There is nothing called the last word. Words are slippery characters, the ultimate shift shapers loaded with opposite meanings. Like fast asleep. Or holding fast.
On the subject of the word ‘fast’, it conjures up images of a hare in flight hurtling down a road like a furry thunderbolt. There is nothing slower than going on a fast. It must be, excuse the pun, deathly boring. During the first 24 hours, you sit around waiting for the day to pass; waiting for the body to burn up all the fat and fuel stored up. The faster that happens, the fast gets even slower as body functions start shutting down one by one, just to keep the vital stuff working. That’s a very slow process.
So, what’s so fast about a fast?
Here is where the subtlety of word play comes in. It’s the intention behind the fast that it brings its context into play; nothing puts the bells and whistles on a word more than its antonym. The one going on fast wants fast action. When a person goes on fast, it is for two reasons. Either naturopathy dictates it or he is making a political statement. The meaning of the word here implies that the latter is trying to get whomsoever he is protesting against — usually a government — to eat its words and act fast. Everyone says Gandhi resembles Mickey Mouse, Anna Hazare a sort of endearing Hobbit, Ramdev a growly bear. A scurrying rabbit? Nevah!
So, in essence it is a word in disguise. It’s a sun with its own built-in eclipse. To understand how two antagonistic meanings can be imbedded in one unit, the source code is the key. Linguists guess that the word ‘fast’ probably originated from fæst — an Old English word that meant ‘firmly fixed, steadfast, secure, enclosed’; in turn originating from fastuz from the language spoken by Proto Germanic tribe Fris; which in turn is traced back to the word ‘past’ of Proto-Indo-European peoples who lived around 5,500 years ago. Their ancestral language was reconstructed by etymologists who concluded that ‘fast’ originated from the Sanskrit word pastyam or ‘dwelling place’. By the time ‘fast’ reached Old English, it acquired the meaning ‘swift’ which arose from the sense of ‘firmly’, ‘strongly’, ‘vigorously’, because etymological dictionaries remind you that ‘to run hard’ also means ‘to run fast’, that is in turn, supposed to have risen from the concept of the runner staying close to whatever he is chasing. Whew! And we accuse Vir Das of word play!
That is how language develops and gives birth to words that contain within each, the secret of their own contradiction. From a word that essentially means something not merely static, but firmly rooted and entrenched — that too, one with its own dwelling place — it turns into a deception that has run away from its ancient womb. As it flees one time warp for another space, like an alien in a Sigourney Weaver film, bearing its own stasis within, the word becomes transformed into its own antonym. Such is the nature of karma, which always has the last word.