Spoken language has its multitude of characteristics in any tongue ranging from extremely pleasing to unbearably harsh, insulting, humiliating, hurting, shocking, repulsive, irritating, embarrassing and what have you.  While blaming somebody is never a pleasing experience for the person at its receiving end, the reaction it generates can be far less pleasing. The question of whether the blame is just or otherwise, when raised by the affected party only triggers wordy battles that should remind us of the Kannada saying Geddavanu sotha, sothavanu satta (which translates to: The winner loses, the loser is finished). Levelling charges on a person for various acts, misdemeanour or accusing somebody of any kind of uncivil conduct take us to a totally different plane of the blame-game. We are reminded by many seasoned motivational speakers that while we point our index finger at another person in an act of blaming, three of our fingers are pointing towards us, ostensibly to exercise caution before indulging in passing the buck as it were.

Whatever may be the choice of words for blaming others in any spoken language, we are told of another unuttered language called the body language, which sometimes can assume menacing character, likened to the burst of the proverbial mother-in-law at the hapless daughter-in-law of the stories about the two warring parties. The body language of the D-in-L in retaliation makes a fascinating study in our times.

Accepting a blame unconditionally and giving a word of assurance that there shall not be another occasion to invite the blame, in all humility, is not everybody’s cup of tea. Not all is well in contemporary society witnessing the cosmic dance of the blame-game in which people of virtually all cross-section in the population are indulging disdainfully. The country’s youth are being blamed for disrespecting the elderly in society. Teachers are blaming the student fraternity for indiscipline and neglect of studies. The elected representatives in various Legislative bodies have made it their whole-time business in hurling blame on each other for their perceived betrayal of the land’s masses, looting public funds, speaking falsehood, making hollow promises, indulging in criminal acts and so on.

Blaming is an excellent defence mechanism driven by the desire to safeguard one’s sense of self-esteem, unaware of one’s own flaws or failings. Unlike other games, the more often you play the blame-game, the more you lose. Lastly, blaming fate or higher power, especially when there is no one else who could conceivably be found to blame, is mark of our culture.