Tongues out

                                                                    

As I was growing  up in the beautiful city of Bombay, there were a lot of things that I learnt and imbibed from this great city. One of the things that I discovered  in the city as I munched on its culture was the beautiful music of  Rock, which was a big thing at the time in Bombay – the bay of good hope. The artists I got introduced to and listened to are various artists, and to tell you about that is a never-ending yearning of stories. So that would be kept for another time, or probably …. Another series of articles.

  Every Rockstar brought a certain personality, or a style or more effectively—a mannerism which was copied by their followers all around the world. There were some mannerisms that were very common and were exhibited which were commonly practiced by all the Rockers at that time . I was the action of stretching your tongue out of your mouth combined with another move – the metal horns.

Still done in this time and age, it does not enjoy the recognition that it got at that particular time.The tongue out was a mode of communication between the Rockstar and his audience and also something that would be considered an amusement among college friends. At the time I did not think a lot about it.

However , as the years went by, I thought about the sign and where could this thing come from , this absurd act of sticking your tongue out of your mouth could fuel a myriad of thoughts.

   I wondered where this action could have come from, and the first thing I thought about was Kaali , the Indian Goddess who always sticks her tongue out. There was a demon whose blood, if it fell on the ground would create clones of the demon and increase his number and create a disturbance to the heavens. So Kaali used her tongue and drank up all the blood from the battlefield, then slayed all his clones and finally killed the main demon. But the tongue stills shows up on most of her images and idols.

So that’s one way of looking at it. The other way that the tongue can be seen is through the animal world where most of the animals have the habit of hanging their tongues out , just letting it go out in the open and gasping air at the same times. Dogs, wolves , bears and cats do the same – and even chickens keep their mouth open ehn they are tired exposing their tongue

The act of  extending can be taken to be funny and also could be a mockery  and well as it could be also be considered to be a “ Sexual Provocation”. This act has been used in various media to portray hunger and also Lust.

   One of the guys who was exceptional in the act was Gene Simmons who was from Kiss who had a very long tongue and the tongue stood out in all the performances. He sprayed it with blood and showed it to the audiences. Every rockstar put their tongue out, but since his appendage was so huge it caught the attention of  all the media  and was displayed on many magazine covers. There are shows where he would spray his tongue with blood and entertain the audience with the drama of rock Theatre.

The tongue out is also seen in an idiot and the pose is that of  his tongue coming out of his mouth and his hand hitting his head, which used to be seen in rockstars  who would do it for fun without the hand over the head.

In comparison to idiots, did you know that Einstein also used to stick his tongue out and said it was a representation of his political views. As we go  through cultures, in Tibet the act of sticking out your tongue is considered a greeting and also respecting the other person, whereas it is considered as a war-cry for the Maori people in New Zealand.

My search for the origin of the tongue sticking out has not been found. My search will continue to go on to discover the origin of the Rockstars hanging tongue. However  I think the hanging tongue may still be a part of the future, with Princess Charlotte flashing her tongue at the media. And that is a fairly distant future.