Urdu ke Naam - اردو كے نام

Interview: The Urdu professor of Uzbekistan

2011-12-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Pakistan - Culture - Language - Web 2.0

TASHKENT: In the middle of Central Asia, a professor has studied and taught Urdu for over half a century.
Professor Dr Tash Mirza is as passionate about the language now as he was in 1961, when he completed his doctorate in Urdu from Moscow University. His studies have taken him as far as Delhi, though his home for almost all his life has been Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
Mirza frequently visits Pakistan and India to attend seminars and conferences on Urdu literature. Now 75, he teaches Urdu at the city’s State Institute of Oriental Studies.
Speaking to The Express Tribune, Mirza says that Pakistan is his second home. From 1983 to 1987 he was the director of the Soviet Culture Centre in Karachi; he retains a strong attachment to the city.
Recognising his long service to the Urdu language in Central Asia, the Pakistani government honoured him with the Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 2011.
“I used to go to Pakistan two or three times a year. Recently, I attended the concluding functions and seminars regarding Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s centenary celebrations.” Faiz and Allama Iqbal, Mirza says, are the two totems of Urdu literature, although his admiration extends to many classical poets.
“Iqbal has a special place. There is a translation of his poetry in the Uzbek language, in which research has also been conducted. On December 22 we are going to organize a grand function on Allama Iqbal here in Tashkent.” Faiz’s poetry has also been translated into Uzbek, Mirza says, by a student in his department.
Mirza is concerned about the different trajectories Urdu is taking. “I feel it is going on two different platforms, and becoming a different language in Pakistan and Hindustan (India). I have been researching the characteristics of Pakistani Urdu and Indian Urdu, what is common and what is different between them.”
He has also written a compact Urdu-Uzbek dictionary, and he translates in both directions. Recently he published Urdu translations of several poems by Ali Sher Naovi, a renowned Uzbek poet.
However, disappointment can be glimpsed in his eyes when Mirza talks about the lack of interest from the Pakistani government in his Urdu Department in Tashkent. “Urdu has been taught here since 1947, but no single teacher from Pakistan has come here, which is really disappointing, though I know Urdu teachers from Pakistan go to different countries,” he says.
“Everywhere you will see professors from Pakistan but I don’t know why we have not been honoured with any teacher from Pakistan.”
There are more than 50 students currently learning Urdu at the institute – and all of them, Mirza says, want to visit Pakistan. Despite their enthusiasm, they face difficulties. “Despite the great wishes of our students to visit Pakistan, no such opportunity has been given to them yet.”
Mirza’s great ambition is to write a Urdu-Russian dictionary, and he has already started work on this project. “Publishing this dictionary is my mission now. I have to seek a publisher in Pakistan to publish it for the sake of the Urdu language. It will be a real asset for Russian students of Urdu.”
Concerning his award from the Pakistan government, he is delighted and modest. “I wonder if I am worthy of such a great honour or not. On August 15, one of my friends in Pakistan called me and congratulated me. At first, I was thinking it is because of Independence Day so I also congratulated him in return. But he said, ‘No, your name is in the list of Sitara-e-Imtiaz’. At first, I took it as a joke but then I read it in newspapers.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2011.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/305319/interview-the-urdu-professor-of-uzbekistan/

Live! Urdu Sha'eri and Discussions on Twitter

2009-02-10T22:46:00.000-08:00

Twitter is a microblogging service that is used pretty extensively around the world--and by Urdu-speakers and -lovers everywhere. And a lot of people post poetry on Twitter. And there's some very interesting baetbai fun and translation work on there as well. We are placing an RSS feed of what happens on Twitter below on this page.

Enjoy!

And remember; hit reload to get new material:

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Pakistan - Culture - Language - Web 2.0

Dr. Zeenat Sajida - RIP

2008-12-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

Dr. Zeenar Sajida, who was a well know Urdu scholar from Hyderabad, India, died on December 4th, 2008.

May her soul rest in piece.

Click here for the obits:

http://www.sherosokhan.com/id650.html
http://hyderabadis.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=490&Itemid=1

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

Yahaan Hamaaree Kya Zaroorath Hai?

2008-12-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

There's a line in one of the greatest "Bollywood" classics, written by the scions of a couple of the greatest South Asian literary families--sons of Urdu poets, to be precise--and delivered by a minor but unforgettable character, "Surma Bhopali" that goes "Yahaan hamaaree kya zaroorath hai; yahaan tho waisay hee aap kay naam ka warrant nikla huwa hai." [Who needs me? There's already a warrant out for your arrest.]

And that's the thought that's being going through my head as South Asia spirals downwards, some folks caution against jumping to conclusions, and others rally for peace. And I include the arguments over "Islamists did it. No, wait! Let's not jump to conclusions; it could be home grown!..." in that

How is it realistic to look at everything as either-or? The mess South Asia is in--not to mention the rest of the world--there's enough blame to go around. Neo-purist fanatics (our Islamist/Jihadists; their Sanghis; our--speaking from North America--Christian and Jewish fanatics); civilizing imperialists; ethnic militants (Sena, MQM, racists of white and other hue); everybody's jingoistic nationalists; everybody's military-industrial-intelligence complexes...all feed off each other. In some cases, they work with each other. Just for example, Is it too much of a stretch to believe that what is happening in Karachi (in case either of you missed it) is being helped along by Indian Intelligence (and who knows who else) as a counterpoint to what they see as Pakistani Intelligence "doing Mumbai"? From where I sit, what's happening in the NW of Pakistan also has elements of a turf battle.

And as we all participate in this circular firing squad--including the agonizing over Muslims being targeted or profiled--the folks I list above make leaps and bounds in the struggle for the hearts and minds of their respective target constituencies...

And PS: how many noticed there were riots in the prettiest town in Africa's largest nation, too? Rally anyone?

Cross-posted on the iFaqeer, Wadiblog, ProgressiveIslam.org, Pak Tea House, Urdu ke Naam, Doodpatti, by Tohfay, blogs.
Technorati tags applicable to this post: Mumbai - Pakistan - India - War on Terror - [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan]

Ahmad Faraz, RIP; حق مغفِرت کرے، اجب ازاد مرد تہا

2008-07-17T04:58:00.001-07:00

If there was every a time to to invoke the old line "Haq maghfirath karay, ajab azaad mard th-haa", it is today, as we mourn the passing of a titan.

From The News:

Legendary poet Ahmed Faraz passes away
Updated at: 1720 PST, Thursday, July 17, 2008

CHICAGO: Renowned poet and literary figure of Pakistan Ahmed Faraz died of kidneys failure here at a local hospital on Thursday.

He was under treatment at a hospital in Chicago.

Update: The news report was inaccurate. The rumours of his death, to quote another great writer, were greatly exaggerated. Please see here.

Azad Karachi Radio Program 010, February 20, 2008 - آزاد کراچی ریڈیو پروگرام شمار ۱۰

2008-02-20T02:08:00.002-08:00

Program 10 of Azad Karachi Radio is now online, the first of 2008 has guest Mehdi Hasnain join iFaqeer and Cemendtaur to discuss the American Elections, the Pakistani situation and events with Ayesha Siddiqa in California as well as a media item.

The program mentions, amongst other things:

ABN Chicago's Urdu Talk Radio Show
...and of course, Cemendtaur and iFaqeer's own blogs and the Karachi Photoblog and سمندطور کی اردو دنیا (Cemendtaur ki Urdu Duniya)

Program 10 of Azad Karachi Radio is available here:

http://azadkarachiradio.blogspot.com/2008/02/program-010-february-20-2008.html

Formally speaking, Azad Karachi Radio is produced out of Silicon Valley and is a service of Azad South Asia, a collaborative media effort initiated by yours truly and Cemendtaur. You can reach the team at iFaqeer@gmail.com or leave comments on either this blog or at Azad Karachi Radio.

Again, please leave comments, feedback, suggestions, and other input by posting comments on our blog pages or via email at iFaqeer@gmail.com.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Hindi - Urdu Podcast - Pakistani Podcast - Indian Podcast - Hindi Podcast - Moderate Muslims - Progressive Muslims - Benazir - Pakistani Elections - US Elections - Barack Obama - Hilary Clinton

Poetry of Revolution

2007-11-11T02:27:00.000-08:00

Before I forget or get distracted. I just found a post by Zaheer "Zak" Kidvai on his blog that is just a jewel for lovers of Urdu and Urdu poetry. You have just got to read it:

http://www.kidvai.com/windmills/2007/11/long-night-and-riot-of-memories.html

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Pakistan - Emergency - CrisisPK Urdu Pakistan - Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Aaj bazaar main, pabajaolaan chalo...

2007-11-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

... so said Faiz Ahmed Faiz, probably the most popular poet of revolution in the latter half of the 20th century in South Asia; Pakistan, India, and particularly on the Left.

South Asia has a very rich tradition of poetry, one which draws on both the spiritual tradition that gave the world Rumi and Khayyam, and the revolutionary spirit of the last century or two. And because of the Sufi tradition it is steeped in, allegory, depth of meaning, and multi-faceted verbiage is the norm, rather than the exception. The words "Aaj bazaar main pa-bajaolaan chalo..." are probably some of the most recognized word. The "jewels" being described are, for the uninitiated, the ball and chain of oppression. Here's the poet himself reciting the poem, with English sub-titles, followed by one of the best renditions of the poem with music, in this case with an overlay of dramatic video:

[You can read the piece by Dr. Adil Najam, where I first found this video, here.]

But wait, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists has sent out a poster that puts these words above a poster that just needs to be seen to be believed. You couldn't, as we say, make this stuff up:

Please check in regularly at WikiPakistan's Emergency 2007 pages:

http://pakistan.wikia.com/wiki/Emergency_2007

for updates. And contribute what input you can, participate in whichever way you can.

[My previous post on the issue, introducing the Emergency 2007 wiki pages, by the way, is here.]

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Pakistan - Emergency - CrisisPK Urdu Pakistan - Faiz Ahmad Faiz

The romance of Urdu is lost in translation

2007-07-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.livemint.com/2007/07/14001456/The-romance-of-Urdu-is-lost-in.html

All languages convey a culture but, perhaps, no other language does this better than Urdu.

Do you have regrets? I do. One of the great regrets in my life is that I cannot understand Urdu. I am reading this book called The Lost World of Hindustani Music by the late Kumar Prasad Mukherji. His floral descriptions of the Lucknow of his childhood only intensify my regret. Apparently, even the tongawalas of Lucknow spoke polished and courteous Urdu.
Languages are repositories of a culture. I know this because I grew up with a linguist. My father speaks 10 languages: French, German, Russian and several Indian languages. Now, at age 70, he is learning Mandarin Chinese.

Listening to The Magic Flute, he says, is a completely different experience if you know German; reading War and Peace in the original Russian offers nuances that are lost in the English translation.

All languages convey a culture but, perhaps, no other language does this better than Urdu. America’s exuberance, for instance, isn’t quite captured in English; Punjabi enterprise and risk-taking isn’t fully expressed in the crude bravado of its language; Mumbaiya Hindi captures the capitalist matlabi Mumbaikar but fails to represent Mumbai’s generous spirit that swells, it seems, with every monsoon flood and natural catastrophe that hits this city. Italian barely conveys the depths of Italy’s contribution to the arts, particularly opera. But Urdu... the cadences and sighs of this beautiful language seem to encompass the courtly graces of Islamic-Indian culture which flourished in Awadh.

Urdu is the language of romance; it is the language of poetry, of diplomacy. I can’t help think that if Juliet had uttered her “Good Night” and “Parting is such sweet sorrow” in Urdu, the whole Montague-Capulet quarrel would have been sorted out. When my untutored ear listens to Urdu shairi, what I enjoy is the relish with which the poem is told and the wah wahs with which it is appreciated. When I listen to a Farida Khanum ghazal, I don’t understand the lyrics, but my heart hears the longing. The Mughals were many things but they were, above all, bon vivants. They epitomized the title of my column. They lived the good life by surrounding themselves with decorative things, aromatic cuisine, soulful music and heartfelt poetry. All of this is encompassed in the exquisite nuances of their language.

Living in South India is a handicap if you enjoy Urdu. Besides Hyderabad, there is no bastion of the Urdu language in the South. Purists will probably say you have to go to Lahore or Pathankot to hear good Urdu, but for a novice such as me, New Delhi is good enough. That said, one of the wonderful things about India, though, is that you can find pink lotuses in the most surprising ponds (to slightly alter an ancient Tamil poem). You can find Bengali scholars in Mulund, Sanskrit experts in Lucknow and excellent Bharatanatyam dancers in, perhaps, Noida. In Bangalore, where I live, I know a gentleman called C.R.V. Subramaniam. A more Tamilian name you cannot find. But this gentleman grew up in Varanasi and speaks excellent Urdu. He composes Urdu shairi, usually after a drink or two and then translates it for me. CRV Uncle introduced me to the nuances and gestures of the Urdu language, the lakshan of a shairi or raga; the lilting intonation with which it ought to be spoken. Like Bengalis, who take pride in their language, lovers of Urdu are uniformly fanatical, believing Urdu to be the mother lode, the fairest language of them all. I wish I had learnt it. I wish I could understand it.

Shoba sings Urdu ghazals... with atrocious pronunciation... mercifully when she is alone. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

Update on Translation: گوہر رزہ کی نظم "شامِ غریباں" ۔

2007-07-11T03:31:00.000-07:00

In my very first post on this blog, I had mentioned a translation of an Urdu piece by Gauhar Raza that I had put on my personal blog, and had been trying to get in touch with him to submit it for his attention and maybe get his okay for. I finally got in touch with him (and his wife Shabnam Hashmi) over the last few days and got him to comment on the translation and the poem. It was gratifying to hear that he thought well of the humble effort at translation. He added:

"Though I would like the poem to be dead and irrelevant as soon as possible but since the world is not going to be peaceful in near future therefore I suppose it has some use."

