(Extra)Linguistic Affairs

Bollywood has been romancing disability on and off. Disabled persons have been the object of representational treatments. The Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma starrer  Zero  has been one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Such endeavor can mainstream representation of disabled people and their politics. However, it is debatable why disabled people do not get to play the role of disabled characters in films. No doubt disabled people should get those chances, but on the flip side, if superstars like Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma rule fandom and if they play the role of disabled characters there will be more awareness about the disabling conditions they are playing. However, the awareness only gets counted if disability is portrayed in a sensitive and right manner; otherwise it may cause more harm than good. Disability has been a source of stock features of characterizations and an opportunistic metaphorical device in literature. Indian cinema has depicted t...

   Though I enjoyed quoting a proverb or appreciated the quoted one once I acquired metalinguistic awareness. However, doing a Ph.D. on the genre of proverb was never on my ‘things to-do-list’. My learning curve towards Sociolinguistic served my appetite for this genre of oral literature that got accentuated by the adage ‘Nothing is trivial that comes to your tongue’ as uttered by my M. Phil. Supervisor Prof. Rama Kant Agnihotri in one of his research methodologies classes. This adage driven me to work on the stereotypes and prejudices against disabled people and women embedded in proverbs. The hard core linguistics has not always welcomed (extra)linguistic affairs in its discipline. Moreover, the role of my native place and kinship played a huge role in enabling me to work on proverbs. Coming from Darbhanga, a suburb of Bihar, I have been exposed to folklore and proverbial wisdom has been my favourite time pass. Having deprived of the lullabies and cradle stories of ...