Love is a ring and ring has no end -Russian Proverb

  

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 my daadii (paternal grandmother) about whom I heard from my mother and other relatives at home, I have been fortunate to have my naanii (maternal grandmother) till the last leg of my Ph.D. Before leaving my home for higher studies, I used to enjoy listening to ghost and other stories with sweet mangoes in the afternoon in the summer.  

Living in the kind of joint family and being the youngest among seven siblings including extended family also served the fetish for proverbs as I enjoyed the love and pampering of my seven bhabhiyan (Elder Brothers’ Wives) ‘sisters-in-laws’ which involved ‘teasing’ and ‘getting teased’ by proverbs and riddles during my school days. This gave me a great schooling in paremiology. Three of my sisters-in-laws have been from rural or village background who were good at throwing a proverb for almost every occasion. They used to quote, sometime, verbally ‘obscene’ proverbs that could make anyone shy. It is quite customary in the region of Mithilanchal (Northern part of Bihar) where devar (Husband’s younger brother) and bhabhi share a special bond of jest which is very frank. Being in early ‘teen’ also provided the space required for such verbal duel, as women in general not supposed to speak in front of jeth (Husbands’ elder brothers), my bhabhi had the opportunity to speak before me though I was a male member in the family but was out of place from the power hierarchy. I could only threat them half-jokingly saying that ‘I am writing all the proverbs and will publish one day.’ However, they used to get happy to listen this as they knew it is not going to happen. They were quite right so I was till I left my home for higher studies. Eventually, I have written my PhD thesis on ‘A Sociolinguistic Study of Stereotypes, Prejudices and Discrimination against Disability and Gender in Talk and Text’.