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu translation - Gauhar Raza

Writing Urdu for a Scottish Fair - سارے جھاں میں دھوم۔۔۔

2007-07-11T03:08:00.000-07:00

Recently had a very interesting chance to help someone with Urdu text. I got a message from a fellow contributor to the Wikipedia, asking for Urdu text for "Festival" and "Carnival" and I sent those to him--and suggesting that he also use the word Urdu word "میلہ" (mela). He's put it up and you can check it out at. [Warning: it also kicks up a pop-up ad.]

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu] - Scotland - Wikipedia

Urdu TechNews اردو ٹیکنالوجی اخبار

2007-02-26T18:27:00.000-08:00

From Qadeer Ahmad Rana, Editor of Urdu TechNews اردو ٹیکنالوجی اخبار, we hear that because of the BlogSpot ban in Pakistan, Urdu TechNews has moved from urdutechnews.blogspot.com to to http://urdutechnews.wordpress.com.

For readers who are not familiar with it, Urdu TechNews اردو ٹیکنالوجی اخبار provides technology news, reviews, articles, downloads, links, etc in Urdu language (yes, written in the Urdu script).

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Technology

The Lord's Prayer in Urdu

2006-12-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I have always thought that the opening lines of the "The Lord's Prayer" often repeated by a lot of Christians (or is just a Catholic thing?) have a very elegant sound to them--especially when chanted gently and in unison by a bunch of people--kinda like the "Ameen" one hears at the end of the Fatiha in congregations with enough Malikis in it (who tend to say it out loud, unlike most Urdu speakers, who usually follow the Hanafi school of Islamic practise):

Holy Father, who art in heaven
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On Earth
As it is in heaven...

So, don't ask me how, but I stumbled on this a littel while ago and have been meaning to post it here; it's a page with the The Lord's Prayer in Urdu, together with a translation of "Ave Maria", the Catholic prayer to Bibi Maryam, The Virgin Mary, the formulation of the Trinity, and a couple of other things:

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-urdu.html

Here's the prayer itself:

I have never actually heard it being chanted in Urdu. I wonder if it sounds anywhere near as sonorous; Urdu is a rather mellifluous language generally, so maybe it does...maybe some of the folks who were pillorying me on a list I am on for (they thought) being averse to any mention of Christianity and Pakistan in the same breath can help with that...

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Christianity - [Pakistan] - India - Interfaith

Giving One's Life in the Holy Land - ...هم مدينے مين تنحا نكل جائينگے

2006-11-30T00:50:00.000-08:00

Just thought I would share a post on my blog centered around a very small news story in an Saudi Paper and it's evoking a spiritual poem from "back home"...

hum madinay main tanha nikal jayaingay
aur galiyon main qasdhan b-hatak jay'eingay

hum wahaan jaa kay waapas naheen aayaingay
d-hoondthay d-hoondthay loag th-hak ja'eingay

in quick-and-dirty translation:

we will venture out into The City (of Madina) all alone
and lose our way in the streets, on purpose

we go to that land, and will not return
try and try as they might, folks will tire of trying to find us

The post is at:

http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/11/giving-ones-life-in-holy-land.html

Main Blog at:

http://iFaqeer.blogspot.com

If you are in Pakistan or elsewhere where you have difficulty accessing the Blogspot domain due to censorship, etc., please use

http://www.pkblogs.com/iFaqeer

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Faith - Spirituality - Islam - Urdu

Are you sure... Qabil Ajmeri - مگر كبهي دل كي دهركنون مين ... قابل اجميري

2006-11-24T23:51:00.000-08:00

Unaiza Nasim has a new (or at least new to me) blog where she seems to just be collecting good, really good, Urdu poetry. Here's one that had a very special place in our hearts back in college:

http://unaizanasim.wordpress.com/2006/11/08/kia-kero-gay

It's by Qabil Ajmeri...someone whose life story itself, we are told is the stuff of literature.

(And yes, I know I have used a "ray" () where I should have used a "Ray", so to speak, in the subject line/heading. But I am on a Apple OS X computer and don't have any keyboard options that type the right character. I will fix it later.)

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language] - Qabil Ajmeri

rumi-o-hafiz-o-khayyam ka dhaik-ha hai kalaam

2006-11-23T01:04:00.000-08:00

Also posted on the iFaqeer blog, with the title "Rumi. And Hafez. And Khayyam. And Of Whence They Spake.".

All the positive feedback on my post yesterday has been very gratifying.

Readers might also want to read this.

It is my desire to bring the poets and qawwals of South Asia to as wide an audience as "Rumi-o-Hafiz-o-Khayyam". We all read these these elders, and we all need to. But especially in this day and age we (all of us; Muslims and not, Sufi-leaning or not, Westerners and not) need to reconnect with the living tradition they represent--especially in South Asia. We need to connect with the zawiya, or angle, facet, of Islam that was, and still is, rooted so deep in the lands from where all we hear nowadays is "Deobandi", "Taliban", "Maududi", "Terrorism", and on and on.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Tasawwuf - Sufi - Sufism - Aziz Mian - Sufi - Rumi - Hafez - Hafiz - Khayyam - Divine Love - Moderate Muslims - Progressive Muslims

ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee! !حاءے كمبخت تو نے پي هى نهين

2006-11-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

Strong Disclaimer: This post is written purely "for myself". I know some will be touched by it--in whatever way--but if you're put off by either metaphysics, tasawwuf (Sufism), abstractions, or weird, personal transliteration schemes, PLEASE, PLEASE, do not read on. I really don't want to get into detailed discussions of any kind.

There are moments when one just wants to let go; to be lost in something. Something deep. When that happens, I often find myself gravitating to Qawwali, the Muslim mystic musical art form of "Sama" in its South Asian incarnation.

There's one piece, in particular, that I have been promising myself I will translate, render, if you will, into English and post, but just haven't had the energy and bandwidth to sit down and apply myself to the task.

So I just got home about 11 pm tonight (technically yesterday at this point) after attending, I guess, what you'd call a political meeting. After the meeting, I got into a rather refreshingly intelligent conversation with a relatively new friend. By the time I got home, and had checked in on the kids, and sat down to dinner, like I said, I was in a mood that was definitely leaning towards mu'arfa, irfan, tasawwuf, the metaphysical, or whatever you want to call it. So I turned to one of the only two bookmarks I have in the Real Player on my Mac at home.

And the first through, I just got lost listening to this piece. By the end of it, I was definitely close to a "haal", the Sufi version of what our US brothers and sisters would call "being in the zone", "the flow", and so on. And I am not even a formal Sufi. For a traditional "desi" like me (a South Asian), that is a title reserved for some attainment in the metaphysical realm. I am just someone who, I will admit, has an inclination in that direction and, frankly, have been too chicken to formally step on the "tareeq", or Way.

The piece just captures the mood I am in perfectly; the frustration with Naseh, The Preachy Folks, and their obsession with preaching and obsessing with enjoining moral conduct; the reference to the Wine of Truth's greatest bartenders (others use the word "cup bearers", but let's get with the 21st of Our Lord, The Prophet of Divine Love, shall we?) being exactly in Karbala, Najaf, and Samarra; and, of course, the frustration with folks who interpret the references to Wine, and Love in "our" language as moonshine (how else do I translate "t-harra"?) and carnal lust...

So then I looped back and transcribed the parts of it that I think really should be brought to the Rumi- and Hafiz- and Khayyam-in-English-reading public. I am going to try and do the translation some time later. But if you care to, and understand Urdu and/or the languages around it in the linguistic geography (like Hindi and Dakkani and Awadhi and...), do take a read to the following...and/or just watch this space for a translation.

The piece is almost universally referred to as "ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee!" (Oh! You Unfortunate Wretch! You have not Imbibed!) Here are my selected excerpts. First the prologue, itself one the most deliciously intense tongue twisters in the Urdu language:

samajh samajhna samajh kay samjhoe
samajh samajhna bhee aik samajh hai

samajh samajh kay bhee joe na samjhai
mairee samajh main woe na samajh hai

and then the Qawwali itself, sung at the link above by the person who people who connect with the art on a very unvarnished, unapologetic level, as about the greatest proponent of that form in the 20th Century; Aziz Mian:

lutf-e-mai tujh say kya kahoon, nadaaN
(aray) ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee!

x x

bathla'ey dhatha hoon thujhay maikhaanon ka patha
batha-o-kazmain, khurasan, saamara

khurshid mudha'a maira burj-e-sharaf main hai
aik saaqi karbala main maira, aik najaf main hai

x x

mairay shairon kay haqeeqath main na maanee samjha
badha-e-haq koe thoo angoor ka paanee samjha

thoo nahee jaantha arbab-e-thariqath kay usool
thayray bayhoodha sawaalaath sar-a-sar hain fizool

thoo nahee jaantha paymana kisay kehthay hain
thoo nahee jaantha maykhana kisay kehthay hain

isthaylaahaath-e-thasawwuf kee nahee thujh koe khabar
faqr kee raah main jahaan miltha hai jahaan kaif-e-nazar

kot-chashmi say thujhai k-hotee k-haree lagthee hai
mai-e-irfan bhee thujhay laal paree lagthee hai

ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee!

x x

ahl-e-daanish nay thairay zehen ko kaisa samj-ha
baadha-e-shair koe jis dhum thoonay t-harra samjha

mai-e-tauheed kee main thoe wazahath kee th-hee
thoo na samj-hay aray nadaan yay qismath thairee

rumi-o-hafiz-o-khayyam ka dhaik-ha hai kalaam
jaam-o-meena kay libadha main thareeqath th-hee thamaam

naseha thuj-hai naseehath kay siwaa kaam nahee
jaam main gharq na kardhoon thoe maira naam nahee!

x x

(yay) Allah ki inayath hai kay main saif zubaaan hoon
Aur naasay, thairay liyay main koh-e-garaan hoon

I should put that last couplet in my email signature...once I have a translation, I guess...

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Tasawwuf - Sufi - Sufism - Aziz Mian - Sufi - Rumi - Hafez - Hafiz - Khayyam - Divine Love - Moderate Muslims - Progressive Muslims

آزاد کراچی ریڈیو پروگرام شمار ۵ - Program 5, October 29, 2006

2006-10-30T03:08:00.000-08:00

آزاد کراچی ریڈیو کے پروگرام شمار ۵ میں آئی فقیر نے گفتگو کا آغاز "آزاد کراچی ریڈیو" کی وجہ تسمیہ سے کیا۔ سمندطور نے بلاگ کی دنیا، حاکمیت جمہور کی دنیا کے عنوان سے ایک مختصر تحریر پڑھی۔ پھرآئی فقیر نے وادئ سلیکن میں پاکستانیوں کی ایک تنظیم اوپن کے حالیہ اجلاس کا کچھ حال سامعین کو سنایا۔ سمندطور نے امریکہ کی جنوبی سرحد پہ کھڑی کی جانے والی مجوزہ دیوار کے بارے میں رائے زنی کی۔ آئی فقیر نے حجاب کے متعلق اپنے کچھ مشاہد ات پیش کیے۔ پھر سمندطور نے جیک اسٹرا اور برقعہ کے عنوان سے اپنا ایک مختصر مضمون پیش کیا۔ آئی فقیر نے پروگرام کا اختتام اكبر اله بادي کے چند خيالات سے کیا اور سامعین کو پروگرام پہ تنقید کی دعوت دی۔

iFaqeer starts Program 5 a discussion of the provenance of the program's name. Cemendtaur then presents a piece titled "World of Blogs; World of Democracy", discussing blogs, democracy and globalization. iFaqeer then provides an update of an event by OPEN in Silicon Valley on the anniversary of the earthquake in South Asia and goes on to discuss some aspects of the topic of community and community building that the event focused on. Cemendtaur then discusses the proposed wall on the United States' southern border. iFaqeer then discusses his thoughts on the concept of Hijab and it's modern manifestation and Cemendtaur follows up with a short essay titled "Jack Straw and the Burka". iFaqeer concludes the program with quotes from Urdu poet/satirist Akbar Allahabadi.

Program 005 of Azad Karachi Radio is available at:

http://azadkarachiradio.blogspot.com/2006/10/program-5-october-29-2006.html

If you are in Pakistan or elsewhere where you have difficulty accessing the Blogspot domain due to censorship, etc., please use:

http://www.pkblogs.com/AzadKarachiRadio

Formally speaking, Azad Karachi Radio is produced out of Silicon Valley and is a service of Azad South Asia, a collaborative media effort initiated by yours truly and Cemendtaur. You can reach the team at iFaqeer@gmail.com or leave comments on either this blog or at Azad Karachi Radio.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Hindi - Urdu Podcast - Pakistani Podcast - Indian Podcast - Hindi Podcast

سمندطور کی اردو دنیا/Cemendtaur ki Urdu Duniya - New Urdu Blog

2006-10-29T22:40:00.000-08:00

After almost a couple of years of nudging--hopefully all of it polite--Cemendtaur has launched a blog in Urdu. Do check it out and interact with it. Cemendtaur is a writer with very unique and deep thoughts, a style all his own and, of course, a group good grasp of the language. I really feel it is a very necessary and positive step to have him join the conversation online interactively in Urdu:

http://cemendtaur-ki-urdu-dunya.blogspot.com/

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Pakistan - Urdu Blogs - Cemendtaur

Az Karachi asth, Radioyay Azad; Relaunching Azad Karachi Radio

2006-10-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I had started podcasting. I, we, rather, started two podcasts. One was in English and was, well, podcast, via the RSS feed for this blog while the other was in Urdu and podcast as "Azad Karachi Radio".

To which a lot of people go..."Say what?!" Are you talking about the political independence of Karachi, a la Singapore?

Well, let's explain.

Both of the members of the team working on the podcast count the city of Karachi as our emotional, intellectual and social wellspring. And thus the idea is to have an Azad--the word, say, Gandhi would have used, for "free"--voice that has a Karachi accent and speaks with the spirit of that brave city.

Thus the title of this post: Az Karachi asth, Radioyay Azad.

