As students in the 1960s, our English teachers were not only particular about grammar & pronunciation but encouraged liberal use of idioms & phrases like ‘all that glitters is not gold’, ‘melted into thin air’, ‘there’s method in the madness’ or ‘dead as a doornail’ and many others for enhancing the quality of our essays and compositions. We didn’t know, such gems mostly came from the genius of Shakespeare, ‘The Bard of Avon’ !
Litterateurs, writers, academics, researchers, English literature students and a legion of readers follow the incomparable style and immortal literary works of most widely read & translated storyteller, writer, playwright, philosopher, thinker – ‘William Shakespeare’, who’s birthday (born in 1564) is celebrated on 23rd, April though the actual date is not recorded. But why does he still cast such an indelible impression on minds of even those like us who were students of science, maths and economics and not of literature. As one sagely stated ‘If ever anything good was said, it must have been said by Shakespeare’ !
My first brush with the ‘Bard’ as a boy were through Dad’s musings as he would often quote to us lines (from the tragedy ‘Macbeth’) with eloquence ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more…’. Whatever they meant at that time, they seemed profound and beautifully melancholic. Elder sisters would loudly prepare for school elocutions in front of their mirrors ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears…! All this was grand & theatrical and I got weaned on Bard quotes without actually reading his works !
Through uncanny gift of foresight and understanding of human nature, he could express the deepest emotions we could apply to all stages of our lives. In our growing up years as adolescents the first crush could never go beyond silent admiration for the fair maiden & we all felt ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ ! However, when friends got married one after another the question arose ‘To be or Not to be ?’ Fortunately for me, my Mom definitively settled the ‘partner’ issue with her firm stamp of approval ‘To be’ !
On becoming a young Bank officer observing my peers scheming around in workplace, it slowly dawned on me with discomfiture ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them’. However, it was about smartly grabbing opportunities ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life, is bound in shallows and in miseries’.
The Bard had not just a thing or two to say about romance, music and love: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on ‘ and ‘If music be the food of love, play on.’ And the pangs of separation that lovers must endure in their journeys – ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’ ! There is also the futility of ambition ‘It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ !
Finally, there the philosophy of life beautifully summed up by the Bard ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.’ Who could have said it better ?!
Working on Living 