Careless

Small Words

 “‘D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.’

A cold moth with unusually dense dorsal tufts landed lightly on Rahel’s heart. Where its icy legs touched her, she got goose bumps. Six goose bumps on her careless heart.”

The God of Small Things, A. Roy, P 112

 

 

 

The God of Small things is a story by an Indian female writer that deals with relationships, actions, feelings, attitudes and words in an apparently dysfunctional family. Had those words been uttered by a stranger, they would not have caused such an effect on Rahel’s mind. They came out of her mother’s mouth, and they were so strong that I could actually feel the cold legs of the moth alighting upon the seven-year-old child’s heart.  How many times do we speak such words, without noticing the effect they have on others, and most importantly, on children? What is so shocking about this is that it occurs in an everyday event –leaving a cinema- and no one notices, not even this mother, the extent to which the mind of this little girl is deeply upset.

Feelings are hurt all the time, by people who we care about. Nonetheless, we do not realize that we ourselves do it, although we are familiar with the experience and we wish not to be “less loved”. Anger leads us not to place a filter between what we say and what we feel in those moments, and not measuring the consequences of our words.  Although we wish for this not to happen, there will be times when careless words will slip and go straight to the most sensible spot in the heart of a person. But for what is explained later in the novel, I could not start to understand this mother and her careless words towards her own daughter. A sad childhood being afraid of her father’s mistreatment, towards her mother and herself, shaped her into this cruel mother. I would say  I understand, but not justify.