That phrase is my uneducated way of saying "From the heart of Karachi, this is Azad Radio". PaRhay lik-hay koe Farsi kya hai, پڑھے لِکھے کو فارسے کیا ہے؟ , as the old line of poetry went; educated people should be able to grasp complicated ideas in literary language--which, before Europe became ascendant, was Farsi, from Istanbul to Rangoon, if not further.

Another reason--and this might be a very personal eccenticity of mine--the phrase from Persian pops into my head is that, growing up abroad, my father used to listen BBC Urdu (as well as English and Hindi) regularly. And if you didn't turn the radio off fast enough at the end of most Urdu broadcasts, the next thing you heard on that wavelength was "Az London asth, Radioyay BBC" (From London, this is BBC Radio). So in my head, Urdu, Radio and the traditional roots of Urdu come together in that one sentence. And it took me decades to actually learn what the words exactly meant.

So, to paraphrase the call sign of BBC's Persian Service, az Karachi asth, radioyay azad. Cemendtaur and I are reviving Azad Karachi Radio with Program 4, a year after the last one went online.

This program restarts the discussion with Cemendtaur joining the team live and in studio. This program congratulates celebrants on Ramzan, Eid and Diwali, with some thoughts on the spirit of the season; discusses the first anniversary of the earthquake in South Asia and the role of the blogosphere in helping remember those in need; and throws out some political thoughts on matters of social concern, also discussing the
recent exchange between a seminarian (madarasa student) and Gen. Pervez Musharraf that made the rounds on the Internet.

The audio file for directly downloading and listening to the fourth program is here. You can now also stream the podcast using the Odeo (odeo/5e510de8d8638707) player from any Azad Karachi Radio blog page.
Just take a look at the top righthand corner of the page!

The new edition of the podcast is at:

http://azadkarachiradio.blogspot.com/2006/10/azad-karachi-radio-program-004-october.html

And the main Blog is at: http://azadkarachiradio.blogspot.com/

The podcast is aslo available on Yahoo! Podcasts at:

http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=3d848ad579b260b163d17218e7fcbad5

and on Odeo at:

http://odeo.com/channel/34582/view

Though the directories might need a little time to register the new edition--they hadn't at the time of writing this.

You can subscribe to either the text version of this blog or the Podcast using the following the following URL/link for our RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AzadKarachiRadio

and copy-pasting that address where the software you use to subscribe to PodCasts (for example iTunes from Apple, iPodder, etc.) asks you to put addresses of Podcasts you are subscribing to manually.

If you are in Pakistan or elsewhere where you have difficulty accessing the Blogspot domain due to censorship, etc., please use:

http://www.pkblogs.com/AzadKarachiRadio

Formally speaking, Azad Karachi Radio is a service of Azad South Asia, a collaborative media effort initiated by yours truly and Cemendtaur, out of Silicon Valley. You can reach the team at iFaqeer@gmail.com or leave comments on either this blog or at Azad Karachi Radio.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Hindi - Urdu Podcast - Pakistani Podcast - Indian Podcast - Hindi Podcast

Pictures of Ghalib's Tomb and Khwaja Nizamuddin's Mausoleum

2006-10-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

Just noticed this at Jahane Rumi

Na kaheen mazaar hoe tha...

Click on the picture to go the post and see more pictures.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Ghalib - Khwaja Nizamuddin

First Urdu Radio Station launched in India

2006-09-15T03:03:00.000-07:00

After the launch of Doordarshan's Round-the-clock Urdu channel, now it is the turn of a 24 hour Urdu Radio Station.

On 7th September 2006, Worldspace Radio, India launched the first-ever exclusive Urdu Radio Station. It is named Falak, meaning "Sky".

Shishir Lall, Managing Director of WorldSpace India said at the launch,
"We are delighted to launch the country's first exclusive Urdu radio station and look forward to celebrating the mystery and beauty of the language of a bygone era with listeners across the country."
"Falak will now enable music lovers to go back in time and indulge in the lyrical sounds of Urdu."

Some Programs on Falak:
Taareekh Key Jharokhey Sey – An interesting peep into the times gone by, Radio Falak takes a look into the history of various important cities, places of interest, monuments etc., sharing interesting and unknown anecdotes.

Filmy Saughaat – The show showcases film songs featuring Urdu lyrics, from India and Pakistan. Sabiha Fazal, a specialist presenter who excels in his knowledge of Hindustani and Pakistani film music, shares anecdotes about singers, composers, songwriters, and film producers on this entertaining show.

Aqwaal-E-Zareen – Catch social messages by great philosophers from all over the globe that have been translated and adapted in Urdu to imbibe modesty, humility and good human values.

Bazm-E-Khanam – A special program for the ladies, the show features tips on good health, house keeping, family relations, culinary delights from Indian, Mughlai, Irani, Uzbeki, Arabic and Afghani platter – their history, the little known tricks and techniques of their preparation.

Sufiyana Kalaam – A special program featuring Sufi Qawalis, Mersias, Nohas and Baints

Ghazal Usne Chhedi – Tune in for a fascinating program featuring theme based shows on Urdu poetry

Sham-E-Farozan – Catch the very best ghazals by renowned Urdu poets on this enchanting show.

If you are looking at recapture the culture and ethos of a bygone era, tune in to Radio Falak and revel in the soothing yet powerful voices of legends like Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Iqbal Bano, Tahira Saiyad, Farida Khanam, Reshma, Abida Parveen and the legendry Nusrat Saheb.

Sources:
1. Times of India

2. Agencyfaqs

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

DD Urdu: Der Aaye, Durust Aaye

2006-08-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

UkN had earlier mentioned about Doordarshan's plan of starting a 24 hour Urdu news channel in India. And finally, the channel has been unveiled.

On the eve of India's 59th independence day, the country's Punjabi/Urdu speaking (as he's a migrant from Pakistan) prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, officially announced the launch of DD Urdu, the 24 hour Urdu news channel.

The launching of this channel will definitely give fresh breaths to this beleaguered language, and will also prove to be élan vital for Urdu media which many thought is dying in India.

Urdu ke Naam wishes DD Urdu all the very best.

Click for news report: http://www.hindu.com/2006/08/16/stories/2006081618441200.htm

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

On importance of Doordarshan's Urdu Channel

2006-08-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

"Urdu is an important language of the country with about 52 million people having declared it as their mother tongue."

- P R Dasmunsi (Information & Broadcasting Minister, Government of India)

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1894036.cms

Urdu to be taught in Himachal schools

2006-08-17T00:34:00.000-07:00

Dharamsala, Aug 8 (IANS)

Source: http://www.nerve.in/news:25350011258

Urdu will be introduced as an optional subject in government schools in Himachal Pradesh.
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh announced this here while addressing a gathering of Urdu poets from India and Pakistan.

The schools where Urdu would be taught were being identified, he said. Singh said his government had been extending a warm welcome to Pakistani delegates visiting Himachal Pradesh from time to time.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

Doordarshan (India) Launches a New Urdu Channel

2006-08-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

A new Urdu channel launched by Doordarshan (the official television channel of the Government of India). Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh launched the new channel on the occasion of the 59th Independence Day of India, August 15, 2006, in New Delhi.

______________________________________________________________________

NEW DELHI:

Beginning this Independence Day, an Urdu channel will be offered from Doordarshan's stables. Slated for launch by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday evening, the channel goes on air a good eight-and-a-half months behind schedule.

Keeping a commitment made in Parliament to repeated requests from across the political spectrum for an Urdu channel from the Doordarshan platform, the then Union Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy had in June 2005 announced that it would be launched on January 1, 2006. In fact, fund allocation had also been made in the 2005-06 Budget. However, problems in software availability and "general inertia" delayed the launch of the channel.

With the powers that be at Doordarshan deciding that DD-Urdu will be a public service channel, software availability continues to be a problem.

To begin with, DD-Urdu will be on air for seven-and-a-half hours with only two-and-a-half hours of fresh programming in the evening. This will be repeated twice the following day.

The content will be a mixed bag; part entertainment, part news and part information. Daily, the channel will air a news magazine christened `Imroze'. Also, film director Muzaffar Ali has been commissioned to produce a 52-episode programme on Urdu litterateurs.

Besides, the in-house production team has put together a film-based programme, and a cultural round-up has been prepared for the channel by ANI TV. Add to this, B. R. Chopra's serial "Bahadur Shah Zafar" of 1986 vintage. Doordarshan officials said the public broadcaster had floated tenders to acquire more Urdu programmes.

(Report courtesy, The Hindu)

http://www.hindu.com/2006/08/14/stories/2006081403271300.htm

Mumbai Blasts; A Shairana Response

2006-07-20T03:02:00.000-07:00

DNAIndia has the text of a nazm by Jawed Akhtar about the Mumbai bomb blasts or, more generally, terrorism:

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1042659

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Terrorism

Qasmi: Kaun kehtha hai kay mauth aayee tho marjaa'oN ga...

2006-07-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

[Photo courtesy Urdu Manzil and Syed Saghier Ahmed Jafri]

As we say in Urdu, the man has passed on from the material, ephemeral world. But the poet and his poetry lives on, and helps us live on. Probably one of the most quoted couplets in Urdu about this very matter, one that captures the matter as few have done before, in any cultural and literary tradition, is from Janaab-e-Qasmi himself, who said:

kaun kehtha hai kay mauth aayee tho marjaa'onga
main thoe dharya hoon samandhar main uthar jaa'onga

Who says that when death comes, I will die away?
I am a river and into the ocean will I flow away

The Wikipedia article on Qasmi Saahab can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Nadeem_Qasimi

Of course, in this day and age, where a lot of us go to express our grief and share our loss is the Internet. There are now quite a few websites where one can find Urdu poetry and pictures of Qasmi Saahab. Here' a selection:

From Amjad Sheikh, we get:

Poetry of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi Marhoom in his own voice. including his famous poem Pathar:

http://www.urdulife.com/mushaira/poet.cgi?anq_ahmed_nadeem_qasmi

And in Unicode (meaning it is written in Urdu and easier to read, and you can make it bigger, etc. like you would English text), we have:

http://tinyurl.com/rsyob

You can also read selected poetry by Qasmi Shaib at

http://www.urdulife.com/forum/index.php?showforum=65

On a personal note, I just noticed a post on the BBC Urdu blog from Musaddaq Sanwal, someone I knew, as they say, in another life:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/urdu/2006/07/post_12.html

And from the UAE, Syed Saghier Ahmed Jafri Saahab and Urdu Manzil send the picture above and the following links for poetry:

http://www.urdumanzil.com/adab_nama/allmi_mushaira/index.html
http://www.urdumanzil.com/adab_nama/qasmivisit/index.html

and photographs:

http://www.urdumanzil.com/adab_nama/pics/photo-10.html
http://www.urdumanzil.com/adab_nama/pics/photo-14.html

The post on Pakistaniat: All Things Pakistancan be found at:

http://pakistaniat.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/ahmed-nadeem-qasmi/

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Poets - Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi

Urdu Diploma course for Non-Urdu speakers

2006-05-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : `Don't give Urdu a communal colour'

Source: The Hindu, dated May 27, 2006

BANGALORE: The former Additional Chief Secretary Chiranjeevi Singh on Friday called upon people "not to give Urdu language a communal colour."

"To associate Urdu language with Muslims alone is wrong. Urdu is a language with historical importance and it belongs to all. It represents a cultural synthesis and has no barriers," he said after inaugurating a diploma course in Urdu for non-Urdu learners.

He pointed out that the popularity of ghazal and Urdu poetry had attracted many people towards learning the language.

He urged the Karnataka Urdu Academy, which has started the course in coordination with the National Council for Promotion of Urdu, New Delhi, to give preference to "Deccani Urdu" rather than "Aligarhi" and "Lucknowi Urdu." He also suggested that the Urdu Academy should get textbooks prepared in Deccani Urdu at least up to the primary level.

Encouraging non-Urdu learners to take up the diploma course, Mr. Singh said: "If you follow a Bollywood film or even hum a Hindi song, it shows that you are interested in Urdu. It is a beautiful language. Once you master the language, you can start playing with it."

Tourism and Information Secretary I.M. Vittal Murthy promised support to the academy in popularising the language. Academy chairman M. Nooruddin said the one-year diploma course would commence from June 4. Classes, which will be conducted by specially trained faculty, would be held on Sundays between 9 a.m. and noon. There was no minimum qualification to get admission to the course and the fee for the entire year was Rs. 200, he said.

Interested persons can obtain the admission forms from the academy's office at Kannada Bhavan. Details can be had on +91 80 22213167.

~ Qais

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

Dhaikhaingay; Lazim Hai kay Hum Bhee Dhaikhaingay

2006-05-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Adil Najam's Pakistan- Based on Faiz Ahmed Faiz's "Hum Daiykain Gay".
6 minutes and 35 seconds
April 24th, 2006

Here's a personal testament from one Pakistani about his country. It's also a very interesting piece of electronic art incorporating one of the most popular pieces of Urdu poetry written in the 20th Century:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6291983484610119600&q=pakistan

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Faiz - Pakistan

Photo: Urdu University

2006-04-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

A front view of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), the sole Urdu University of India - and one of the biggest institutions of Urdu in the Indian Sub Continent. Prof.A.M.Pathan is currently the vice chancellor of the University.

The University is situated in the outskirts of Hyderabad, India.
Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

Eulogy to an Urdu Lexicographer

2006-04-03T01:24:00.000-07:00

The following piece appeared in The Hindu, eulogizing a star persona from the world of Urdu: Shan-ul-Haq; the star that disappeared in the maze of infinite galaxy, but not before giving several eternal gleam to the world of Urdu literature, the most prominent being the compilation of the Oxford English-Urdu dictionary, the bilingual edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

http://www.hindu.com/lr/2006/04/02/stories/2006040200340600.htm

An elegy for a lost friend

BY ANAND

A tribute to Shanul Haq, Urdu scholar and linguist.

