deficit' later on....
(I am still hunting for an 'exact' equivalent of the English word 'sentiment' in one of our Indian languages..... Or... was it that we never needed it in our ancient 'bullock-cart' days! Also that 'boredom' seems elusive in our Indian way of saying it!)
PSN(14th March, 2012)
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