SHANUL HAQ `Haqqee' died in October 2005, at age 88. For some, he was the grand old man of lexicography; for many, of the Urdu ghazal. For me he was a friend.
The intensity of this loss and grief felt by many like me calls for some elucidation.
Shaul Haq Saheb — that's how I addressed him — spent most of his last years compiling the Oxford English-Urdu dictionary, the bilingual edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the mother of English lexicons. He was particularly pleased that he could include Urdu equivalents of almost 1,25,000 English words and expressions as well as illustrative sentences (with their Urdu translations) to convey the exact meaning of the word or idiom. And that a guide for pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) would help overcome a persistent problem that Urdu speakers face.

Wide interests

There is no use listing some of the highest civilian and literary awards he was given, for that would fail to reveal the breadth of his wide interests and learning. Every generation has its grand old men; he belonged to the generation before me. But this gap seemed to vanish every time we met, whether to discuss the column on language that I wrote for a Canadian publication, or to talk about some problem with the word-processing software I had given him. Often we did this while sneaking a cigarette outside his home in Montreal or by going to a bistro for a glass of wine, both of which he preferred to do away from his son's house where he had been living after migrating to Canada. He often lamented the contract for the dictionary that he had signed with OUP several years ago for a laughable sum, but he abided with the terms of the contract being the gentleman that he was, toiling regardless to produce an excellent work of reference.
He could not have been farther from the image of the archetypical cantankerous, verging-on-senility, grand old person of letters. In his late seventies, when most grand old men are content with wearing their laurels, he mastered the use of the word-processor and the mystery of the Internet. He would sometimes telephone me for help in retrieving documents, result of several days work, that his computer seemed intent on swallowing without a trace. Next he began tackling the Urdu word-processing software, no mean task as several letters of the alphabet must be joined to form words in Urdu. Once when I told him about a Hindi word-processing software, he immediately asked me to get it for him, and within a matter of months, sent me the copy of one his collections of Urdu verse transcribed in Hindi script, for corrections.

Shanul Haq Saheb was born in Delhi, and studied at the Aligarh Muslim University and at Delhi's St. Stephen's College. His love of languages began with his first job, translating the Axis power's propaganda broadcasts in Hindi-Urdu into English, in 1942 in Shimla. He used to reminisce, with a certain nostalgia, about the charms of hill lasses. He was in Calcutta (Kolkata) at the time of the Partition, and used to recall with horror the killing that took place right in front of the hotel where he had sought refuge. The train full of Muslims that was meant to take him and other refugees back to Delhi was sent straight to Pakistan, a regret that he never outlived. He chose to settle in Pakistan, as there was little inkling at that time of the bitterness that was to develop in its relations with India.

Legacies

I was to find that his standing as one of the architects of modern Urdu ghazal was no less towering than his reputation as a linguist and a scholar of Urdu language. Among his legacies is the Grand Urdu Lexicon. The first 16 volumes of this monumental work were published when he was the Honorary Secretary of Pakistan's Urdu Language Board. He told me of the countless hours he spent late into the night, after his regular job at the Ministry of Information, at the Board's office filling out nearly 1,00,000 hand-written cards for the words that were to be included in the lexicon.

Shanul Haq Saheb's skill as a translator was sometimes overshadowed by his eminence in other areas. He had translated the Bhagawad Gita and Kautilya's Arthshastra into Urdu, but first mastering enough Sanskrit to read the works in the original. For me, one of the most memorable moments of our friendship came one bitterly cold afternoon. The sun was streaming through the bay window in his son's living room, its light reflecting on the snow piled shoulder-high outside, as he read his translation of Shakespeare's "Anthony and Cleopatra", with me following the text in English. The scene described the intrigues and jealousies inside Cleopatra's palace, and he could recite most of it just from his phenomenal memory. The Urdu vocabulary is not only more colourful and versatile, but its idioms are far more effective for describing the banter of slave girls in a harem. It's a pity that only those who know Urdu can have a taste of his translation, for it was every word and idiom — and I am willing to do battle in support of my assertion — as evocative and poetic as the original.

I could not bring myself to attend his funeral, for my grief and sense of loss was very personal. His family understood. One of the last conversations we had was about echo-words in various languages, soon to be the subject of a Wordspeak column.

Read more about the Late Shan-ul-Haq at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shan-ul-Haq_Haqqee

Technorati tags applicable to this post: [Urdu] - [India] - [Pakistan] - [Culture] - [Language]

My latest composition

2006-04-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Jaane kyun iss qadar khaamosh yeh tanhaayi hai aaj;
Gham ka woh chehra haseeN shaam phir le aayi hai aaj;
Dard ke aaghosh mein soye hain hasraton ke saare khwaab;
Zindagi bhi yoon shikast-e-wafa meiN samaa kar aayi hai aaj.

- "Arman"

Jashn-e-Mehdi Hassan

2006-04-02T10:39:00.001-07:00

“Mehdi Hassan ke gale mein Bhagwaan bolta hai…”
Lata Mangeshkar

They say a true evaluation of one’s genius is that which comes from one’s own peers. So, do we need a greater proof of evidence to proclaim the genius of Mehdi Hassan than these laudatory remarks by the Melody Queen, Lata Mangeshkar? Best known for his unparalleled magnum opus GuloN meN rang bhare…, Mehdi Hassan has to his credit greater credence and vehemence in the world of ghazal singing than what any lexis can claim to express.

To lovers and affiliates of ghazals or Urdu poetry, Mehdi Hassan is not a new name. Acclaimed as the “King of Ghazals,” Mehdi Hassan instantly shot to fame and glory by the famous ghazal: GuloN meN rang bhare, Baad-e-nau-bahaar chale… In his singing career, which now extends more than 50 years, Mehdi Hassan has the credit of having sung more than 30,000 ghazals and geets. What makes his panache unrivaled is his dexterity for even the most difficult of ragaas, or musical notes. His popularity and distinction has been ever increasing, and people do not cringe in bracketing him together with the greatest of Pakistani ghazal singers like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Noor Jahan.

Mehdi Hassan has had an enduring singing career, embracing a gamut of celebrated and legendary ghazals. The list is endless, but some prominent are as:

* Meray khayal-0- khwab ki duniya liye huway – Film: Shikaar; 1962
* Duniya kisi kay pyar mein – Film: Jaag Uthaa insaa; 1966
* Mujhay tum nazar say gira tau rahay ho – Film: Doraha; 1967
* Ik naye morH pay lay aaye hain – Film: Ehsaan; 1967
* Ye kaghazi phool jaisay chehre – Film: Devar Bhaabhi; 1967
* Tark-e-ulfat ka sila – Film: Dil mera dharkan teri; 1968
* Ye wafaon ka diya aap ne – Film: Phir chaand niklega; 1970
* Khamosh hain nazaaray – Film: Bandagi; 1972
* Ga meray diwanay dil – Film: Daulat aur duniyaa; 1972

Take time to visit http://www.aligarians.com/category/singers/mehdi-hassan/ and celebrate the cavalcade; Jashn-e-Mehdi Hassan.

References:

* Pakistan Television Corp. Ltd. http://www.ptv.com.pk/webptv/singer13.asp
* Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Hassan

Urdu poetry: Making inroads into Poland

2006-03-24T01:53:00.000-08:00

Urdu poetry is making inroads into Poland, with the ghazals of renowned 19th century poet Mirza Ghalib being translated into Polish.

Anil Wadhwa, India's Ambassador to Poland, released a collection of Ghalib's poems, translated by Polish intellectual Janusz Krzyzowski and Surender Zahid, an Indian poet based in Warsaw.

More than 100 Polish writers, poets, critics, journalists and intellectuals apart from diplomats attended the ceremony held at the ambassador's residence.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) financed the publication of Ghalib's ghazals into Polish.

Last year, Janusz and Surender translated works of 18th century Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir into Polish, which also gained popularity in Polish literary circles.

Source: Mirza Ghalib is a hit in Poland : HindustanTimes.com

Metaphysics of Symbolism and Motivation for Life in Urdu Poetry

2006-03-21T06:31:00.000-08:00

Ragon mein daurhte rehne ke hum nahi qayal;
Jab aankh hi se ne tapka to phir lahoo kaya hai…

One thing that makes Urdu poetry significantly different from other forms of literary expressions is the symbolism or metaphysical association of human emotions. The above couplets beautifully symbolize life's realities in terms of pains and sufferings. The symbolism depicted here metaphysically ascribes to blood (lahoo). And that blood epitomizes the highest degree of suffering and pain is quite understood!

The way pains and sufferings as part of our lives is visualized by the first line of the couplet: Ragon mein daurhte rehne ke hum nahi qayal. We can visualize life being full with pain and suffering in the same way as veins (rag, or ragon) are filled with blood. This line emphatically suggests that although life is full of pain and suffering, the pains and sufferings are not significant, at least in the eyes of the poet. The line translates as: It's the basic characteristics of blood to flow in the veins, and the poet does not subscribe to the importance of blood till it flows in the veins.

The beauty of the thought is brought out in the second line of the couplet: Jab aankh hi se na tapka to phir lahoo kaya hai [The blood holds no significance till it flows out from your eyes]. The couplet in tandem translates into the thought that though blood is significantly symbolic of suffering and pain, the symbolism is not brought out till it flows down your eyes!! In symbolism, majority of life's miseries, pains, and sufferings are insignificant; till they reach an acme [the acme being symbolized by the blood flowing out from your eyes].

Though different people might have different thoughts and logic to comprehend this couplet. To me, the above sentences would definitely describe the best translation of the couplet. This holds the window to the reality of life, by urging us to view pains and sufferings as insignificant till they reach their acme.

The next couplet in this ghazal by Ghalib represents his own state of mind as far as pains and sufferings are concerned:

Chipak raha hai badan par lahoo se pairaham;
Hamari jeb ko ab hajat-e-rafoo kaya hai.

To me, the translation of this couplet amounts to stating that his (the poet's) sufferings [the origin of which lies perhaps in his poverty and misery] are so intense that the sufferings themselves ensemble his respite - he does not need to mend his torn pocket, as his shirt sticks to his body because of the blood flowing!!

A note to conclude: Although a very nicely written and an excellent masterpiece of its kind, this ghazal lacks the basic motivation towards life. A marked difference between poets like Ghalib and poets like Allama Iqbal is that while the former category focuses more on presenting the situations of life, the later category concentrates on motivating people to continue living against all odds, for these odds are part of life.

"Nahin tera nasheman Qasr-e-Sultani ke gumbad par;
Tu shaheen hai, basera kar paharon ki chattano mein."

This couplet by Allama Iqbal sums up what I intend to conclude: If you are a man of courage, grit, and determination, and you want to stand out in the crowd; do not approach the easy way. On the contrary, prepare to lead a rock-sturdy life, which is characterized by hardships (paharon ki chattanein).

Upgrade Urdu: Muslims must not get left behind(COMMENTARY)

2006-03-21T01:31:00.000-08:00

Upgrade Urdu: Muslims must not get left behind(COMMENTARY)

March 19, 2006
By Firoz Bakht Ahmed

The head of a government-run primary Urdu medium school made a shocking revelation in Delhi recently: Urdu books are not available till mid-September although schools open in summer and although Urdu is a second language in the city along with Punjabi.

And this is just one of the many problems confronting Muslims aspiring education.

Year after year, the abysmally low results in Urdu schools are indicative of the confusion among the managing bodies, principals, teachers, students and parents. This has resulted in a sharp decline in the academic levels of Indian Muslims.

As things stand, education is not a priority for Muslims for three reasons.

First, most of them are primarily agriculturists. Second, their belief that they are discriminated against in employment acts as a deterrent to higher education. Third, Muslim girls, till not so long ago, were not sent to school owing to social taboos.

Sparsely lit, dilapidated classrooms, poor sanitation, broken and decrepit furniture, unhygienic drinking water, lack of teachers, unconcerned parents and uninterested students are some of the features of the 10,000 beleaguered Urdu medium schools in India.

There seems to be a sort of conspiracy to downgrade Urdu by associating it with communalists and terrorists, forgetting that it is a language deeply entrenched in the composite heritage of India.

There seems to be a sort of conspiracy to downgrade Urdu by associating it with communalists and terrorists, forgetting that it is a language deeply entrenched in the composite heritage of India.

Ironically, Urdu has been kept alive by Hindi cinema, FM radio, madrassas and the occasional recitation of couplets from Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz in parliament. A language does not prosper through such methods alone but by people who love it with sincerity.

More people should subscribe to Urdu newspapers and journals rather than getting these freely via mailing lists. Many popular children's Urdu magazines like Shama, Khilona, Toffee, Chandanagri and others have ceased publication for want of interest. They should be revived

Urdu officers could be appointed in the government's nodal agencies like municipal corporations, police departments and so on. Besides, there should be more Urdu learning centres and Urdu should be part of the syllabus of Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas.

The pass percentage in Delhi over the last two decades in the board exams in Urdu-medium schools fluctuates between 20 percent and 30 percent. In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the failure rate is identical to Delhi's 77 percent. The only state where Urdu-medium students do really well is Maharashtra where the pass percentage stood at 64 percent this year.

Most teachers in Urdu schools are found to be lackadaisical and unconcerned about both their jobs and students. As if this were not enough, the management bodies of those already victimised and harried backward institutions act as parasites rather than working towards rejuvenating the system.

The hapless students feel that their schools are completely responsible for their disastrous failure. Instead of doing something to upgrade Urdu and secure a better future for students, Muslim leaders keep diverting issues concerning Muslims in educational, social and economic fields to more political matters.

Children belonging to privileged Muslim families never study in Urdu schools. Rather they opt for missionary schools. Even those championing the cause of Urdu and occupying top positions in Urdu departments in universities and government offices prefer English-medium schools for their children.

Except the likes of Sir Syed, Muslims in general never bothered to establish good schools or colleges unlike the Christian missionaries.

Countrywide, every Urdu school has 10-12 vacancies in teaching jobs. No effort is made to fill them. A few Urdu schools do not even have their own buildings and are run in the open air.

Most schools do not have Urdu textbooks in subjects like science, geography and mathematics. Each year, textbooks fail to reach the market in time. When they finally do, the exams are over.

As India's largest minority, Muslims can't afford to be mediocre and spiritless. True, they should love Urdu but they must also make sure they are conversant in English and Hindi or one other regional language.

India is forging ahead but its Muslim population is still largely uneducated. More than anybody else, it is the responsibility of the Muslims to see that the community marches to a secure future.

( Firoz Bakht Ahmed is a commentator on educational and social issues. He can be reached at firozbakht@rediffmail.com)

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

Holi Hay!

2006-03-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was the festival of Holi, the (particularly North Indian) spring festival of the colors of life springing anew after the dead of winter. The festival itself is mostly seen as a Hindu festival, and mainly of Northern India--especially in these increasingly polarized and parochial times. Urdu also developed and grew in the region where this festival is celebrated and the theme of the festival itself and of colours, and of being coloured and painted in the hues of life and other truths is one that comes up often in Urdu poetry. This post is an attempt to gather a few examples and maybe start a conversation about it. Readers are requested to contribute their own pieces of Urdu literature that carry the theme. You can either email me, or post them here directly as comments.

The first is a quote from an Urdu qawwali where the poet--as Urdu poets are wont to--plays with layers of meaning and multiple themes and meanings, some coquettish, some mystical, some sublime, some sensual and erotic.

A couple of quick notes that might help the enjoyment of the first piece, and then I will get out of your way and let you enjoy the poetry:

The word "Sufi" is the thakhallus, the nome de plume and artistic signature of the poet. But, as is often the case, the playful pun on the meaning increases the depth, the pleasure, and the subversive meanings of the piece.

The theme of dyeing someting, or imbibing it with hues is a recurring one in Urdu poetry, especially the subaltern and proto-Urdu work of the likes of Khusrau and others and in Sufi-hued (excuse the pun) works out of South Asia generally. This carried both the subversive sub-text of glorifying the lowly manual labourer that the "rang-raiz" ("rangrajwa" in the language of Khusrau and my grandmother) was seen as, and the meaning of imbibing spiritual truths and being suffused with them like a cloth takes on the dye used to give it its color.

With that, here's the first piece:

NaheeN jis pay ishq ka kuch asar, bhala uss kee husn ki kyaa nazar
Usay kyaa basanth kee hoe khabar, joe ranga na jayay gulaal main

Mujhay Sufi saaf batha'iyay, na chupa'iyay na chhipa'iyay
KaheeN holi k-hailee hai aapnay, joe rangay hain kapray gulaal main

or, in quick and dirty English translation:

On whom Love has no effect; oh, what eye does such a person have on Beauty?
What does a person know of the Spring, who has not been painted in vermillion?

Tell me frankly, Oh Sufi, don't hide it, don't keep it hidden
You've played Holi somewheres; is that why your clothes are all coloured in vermillion?

On my request, Munir Saami Saahab of Toronto and places far, far East, was kind enough to send the following lines from Nazeer Akbarabadi. The piece is, I guess, though I would not swear by it, on a somewhat less profound level.

[Apologies for not being able to provide translations--it would take weeks to do the pieces justice. If anyone can contribute translations, please do.]

Hooaa jo aa kay nishaaN aashkaar Holi ka
Baja roobaab say mil kar sitaar Holi ka
Surood, Raqs hooaa bay shumaar Holi ka
Hansi Khooshi meiN barha karobaar Holi Ka
Zabaan pay naam hooaa baar baar Holi ka

Khooshi ki dhhoom say her ghar may rang banwaaey
Guulaal, abeer kay bhar bhar kay thhaal rakhwaaey
NashoN kay josh hooey raag o rang thheraaey
Jhuumaktay roop kay bun bun sawaang dikhlaaey
Hooaa huujoom ajab her kinaar Holi Ka

Gali meiN koochay meiN, ghuul shor ho rahey aksar
Pharrakney rang lagey yaar her gharri bhar bhar
Badan meiN bhheegay heiN kaprey guulaal chehroN per
Machi yeh dhoom to apnay gharoN say khhoosh ho kar
Tamaasha daikhney niklay nigaar Holi ka

Bahaar kaproN ki, her ik ko jab nazar aaee
Her Ishq baaz nay dil ki muraad bhar paaee
Nigah larraa kay puukaara her aik shaidaaee
MiyaaN yeh tuum nay jo poshaak apni dikhlaaee
Khoosh aayaa ab hameiN naqsh o nigaar Holi ka

Tuumhaarey daikh kay muukh per guulaal ki laali
Hamaarey dil ko hooee, her tarah ki khoosh haali
Nigah nay dee maa'ey guulrang kee bharee piyaali
Jo hans kay do hameiN piyaarey tuum iss gharree gaali
To hum bhee jaaneiN kay aisaa hay piyaar Holi ka

Jo kee hay tuum nay yeh, holi kee tuurfa tayaari
To hans kay daikho idhar ko bhee jaan yak baari
Tumhaari aan bohat hum ko lagti hay piyaari
Lagaa di haath say apnay jo aik pichkaari
To hum bhee daikheiN badan per singhaar Holi ka

Tuumhaarey milney ka, rakh ker hum apney dil meiN dhiyaan
Kharrey heiN, aass lagaa ker kay daikh leiN ik aan
Yeh khoosh dili ka jo thehra hay aan ker saamaan
Galey meiN daal kay baanheiN khooshi say tuum ay jaan
Pinhaao hum ko bhee ik dum yeh haar Holi ka

Uudhar say rang liyay aao tuum idhhar say hum
Guulaal abeer maleiN moonh pay ho kay khoosh her dum
Khooshi say boleiN, hanseiN , Holi khail kar baahum
Bohat dinoN say hameiN to tuumhaarey sir ki qasam
Issi umeed meiN thaa, intizaar Holi ka

BuutooN ki gaaliyaaN hans hans kay kooee sehtaa hay
Guulaal parta hay kaproN say rang behtaa hay
Lagaa kay taak kooee , moonh ko daikh rehtaa hay
Nazeer, Yaar say apney kharra yeh kehtaa hay
Maza dikhaa hameiN kuuchh too bhee yaar Holi ka

Munir Saahab followed that up with this, again from Nazeer, this time adding the comment that "the editors of the kuuliyaat have censored some juicy pieces. But even the left over is hot!"

Holi ki bahaareiN

Jab phaagan rang jhamaktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee
Aur duff kay shor kharraktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee
PariyoN kay rang damakaty hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee
Khhuum, sheeshay, jaam chhalaktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee
Mehboob nashay meiN chhaktay hoN, tub daik bahaareiN Holi kee

Ho naach rangeeli pariyoN ka, baithay hoN gulroo rang bharay
kuuchh bheegi taaneiN holi ki, kuuchh naaz o adaa kay dhhang bharay
Dil phoolay daikh bahaaroN ko, aur kaanoN meiN aahang bharay
Kuuchh tablay kharrkeiN rang bharay, kuuchh aish kay moonh dum chang bharay
Kuuchh ghoongroo taal chhanaktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee

Saamaan jahaaN tak hota hay, iss ishrat kay matlooboN ka
Woh sab saamaan moohaiyaa ho, aur baagh khuula ho khooboN ka
Her aan sharaabeiN dhalti hoN, aur tthutthh ho rang kay dooboN ka
Iss aish, mazay kay aalam meiN, ik ghaul kharra mehboobooN ka
KaproN per rang chirraktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee

Guulzzar khuulay hoN pariyoN kay, aur majlis ki tayyari ho
KaproN per rang kay chheentoN say, khhoosh rang ajab guulkaari ho
Moonh laal, goolaabi aankhieN hoN, aur haathhoN meiN pichkaari ho
Woh ranh bharee pichkaree jo, angiya per tuk kar maari ho
SeenoN say rang dhalaktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee

Uuss rang rangeeli majlis meiN, randi bhee naachnay waali ho
Moonh jiss ka chaand ka tukrra ho, aur aankh bhee maey ki piyaali ho
Budmust, barree matwaali ho, her aan bajaatee taali ho
Maey noshi ho, bay hoshi ho, "Bharway" ki moonh meiN gaali ho
Bharway bhee "bharwa" baktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee

Aur aik taraf dil lainay ko, mehboob bhhawaiyoN kay larkay
Her aan gharee gut phartay hoN, kuuchh ghutt ghutt kay, kuuchh hutt hutt kay
Kuuchh naaz jataaweiN larr larr kay, kuuchh holi gaaweiN arr arr kay
Kuuchh lachkay shokh kamar patlee, kuuchh haath chalay, kuuchh tun pharrkay
Kuuchh kaafir nain mataktay hoN, tub daikh bahaareiN Holi kee

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Holi - Color in Sufi Poetry- Sufi Poetry

New Urdu Legal Aid Booklets

2006-03-15T23:51:00.000-08:00

Global Media Publications, New Delhi, has embarked on the task of facilitating basic awareness and education about legal rights to marginalized people who may not read English and may not have access to legal help. These booklets are in Urdu and are the first of their kind in the language. It is worth noting in this regard that no Muslim organization has hitherto translated and published legal rights books in Urdu, which is the language spoken by a very large section of Muslims in India. The same is the case with other vernacular languages that are spoken by other Muslims living in different states in India.

Global Media Publications has recently brought out the following legal aid books in Urdu which explain the law, legal rights and procedures to secure justice in a simple manner and in easily understandable Urdu:

1. Aapke Huqooq (Your Rights)
2. Tez Raftar Samaat Ka Haq (Right to Speedy Trial)
3. Mafad-e Amma Ka Muqadma (Public Interest Litigation)

They also published some similar books earlier, which are still available:

1. Muslim Idaaron Ke Liye Qanooni Rahnumayi (Legal Guidance for Muslim Organizations)
2. Police, Ikhtiyarat Aur Hudood (Police, Rights and Limits)
3. FIR Aur Mutalliqa Qawaneen (First InformationReports and Related Rules)
4. Giriftar Kiye Jane Par Aapke Huqooq (Your Rights on Being Arrested)

For detailed information, the publisher can be contacted at:

Global Media Publications
J-51-A, 1st Floor, AFE,
Jamia Nagar
New Delhi-110025
India
Tel: 9818327757
011-55666830
email: info@gmpublications.com
Web: http://www.gmpublications.com/

The inputs for the above post are taken from a mail sent to one of the yahoogroups (fdr_amu) by Yoginder Sikand. His articles can be read in e-newsletters like Qalandar and http://www.countercurrents.org/. He can be contacted at ysikand@yahoo.com

What's Muslim for Democracy?

2006-03-10T01:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, that title sounds stupid. But often, especially since 9/11, folks have said, especially in the US press, that Muslims have never had democracy; heck! they don't even have their own word for it and use "Demokratiya" in Arabic. Now I am not an Arabic scholar or even a speaker of the language. (Though the fact that the last word in Libya's official name isn't that comes to mind: the People's Libyan Arab Gamahiriyya.)

But I do know that the Muslims of South Asia--fully half of the global Ummah, so to speak--have had a live tradition of consensual government. And especially since the days of resistance to colonial rule, we've had much more than that; we've had a rich literature of popular engagement in governance. All this came up because, in relation/reaction to the recent blocking of blogs in Pakistan, the following couplet from the person that Pakistan designates its national poet, (and who also wrote India's most popular national hymn also, by the way) was echoing in my head; and of course, I had to do an English translation to put on my blog:

sulthani-e-jamhoor ka athaa hai zamaana
joe naqsh-e-kohan thum koe nazar aayay mita dho!

comes, now, the era of the people's sovereignty
whatever sign of oppression you see, erase it!

The word we use is "Jamhooriyath", which comes from Jamhoor, as in "sulthani-e-Jamhoor" above; just as "Democracy" comes from the rule of the demos, the commons.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Pakistan - Democracy - Islam - Democracy in the Muslim World - Islam and Democracy - Islam - Iqbal

Urdu goes places

2006-03-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

Pupils in Scottish schools will be able to study Urdu at Higher grade

Pupils in Scottish schools will be able to study Urdu at Higher grade for the first time after a decade-long campaign by the Asian community to win academic recognition for the minority language. Scotland's exam body will introduce the new qualification from August 2007 following demand from Muslim communities and the schools they serve. It is the first time a non-European language has been recognised at Higher.Urdu is already available at Standard Grade following a decision in 1994 by the former Scottish Office, but the move to approve a Higher qualification is seen as particularly significant by campaigners.Other community languages such as Punjabi, Chinese, Arabic and Farsi are not taught at this level.

Read Complete Story

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South African Urdu Poetess of Indian origin - Rookeya Saloojee wrote Urdu couplets on South African anti-apartheid movement which are getting rave reviews. She also wrote 'naaths' (poems in praise of the Prophet Mohammad - PBUH), ghazals that were traditional love poems and protest anthems.

Rookeya composed her work - "Ode to 'Madiba'" on being inspired by Nelson Mandela when she visited him while he was at Robben Island prison. "Madiba" is the name by which Mandela is affectionately known to people of South Africa.

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ANJUMAN Muhibban-e-Urdu Hind Qatar (AMUHQ), an Urdu organisation of Indian expatriates affiliated to the Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) under the aegis of the Indian embassy, held a Mushaira dedicated to famous Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib.

Read on for details

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Science Aur Kainat Society of India, a national level voluntary organisation working for the popularisation of science and technology for the last 20 years organised the release ceremony of the first issue of its monthly Urdu tabloid Science Aur Kainat at an impressive function in the Assembly Hall of AMU Boys Polytechnique on 16 April 2005.

Read Complete Story

Mairee Aankhon Say Dhaikhoe; Look Through My Eyes...

2006-03-02T02:28:00.000-08:00

From Cemendtaur, who is currently in Karachi:

'Meri AankhoN say dekho' (See it through my eyes), a book by young Bay Area poet Faisal Azeem has been published. The preface is written by Sahar Ansari. I will try to upload the title page and news of this publication. In Karachi, 'Meri AankhoN say dekho' is available at Welcome Book Port & Fareedsons, Urdu Bazaar; in North America, at this moment it is available through me--will try to put it at various online bookstores.

Congratulations to Faisal Azeem for reaching this very important milestone in his life.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Pakistan - Poetry - Urdu Poetry - Faisal Azeem

Urdu Press: The Need to Come Out of Ghettos

2006-02-22T00:35:00.000-08:00

Recently I came across an edit from the Times of India, which speaks, among other things, about the narrow and defeatist attitude the Urdu media (read Urdu dailies) has been exhibiting since long. This isn’t a good idea for the simple fact that Urdu media (like any other media) plays a very vital role in developing the mindset of its audience, which mostly comprise of the Urdu speaking Indian Muslims.

While it’s the responsibility of the media to highlight any lapses on the part of establishment, continuously brooding over the ‘pathetic state’ can go on to cultivate a negative mind frame of its readers, which can and does hamper the growth of community in particular and nation in general.

Instead of toeing a fanatically-religious and anti-secular line, the Urdu media must once again go on to become what is was during the revolution of 1857 i.e. free, secular, progressive, and above all revolutionary.

By changing its attitude, the Urdu media can very well be instrumental in breathing a new zest in its audiance.

As Iqbal would say: Teri Khudi main agar inqalaab ho paida, ajab nahi ke yeah chaar sou badal jayey.

BTW, in the edit I learned about Maulvi Mohammed Baqar, who was the first journalist to be martyred during the uprising of 1857. And yes, he was an Urdu journalist.

I am reproducing the TOI edit below for the benefit of readers:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1369931,curpg-1.cms

Every morning I open the Urdu newspapers with dread. Will I have to read yet another regressive rant by those who call themselves the custodians of Islam, or one more litany on the wrongs done to the Muslim community worldwide?

Sadly, the answer is yes. What better example of this kind of bigotry than the headline in the Urdu Times on January 9: 'Sharon ki maut par jashn manaya jayega' (Sharon's death will be celebrated)?

Muslims, madrassas, reservations in a Muslim university, a mosque under threat, another lavish one being built, Muslims being oppressed from Kashmir to Kandahar and Baghdad to Bradford, Bosnia, Palestine, Afghanistan.

These are the staples that Urdu dailies thrive on. It appears as if nothing else in the world is newsworthy unless it has Muslims at its centre, preferably in a situation of victimhood.

But a paper is a hard habit to break, no matter how parochial, bland or offensive. And it is also unfair to tar all the Urdu dailies with the same green brush.

But since Hyderabad's leading Urdu daily Siasat is hosting the World Urdu Conference between January 14 and 16, it is an excellent opportunity for leading dailies and their readership to do some introspection and take a hard look at the fare being dished out everyday.

This exercise might be more constructive than breast beating about the tardy treatment meted out to the Urdu language by an apathetic government.

Urdu, the epitome of our 'Ganga-Yamuni tehzeeb' (composite culture), is in its death throes. And nowhere is the decay more pronounced than its press, once the sentinel of freedom of thought and speech, mores and conduct. Urdu journalism prided itself on its glorious past.

If Maulvi Mohammed Baqar, an Urdu editor in Delhi, became the first Indian journalist who was martyred during the 1857 rising, Urdu journalists and writers like Maulana Azad, Maulana Mohammed Ali and Maulana Hasrat Mohani suffered rigorous imprisonment for opposing the British raj.

The spirit of Urdu, and its press, before it was trussed into a religious achkan, was secular, its tone revolutionary and progressive. It was never a language of the Muslims.

Munshi Prem Chand, Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, Krishen Chandar, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Josh Malsiyani were leading exponents of the language. How many Hindus does Urdu need to flaunt to prove its appeal across religions?

Urdu has enriched Hindi cinema immensely, providing mellifluous lyrics and embroidering dialogue. Yet regular reading of Urdu dailies is a lesson in looking at the world through the exclusive prism of Islam.

Like some Hindi rags, they too have begun to thrive on sensationalism. There are half a dozen leading Urdu dailies.

Interestingly, Hind Samachar, owned by a Hindu business family of late Lala Jagat Narain, is the largest circulated Urdu daily with a circulation of over one lakh. Urdu is historically linked with Indian Islam.

A bulk of Islamic tradition is in it. But to Islamise Urdu is to subvert the language's inclusive character — one that resulted from the intermingling of soldiers from different countries, which is why Urdu means camp.

Nobody paid a bigger price for Partition than Urdu. Pakistan, in its desperation to acquire legitimacy, appropriated Urdu and its poet Allama Iqbal.

Urdu became Pakistan's national language while Iqbal, who gave us Sare Jahan Se Achcha..., was turned into Pakistan's founder-thinker. Hindutva's hate-Urdu campaign became part of the anti-Muslim tirade.

The opportunist policies of the Congress governments only fuelled anti-Urdu campaigns. Urdu became a stranger in its own home.

Driven out of secular government schools, it found shelter in the insular, exclusivist madrassas and moribund maktabs. Like the commu-nity which patronised it, it became a minority.

It became the politicians' favourite plank to get Muslim votes. Dwindling revenue, caused by a shrinking readership, has pushed the Urdu press virtually into the hands of regressive forces.

There are some exceptions, but dissenting views and progressive ideas are mostly blacked out of the Urdu press. Is this issue also on the World Urdu Conference's agenda?

P.S. This edit appeared in the Times of India before the mentioned World Urdu Conference happened in Hyderabad, in the month of January, 2006.

PhotoBlogging Cartoon Protests in Karachi

2006-02-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

For people who don't often get a chance to read banners in Urdu--or are nostalgic for it--here's an interesting chance:

As the protests against "Those Cartoons" move ("spread" doesn't seem appropriate) into Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, Cemendtaur is covering them on the Karachi Photo Blog. He's posting reports from the day on the Photo Blog. You can start at:

http://karachiphotoblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/cancel-your-trip-danish-cartoonists.html

and following on from there:

http://karachiphotoblog.blogspot.com/

Online Urdu Newspapers

2006-02-13T22:55:00.000-08:00

Etemad - Hyderabad's youngest Urdu daily is already into circulation now. It is being brought out by a famous Muslim Ex-parliamentarian - Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi. Nasim Arifi has been appointed as the editor of Etemad.

Hyderabad already had three Urdu dailies - Siasat, Munsif and Rehnuma-e-Deccan. With the launch of Etemad, the quality of Urdu journalism is definitely going to improve, day by day.

Another good thing is that at least three of above mentioned newspapers also have their presence on the Internet. They can be read online on the following URLs are -

Siasat: http://www.siasat.com/urdu/
Munsif: http://www.munsifdaily.com/
Etemad: http://www.etemaaddaily.com/index.htm

Aadaab,

~ Qais

Urdu Tech News: "The Marriage of Google Mail and Google Talk"

2006-02-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

I have mentioned Urdu Tech News here before:

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/09/urdu-tech-news-new-blog.html

I haven't been able to contribute to it much. But the other folks are doing good work, if a little slowly. And they're having fun with it! Take the following post; a headline like the one at the top of this post would not be out of the ordinary, right? But Shoaib Safdar has taken that and written pretty much the same thing in Urdu--with very interesting results! I guess it will take a while for us--or me, at least--to get so comfortable with this kind of thing in Urdu to take this kind of thing in my stride. Until then, it's rather endearing; enjoy!

http://urdutechnews.blogspot.com/2006/02/blog-post.html

I mean, the traditional way to say that would be "GMail aur Google Talk ka milaap", but Shoaib takes it a step further, to "GMail aur Google Talk ka biyaah".

Hey, what can you do! It's a brave new world, this blogosphere; and new ways of expressing ourselves are the whole point, no?

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

DoorDarshan Urdu Update

2005-12-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

We'd talked about DoorDarshan staring an Urdu channel:

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/07/urdu-news-channel-by-prasar-bharti.html

Here's an update:

http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k5/dec/dec161.htm

It's taken almost three generations, but it is good to see Urdu increasingly getting its props in India. We need to get to the point where the culture that the language represents really rises above the divide between India and Pakistan. Yes, I know we cherish poets across the border and give them great honors when they visit; but that's my point. We need to get to the point where it is not mentionable that a poet is Indian or Pakistani. When a poet from Britain visits the US or Australia, or vice versa, it is not a big deal which country he or she is from; he is a great poet in the language spoken in both places. That's how it should be.

Azad Karachi Radio Program 003, October 31, 2005

2005-10-31T03:19:00.000-08:00

Program 3 of Azad Karachi Radio continues discussion of the earthquake in South Asia and discusses issues of democracy, civilization and the role of the World Bank and the Military.

You can hear the program, or get information on how to subscribe to the Podcast here.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Siasat Group: A Vanguard for Urdu

2005-10-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

Siasat, an Urdu daily published from Hyderabad, has been a vanguard in the world of Urdu media and journalism. It was also the market leader in terms of readership, till one Munsif Daily made a heroic comeback - after it was taken over by a Chicago based businessman - and gave Siasat a tough competition.

Siasat was founded by a philanthropist and educationist - Abid Ali Khan, the man who dedicated his life for the welfare of the masses. Mr. Khan had the vision of promoting social welfare and harmony, and for the purpose Siasat Daily was very much instrumental. For his contribution to his community and the country, he was awarded with one of the prestigious civilian award by the Govt. of India - "Padmashree."

Among other remarkable things that the Siasat Group is involved in, one of their works is highly commendable i.e., the education of Urdu. Today, the group is, in itself, an institution of Urdu. It's not only involved in promoting Urdu education, but is also involved in organizing related cultural activities, like "Mushairas" - a gathering of poets.

To my knowledge, the Group runs Abid Ali Khan Educational Trust Urdu Classes, where tremendous effort are made for educating students in Urdu. Things like Urdu Calligraphy, Urdu Software, etc is taught to the students interested in the language.

Other than Urdu, the Siasat Group continues its good work on many social fronts. Visit the webpage below to read a note from Siasat's current Editor in Chief: Mr. Zahid Ali Khan.

http://www.siasat.com/english/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=75&cattitle=Useful%20Links

Siasat's online edition: http://www.siasat.com/

Azad Karachi Radio Program 002 now available

2005-10-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

The second program of Azad Karachi Radio (I mentioned it last week) has just been uploaded. Please take a look and provide feedback:

Azad Karachi Radio is an Urdu language audio program available on the web. Published under the Azad South Asia banner, this program covers, politics, poetry, and life. The first two programs are now available at:

http://AzadKarachiRadio.blogspot.com

You can subscribe using podcasting software using the address:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AzadKarachiRadio

Azad Karachi Radio is also available for online listening via Yahoo!s new (Beta) Podcasting service at:

http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=3d848ad579b260b163d17218e7fcbad5

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

iFaqeer on Sahir Ludhianvi; Now in Audio

2005-10-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

As a pilot for podcasting on my personal blog, I took the speech I gave a little while ago on Sahir Ludhianvi (see this and this), stuck an English introduction at the beginning and uploaded it. You can hear it here.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Urdu Blogs on the 'Quake

2005-10-13T02:50:00.000-07:00

As some readers will know, there's now an extensive section about the quake-related information on WikiPakistan. (See my post on my personal blog.) One of the pages there collects personal accounts from the ground:

http://pakistan.wikicities.com/wiki/Earthquake_10-05_Personal_Accounts

Wouldn't it be a good idea to collect links there to Urdu (and English) blogs of people on the ground, both affectees and those involved in relief work, fundraising, etc.? It would give Urdu-speakers (and other people) around the world a chance to get a first hand view.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Azad Karachi Radio; a New Urdu Language Podcast

2005-10-11T04:43:00.000-07:00

We've launched a new Urdu Language Podcast with the title "Azad Karachi Radio". Check it out at:

http://AzadKarachiRadio.blogspot.com/

You can subscribe to the RSS feed using the following address:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AzadKarachiRadio

Please let us know what you think.

For Azad South Asia,

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

"Installing Urdu" on Windows XP

2005-09-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

This blogger, in particular, has made a lot of noise about blogging in Urdu and I promised instructions on how to install Urdu as a language that your Windows XP machine can handle. Here are the instructions, from the website of the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing in Pakistan:

http://www.crulp.org/Downloads/read_me_xp.txt

Once you have followed those instructions, you can use Urdu not just for blogging, but for pretty much anything you now use English and the English script for on your computer. And as I have said before, no, it is not the same as using InPage or some other editor to write Urdu, but using Urdu all the time. With the InPage solution (which is wonderful for "kitaabath" and page layout), what you have to do is convert your text in to a graphic and put it on your website or page, etc. But with this procedure, you can actually write directly in your HTML file, or Word document--or even while chatting with people over Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger or other IM client!

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Urdu Tech News - A New Blog

2005-09-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

I have been invited to join a new blog in Urdu about technical topics. It's at:

http://urdutechnews.blogspot.com/

Please check in once in a while to see what's happening.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Early Urdu Literary Culture and History

2005-09-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

Someone just brought to my attention Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's Early Urdu Literary Culture and History

The first chapter, "History, Faith, Politics: Origin Myths of Urdu and Hindi" is available at the following page: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/srf/srf_early_urdu_ch1.html

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Is Urdu Ready for the Information Superhighway?

2005-07-23T01:50:00.000-07:00

July's cover story in Spider magazine (the Dawn Group's Internet Magazine) is titled "Sifting Scripts: Is Urdu ready for the information superhighway?". One of the stories, by yours truly, covers how the blogosphere is evolving:

http://www.spider.tm/jul2005/cstory2.html

It mentions this blog rather prominently.

Highlights of the whole edition, including the full articles on Urdu on the 'Net are available off the Spider web page. The other stories in that package actually do a good job of rounding up what's been going on with the Internet and Urdu. And mine gives you a flavour of how Urdu is starting to transcend borders for a new generation.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

20th Volume of Urdu Lughath (Dictionary) Released

2005-07-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

It seems the Urdu Dictionary Board has released Volume 20 of the dictionary they are compiling. They are halfway through "Noon", I think. This volume covers from "Nashaath" to "Nh. So I guess we will now know precisely what Faiz Saahab was talking about when he said "Chandh kaliyaaN Nishaath kee chun kar..."...or was it Sahir? But I wonder what "Nh" means? Is that just the "Nah", as in No?

I don't want to just steal a story from a news site and post it here, so please read the story on the sites that published them. I will post any other information I can get. For now, I just remember that back when I was in High School (late 80s), a friend of my father's, Professor Ikhlaque Akhtar Hamidi, mentioned contributing to the discussion. I am not even sure whether it was as a formal part of the Urdu Dictionary Board or not. Anyway, here are the stories:

* Story at "PakPositive" that quotes and links to a Gulf Times story.
* Story in Dawn.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Urdu News Channel by Prasar Bharti

2005-07-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

India shall soon have a dedicated TV news channel in Urdu. This channel shall be a good source of news and information for the Urdu speaking populace of India. Besides, I believe this step shall also be instrumental in keeping the language more agile.

In India, most of the regional Doordarshan channels broadcast news in Urdu. Some private channels like Sahara TV runs Urdu news bulletin, as well. But having a complete channel for Urdu news would add great value to the Urdu media, and I believe, would to an extent conjugate Urdu and Urdu speaking people to the mainstream national life.

Talking about Urdu channels, Hyderabad based Enadu TV launched the first 24 hours Urdu channel: E TV Urdu. This is essentially a channel that has current affairs programs, news, and family entertainment. The channel is gradually gaining popularity among the masses.

Media has always been instrumental in creating and establishing cultures. So, with channels like E TV Urdu and to-be-launched Urdu channel from Prasar Bharthi, Urdu as a language is bound to become relatively more commonplace. And, this way, Urdu shall not be wrongly associated with any particular community or religion, and shall gain more reorganization as the language of India and all Indians - something that it always has been.

Following is the news about the channel.

Courtsey: deepikaglobal.com
http://www.deepikaglobal.com/search_newsdetail.asp?newscode=108380

Prasar Bharati to launch Urdu TV Channel in January next

New Delhi, June 24 (UNI): A new Urdu television channel is to be started by Prasar Bharati from January one next year, which Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy said would be a new year gift to 100 million viewers in the country.

An amount of Rs 65.7 crore had been set aside to prepare the software for the new channel, Mr Reddy said at a press meet here.

He said that Prasar Bharati had accepted a request to this effect made by the Central Government.

The channel will beam at lest seven hours of programme every day to begin with, he said.
The Minister said there was no dearth of Urdu journalists in the country to help develop the channel.

While the channel was not being started keeping commercial viability in view, attempts would be made to earn revenue

Urdu Adab - New Magazine from Toronto

2005-06-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

From Munir Saami Saahab in Toronto:

Hello Friends,

It is with great pleasure that I advise you about the launch of Urdu Adab, a distinguished literary magazine from Canada.

We are committed to promote Urdu writers of quality in Diaspora, and to provide interaction with the mainstream literature both in the west and the Urdu speaking world.

The editorial committee consists of:

Editor In charge : Abid Jafri, Editor : Munir Saami, Managing editor Anis Farooqui, and members of editorial committee , Nuzhat Siddiqui, Muslim Hasany, and Kaleem Zafar.

We have dedicated the maiden issue of our magazine to the memory of distinguished Urdu poet, Jon Elia.

The contributors to first issue include, Jon Elia, Asif Farrukhi, Kaleem Zafar, Anis Farooqui, Muneeb ur Rehman, Irfana Aziz, Javed Yusf, Shaheen, Syed Taqi Abdi, Khalid Sohail, Ishrat Afreen, Humera Rehman, Shehla Naqvi, Nuzhat Siddiqui, Javed Danish, Zamir Ahmad, Iftikhar Hyder, Abida Karamat, Muslim Hasany, Munir Saami, Karamt Ghori, Rahim Anjan, and Abid Jafri, Dr. Baidar Bakht, and Peerzada Salman.

The magazine also carries a painting by Javed Yusuf depicting a verse from Sauda, and its translation by Hifzul Kabir Qureshi. Title of books by Nuzaira Azam, Jon Elia, and Zamir Ahmad are also displayed.

The editorial committee acknowledges the financial support of, Afsar Naqvi, Bashir Abdul Samad, Dr, Baidar Bakht, Pavneet Arora, Javed danish, Javed Yusuf, Rais Iftikhar, Syed Hussain Rizvi, Zamir Ahmad, Dr, Tahir Qazi, Arif Raza, Abbas Syed, Qazi Irfan Ashraf, and Mansoora Qazi.

In launching this magazine we promise the same standards that we have delivered to you in the management of the Writers Forum group.

To obtain your personal copy you may contact me and we will appreciate if you could also send a money order of C$ 5 only to cover the postage and handling.

We also invite contributions of high standards.

Thanks and best regards. Munir Saami

Here are the cover and Urdu announcement (click on either to see a larger version):

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

My Experiences with Urdu

2005-06-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

Urdu language may never die but Urdu script is definitely facing a threat in India. People have already been writing Urdu in Hindi script and now among the English-knowing Urdu-speaking population, there's this new trend of writing Urdu in Roman script. Ironically enough, i am a part of such group, myself.

It isn't that i don't love or like writing in Urdu script but the fact is i don't have that skill of writing in it faster than i write in Hindi or English. The reason was the insignificant need of Urdu in our daily lives. Hindi became the National language and English - the professionally official language. In light of these facts, Urdu script lost to other languages despite the love I have for the language I call my mother tongue. Well, the only advantage that Urdu got in my life is that i used to write letters to my mother in Urdu when i was studying at Aligarh. They were short but sweet. I used to get my mother's reply with all the corrections. This is how i learned to write whatever Urdu I can. Once we got telephones and mobile phones, the practice of letter writing was also taken away from me.

But I haven't lost on it yet. I am still trying to read every bit of Urdu text that catches my eye and attention. I try to visualize writing words, phrases, song lyrics and shers in Urdu. This is what takes me closer to writing Urdu. And I have this small but beautiful dream that one day I will blog in Urdu and bring it back in my life.

In India, I get to read Urdu on the Railway stations of the states which have Urdu as one of their official languages. I get to read it on signboards, notice boards of Masjids, Madrasas, Hospitals backed by Muslim institutions and on posters of seminars and conferences conducted by institutions like SIO, IRF etc. Another example of Urdu reading material is promotional pamphlets of new establishments and shops in the city, distributed outside Masjids after Friday prayers.

I also remember my mother trying to get us to read a children's Urdu publication called "Khilona" which we didn't like much because of its poor printing quality and unattractive graphics.

I think, this is most of what i could recall from my personal experience with Urdu.

~ Qais

A commentary on Allama Iqbal's Nazm - Himalay

2005-05-19T02:17:00.000-07:00

For lovers of Urdu script, this is a commentary on Allama Iqbal's nazm - Himalay, by Dr. Ludmila Vassilyeva -

http://www.urdustan.com/mazameen/iqbal_himalaya_ludmila.html

Dr. Ludmila is a reasearher of Indian Literature in Institue of Oriental Studies, Moscow.

Post about "Urdu Blossoming on the Internet"

2005-05-16T02:10:00.000-07:00

I am pretty hyped about all that is going on in this community of ours that seems to be developing around blogging in and about Urdu and the affiliated Wikis, etc. So I decided to tell the world. (Bear with me, I am not being pretentious--well, maybe a little.) I have posted the following on my own blog (iFaqeer.blogspot.com) and will be talking to a magazine/newspaper or three about publishing articles on this, and am also working on presenting the process of how to do all this and engage with this phenomenon (or just write e-mail to your mother in Urdu) at some Urdu classes and as part of a technical lecture series here in the Bay Area.

And now that I am doing or planning to do all that, I thought I would come back here and report back to those that are actually making all this happen. (I know this is being picked up by Urdu Planet and suchlike, so folks will see it. And y'all are using Firefox's RSS Feed live linking feature, right? right?) Now to the post.

----[First published on iFaqeer's blog.]

For those not familiar with it, Urdu is the language associated with the Muslims of South Asia--fully almost half of the world's Muslims. It is the language in which the madrassas of Pakistan and India operate. The official language of Pakistan, a country that needs no introduction to most readers in this day and age, it is also the language in which a great volume of literature, especially poetry, has been written--a lot of it with Sufistic content or undertones.

On the Internet, Urdu has had a presence for a while. But up to now, it has been in the form of content created using specialized software (like the ubiquitous "InPage") and then converted to a graphic format (like GIF or JPG) and then placed on a website. The content itself has usually been in the form of poetry, literature, or news and current affairs that has been created for another medium--or in another time-- and "re-purposed" for the Web. Original content creation specifically for the Internet has been very tentative; though we have had some poets use the Web as their first or main outlet and some news sites, etc. have come up.

But all that is changing. In the last few months or so, I am tracking a blossoming of Urdu language for blogging and other live discussions, and original content being developed for, and often on the web.

Blogs, of course, are where everything "is at" nowadays. And blogging in Urdu seems to have been triggered by the direct support for Urdu script that is available in Windows XP and the phonetic keyboard developed by the CRULP (the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing at the National University of Science and Technology in Pakistan). A follow-up piece to this one will lay out the how-tos of this. Please watch this space and feel free to get in touch with the author/editor of this piece.

By way of background, this phenomenon has been preceded by the explosion of blogging in Farsi. And yes, I use that word advisedly; if what is happening in Urdu now is a "blossoming", then what has happened in Farsi is an "explosion". Farsi is reputedly now the third most popular language for online journals, and Farsi blogs are to the political scene in Iran what printed pamphlets were to revolutions in the early 20th century. But I digress. You can follow the links earlier in this paragraph to catch up on that discussion. Back to Urdu.

Here's a short round-up of things that will provide you a lay of the land, so to speak.

There is now a list of Urdu blogs:

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/listed-at-urdu-blogs-directory.html

The above link is to a post is from "Urdu ke Naam", a collaborative blog that includes contributions by the current author, and announces that blog's being included in the list. A closer look at that blog entry will also point to a page--on, what else? a blog--that describes how to start blogging in Urdu. And one that provides templates for setting one up.

The comments on that post above also mention "Urdu Planet", a site that aggregates the content of a lot of Urdu and Urdu-related blogs in one place:

http://urdu.zackvision.com/urduplanet/

The list of blogs that page points to is hosted on the "Urdu Wiki":

http://www.sovereign-renditions.info/urduwiki/UrduHome

For readers not familiar with them, "wikis" are a wondeful new class of websites which are great for colloboratively creating content and gathering infromation. The "Urdu Wiki" has become a good place for the community forming around this whole phenomenon of Urdu on the Web. Among other things, it has pages where the community is starting to do some of the work on developing and fine-tuning the terminology for computer usage, for example. To use another link from Urdu ke Naam, see:

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/technical-terminology-in-urdu.html

South Asian readers will remember that, till very recently, this kind of list was sent around as a joke, with satirical translations of Windows features into Urdu, Punjabi, or what-have-you. Now we are working on the real thing. And I do mean "we"--anyone can participate. I wish everybody would.

Which brings us to the next topic. A real encyclopedia in the language. The Wikipedia community has set up an encyclopedia in Urdu. Everyone can and should participate; it is a wonderful way to engage the Urdu-speaking community and Urdu lovers with the Internet, while helping the collection and growth of knowledge in Urdu. The address to get to it directly is:

http://ur.wikipedia.org

By way of background, here's a link to an earlier post by the current author on this topic:

http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2005/02/wikis-and-encyclopedia-in-urdu.html

One could see a conflict, or redundancy between the above two projects--but I dont. Here's why: One is a place for collaboratively developing content about Urdu and related topics, while the other is a real encyclopedia about anything and everything (or aims to be, anyhow) in Urdu. A project that, to my knowledge has not successfully been carried out since before colonial times.

To give you an example of the kind of discussions that are starting to happen as the use of the language starts to mature in its use on this medium, see the following posts on "Urdu ke Naam":

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/urdu-speaking-wikipedia-users.html
and
http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/on-being-saahib-e-zubaan.html

Before I close, a few specific observations:

The community I am talking about spans India and Pakistan. Which, IMHO (in my humble opinion), is a good thing. It is good for the health of the language and intellectual strength of the community using it, as well as for world peace. The interesting thing is, the only tensions that arise in this online community do not arise out of national differences, but about things like the strong feeling amongst some users that the Urdu script should be the only one used for such discussion. (See the comments under the main post at http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/genres-of-urdu-poetry.html and then the current author's own post at: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/blog-post_11.html)

Secondly, from where I sit, the discussion of just a couple of years ago about whether Urdu is on its way out in India (see, for example, the 2003 article on Chowk that has been making the rounds on e-mail again recently) is moot. Some of the most passionate members of this community are currently based in Hyderabad, one of the historical "homes" of the language.

Another interesting thing is that the diaspora of Urdu speakers and lovers around the rest of the world is the furthest behind in this regard. Most people one talks to around Silicon Valley, for example, start the discussion with a "but I can write Urdu now, in InPage (a software for desktop publishing in Urdu)". When, after a few minutes of explaining that what is being talked about is exactly that one now does not need specialised DTP software and can employ the Urdu script anywhere in their day-to-day computer use, you can practically see the lightbulb go off above people's heads. What follows is requests for "how to" and so on.

And lastly, an expression of humility. I write this piece not to take credit for any of this, but to pay homage. The people in the trenches, doing the real work, are people like Asif Iqbal, father of the Urdu Wiki mentioned above; Danial, a blogger in Karachi; Umair Salaam, who makes a rather credible claim to have started the first blog in Urdu; Qais Mujeeb and Manzoor Khan, founders of "Urdu ke Naam"; Qadeer Ahmad Rana, the 19-year old student in Multan, Pakistan who finally scolded and shamed the current author into learning how to write in Urdu. (Wish him luck, he's in the middle of exams now.) Heartfelt khiraaj-e-thehseen and nazrana-e-aqeedhath to them. For these are the "Asathaza", the founding fathers, as "hamaari zubaan" moves into a new medium.

PS: Shapar86, my apologies for writing another piece in English, but I really wanted to reach an audience outside those that are already set up to read and write in Urdu.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

On Being "Saahib-e-ZubaaN"

2005-05-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

I posted the following:

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/urdu-speaking-wikipedia-users.html

after I created a tag on the English Wikipedia to identify users who are "Native Speakers" of Urdu. That drew at least one very appropriate comment, one that leads to a very interesting discussion about the phrase I used in Urdu for native speakers: "Saahib-e-Zubaan-e-Urdu". Here's what I replied to a comment on that post:

This is ... only specifically for users of the English-language edition of the Wikipedia, (a free and open encyclopedia). Just that one version of that one project.

Secondly, we need to get out of the ethnic designation and all the chauvinism associated with it. The purpose of this label and all the others like it that are listed at the link I proivded is to help identify the level of competency of various users with the languages they know. But even if you do want to address the wider issue, and this is as good a time and as good a forum as any to do that, the most appropriate meaning of "Saahib-e-Zabaan" (and, when you think about it, the literal meaning) is about the same as the meaning that the Wikpedia itself has for a "Native Speaker" of any language (not just Urdu, any language):

"if you're a native speaker or have a grasp of the language comparable to a native speaker".

For example, I consider myself just such a native speaker of English. In fact, if you really got down to brass tacks, my competency with English is higher my skill with Urdu. On the other hand, if you stayed with the chauvinistic ethnic classification, I could very well be smug in my links to Lucknow and Allahabad and call myself much more Saahib-e-Zabaan than say, Faiz Ahmed Faiz or Ahmed Faraz--or even Iqbal. (Allah mu'aaf karay for even entertaining the thought!)

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

PS: Please see: http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2005/02/wikis-and-encyclopedia-in-urdu.html for a discussion of the actual Wikipedia project in Urdu.

Delve into the Diwan-e-Ghalib

2005-05-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

A colleague mailed me the following link: http://users.adelphia.net/~asghar/.

This site apparently has translation and commentary of Ghalib's verses from his famed Diwaan-e-Ghalib. The interesting part is the explanation of the verses that is provided, along with the meaning of Urdu words used.

A very good resource for Urdu lovers, and particularly for all Deewaaney of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib.

~~Manzoor Khan

Urdu-Speaking Wikipedia Users

2005-05-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

Urdu-speaking users of the English Wikipedia can now identify themselves with a "Babel tag", a User language template that puts standard text on their user page saying:

ur	This user is a native speaker of Urdu. یہ شخص صاحِبِ زبانِ اردو ہے

All you have to do is put the following text on your User Page:

{{user ur}}

See the following page for details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Babel

and my own user page for an example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:IFaqeer

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

"آپ اردو میں کیوں نہیں لِکھتے؟"

2005-05-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

یہ سوال بار بار آتا ہے.

اگر سارے جہاں میں دھوم ہونی ہے تو سب اردو یی میں تو نہیں ہو گی؟ بھٔیّا امریکا میں مُقیم ہوں اور رومی کا زِکر سُن سُن کے کان کُچ پک سے گیٔے ہیں،گوروں کو غالِب و اِقبال و میر و داغ سے شناسأی دلوانا بھی مقصود ہے

اور پھِر ہر اِنسان آپکے طرحا مملِکتِ خُداداد میں نہیں پلا بڑھا یے ۔ ہم میں سے کُچ لوگوں کو خاسے چنے چبانے پڑے ہیں اردو لِکھنا پڑھنا سیکھنے کے لیٔے!

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

وُہ تیرے نصیب کی باریشیں۔۔۔

2005-05-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

I apologise to English readers for the pure Urdu heading, but this is too profound...

Often because of the role they have played in one's life at some stage, some pieces of literature, especially poetry, have such strong resonance in one's life, that whenever they reappear, they have a very strong effect. This just happened to me when I realized that just such a "musalsal ghazal" is now available as an e-card:

http://67.67.150.209:1002/poetry/pictures/nusrat_12.jpg

You can go to http://www.urdulife.com/ecard/ to send e-cards in Urdu—including this one.

I will try to do a translation as soon as I can. Just let me recover from finding this online. I have forgotten the poet; who is it?

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

PS, May 12: The ghazal is from Amjad Islam Amjad.

Genres of Urdu Poetry

2005-05-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

The popularity of Urdu owes to Urdu poetry because of which it became the language which rules over hearts of multitudes of people in past and present generation. Urdu poetry has a lot of forms. The major genres of poetry found in Urdu are Ghazal, Nazm, Qaseeda, Sehra, Rubai, Masnavi, Hamd, Naat, Manqabat, Noha, Shehr Aashob, Qata and Doha.

Here, I would like to talk about "Ghazal"

Ghazal is one of the most popular forms of Urdu poetry. The word "ghazal" is derived from, Arabic word, "taghazzul" which means - conversation with ladies or expression of love for women. The literal meaning of the term "ghazal" is to talk to women or to talk about them or to express love to them through the description of the state of one's heart.

A Ghazal is nothing but a small number of Urdu couplets put together. These couplets may be independent poems or may concentrate on a single topic. Another binding feature of a Ghazal is that there should be something which should connect all the couplets. This connection is ensured by Beher, Kafiyaa and Radif. In short, Beher means the meter of the couplets which should be equal in all the couplets. Kafiyaa and Radif ensure the rhyme towards the end of every line of a ghazal.

Technically speaking, Ghazal is a collection of Urdu couplets, in which there is atleast one Matla , one Maqta and all the couplets are of same Beher and have the same Kaafiyaa and Radif. Matla is the opening couplet whereas Maqta is closing couplet which ideally has the poet's "Takhallus" (pseudonym or nom de plume).

An example of a Ghazal:

koi ummid bar nahin aati
koi surat nazar nahin aati

aage aati thi haale dil par hasi
ab kisi baat par nahin aati

hum wahan hain, jahan se humko bhi
kucch hamaari khabar nahin aati

kaabaa kis muh se jaaoge 'Ghalib'
sharm tumko magar nahin aati

In this ghazal, the words "nahi aati" form the Radif which should be present in both lines of opening couplet (Matla) and second line of all the following couplets. The words "nazar", "par", "khabar" and "magar" represent Kafiyaa. The meter (Beher) of this ghazal is small or single. The last couplet (Maqta) has the pseudonym "Ghalib" as this ghazal is one of the masterpieces of Mirza AsadUllah Khan 'Ghalib'.

P.S. The above ghazal may not be called a perfect example of a ghazal as I learnt that a perfect ghazal should have a minimum of 5 couplets (ashaar). I wish Mirza Ghalib would have added one more couplet (sher) somewhere to make it a perfect example of a ghazal. :-)

~ Qais

Daastaanon kee daastaan--The Story of Urdu Epics

2005-05-10T19:50:00.000-07:00

The Chapati Mystery Blog has an interesting entry on the Dastaan tradition.

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

Technical Terminology in Urdu

2005-05-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

Just noticed that the Urdu Wiki has put together a list of Urdu translations/equivalents of the words we use in the course of our interaction with technology

(انگریزی اصطلاحات کا اردو ترجمہ)

:
http://www.sovereign-renditions.info/urduwiki/EnglishUrduTranslation

A must-read! I hope Asif Iqbal (father of the Urdu Wiki) will keep this keep this live and evolving. And take input.

Listed at Urdu Blogs Directory

2005-05-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

We are now listed at the Urdu Wiki's list of Urdu Blogs:

http://www.sovereign-renditions.info/urduwiki/UrduBlogsDirectory

Thanks Urdu Wiki team!

Iqbal's Patriotic Anthem Completes a Century

2005-05-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

When Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to travel to space, was asked by the then Indian Prime Minister - Mrs. Indira Gandhi: "Upar se Bharat kaisa dikhta hain" (How does India look from the space), the astronaut was quick to reply "Saare jahan se achcha, Hindustaan hamara" (India is best among all the nations).

This was the fantastic appeal and widespread popularity of Tarana-I-Hind, an anthem composed by the great poet Muhammad Iqbal. For decades, it has been successfully igniting the patriotic zeal among millions of Indian, the world over.

And, recently, the anthem completed 100 years. For the whole century, this anthem has instilled the sense of confidence and belief among Indians about their motherland. I am sure the anthem has enough auras for keeping the enthusiastic devotion among Indians for the country in high spirits for the next 1000 years, and even more.

An immortal anthem from an extraordinary poet!

The following piece appeared in the Islamic Voice, Bangalore:

Saare Jahan Se Achcha turns 100

Mumbai: Saare Jahan Se Achcha, Dr Allama Iqbal’s unique tribute to India, which is today an inseparable part of the national consciousness, has turned 100. On April 21, Iqbal’s death anniversary, Mumbai-based Urdu scholar Abdus Sattar Dalvi and his associates had organized special centenary celebrations for the song at the V P Naik Bhavan at Mumbai University’s Kalina campus.

In 1904, Iqbal, then a young lecturer at the Government College, Lahore, was invited by his favorite student Lala Hardayal - a patriot who established the Gadar Party in the US. Iqbal sang Saare Jahan Se Achcha with gusto. When poet Dr Allama Iqbal sang Saare Jahan Se Achchha, the audience was stunned; no one had heard anything like it before. Simple and alluring, the song became a rallying point for freedom fighters.

Good Dictionary

2005-05-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

This one seems good:

http://www.ijunoon.net/urdudic/mean.asp

I saw another one the other day which was pretty lame...

From the Mother's Heart

2005-05-05T00:29:00.000-07:00

"Sub kuch Khuda se maang liye, tujh ko maang karr;
Phir haath mere utth na sake, eis dua ke baad!"

Don't know if the poet had his mother's love for him in mind, when he composed these lines; but, I have heard the most loving mother reciting this for her son.

A blessed son indeed, to find such a mother!

Talaash-e-Google

2005-05-04T03:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's the label for "Google Search" button in the Urdu Google page.

It's really wonderful. Check out Google in Urdu: http://www.google.com/intl/ur/.

The other button on the home page: "Main Khush-kismat hoon" for "I'm Feeling Lucky" :-).

Go Google in Urdu!

NCPUL: Serving the Cause

2005-05-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Though I have mentioned it before – in one of the earlier articles, I believe NCPUL deserves more visibility and attention, for the good work it’s doing in the cause of Urdu.

National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, or NCUPL, is a government body under Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India.

The Council is involved in various activities like: Seminars, Book-fairs, Grants, Urdu education, etc. It is doing a good amount of Research and Development, too. And, it also has big names with it as its Resource Personnel, including scholars and govt. officials.

Keeping up with the technological advances, the Council is taking pains in making Urdu an IT-compatible and IT-friendly language. The program is called Urdu Technological Mission. This effort, I am sure, will go a long way in keeping the language popular and active in the coming days, when a good amount of communication would take place electronically. Also, the language will gain more visibility over the ubiquitous Internet.

All this, just for Urdu – we call it Urdu ke naam :-).

For more information, check out the website: http://www.urducouncil.nic.in/.

زندگی سے ڈر تے ہیں - ٓAfraid to live ...

2005-05-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

I was at a "ghazal" session with Habib Wali Muhammad Saturday night and the following couplet from Khumaar Barabankvi (I think it is) is still ringing in my mind, especially in a Silicon Valley context:
عِلم و فن کے دیوانے عاشِقی سے ڈرتے ہیں
زنداگی کے خواحاں ہیں اور زندگی سے ڈرتے ہیں

ilm-o-fun kay dheewanay, aashiqee say darthay haiN
zindhagee kay khwahaaN haiN, aur zindhagee say darthay haiN

or

(these) lovers of knowledge and art, are afeared of (passionate) love
they desire life; but are afraid of life (or afraid to live?)

Not a literal translation, yes; more how I understood it.

The Urdu University

2005-04-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

A few days back, I happened to visit Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MAANU), the first Urdu university of the Indian Sub-continent. The University is located on the outskirts of Hyderabad - Deccan, and is spread over a huge campus.

Though the University didn’t seem to be crowded with students, as you’d see in any other university in India, a bunch of veil-clad ladies (Hyderabad, man!) around their respective classrooms, and another bunch of them approaching the University in an over occupied auto-rickshaw, gives you the sense of warmth and encouragement – for these are the people coming here with the spirit of eruditeness, to gain knowledge in their beleaguered mother tongue. Also, the fact that with all their conservative and modest appearance and background, they are here to learn, to educate themselves in the language they love and know best.

In the University, I met Rehana Sultana, a lecturer. She talked about the various coursed being offered. Among all the one that I found interesting, and also quite noble, was Diploma in Women’s Social Affairs. This course, she told me, deals with the women’s affair - be it personal or social - of the contemporary world. It would be both classroom training as well as some fieldwork – essentially going and attending to some problems women are facing, and working with NGOs etc. She told me that the focus of this program would essentially be the women from the Urdu speaking populace.

Another course that really made me happy was an MBA in Urdu – yes, Masters of Business Administration. This, I thought, was a good development. In the future, I believe the University should have courses like Fashion Designing, too.

All this development in the Urdu education reminds me of the once Urdu-rich Osmania University (another Hyderabad offering!). Osmania, I’d like to remind, pioneered the system of imparting education in Urdu in India. It was the only University to impart education in a native Indian language i.e. Urdu, during the time of British hegemony over the Indian education system.

Now we have another University that has Urdu as its medium of learning. MANUU carries hopes of millions. It is an institution that has to shoulder the responsibility for the development and betterment of Urdu as a whole. It has to repeat the Osmania’s feat of the yester years. In fact, the circumstances demands that it does it all the more better.

MANUU: A Long Road Ahead!

مظحب تو بس۔۔۔ - The Only True Creed...

2005-04-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

مظحب تو بس مظحبِ دل ہے باقی سب گُمراحی ہے	mazhab thoe buss mazhab-e-dhil hai baaqee sub gumraahee hai
the only (true) creed is the creed of the heart all else is heresy

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

بناکر فقیرون کا ہم بھیس ٖالِب - The Spectacle of Power and Pelf

2005-04-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

بنا کر فقیروں کا ہم بھیس غالِب تماشأے اہلِ کرم دیکھتے ہیں	banaa kar faqeeroN ka hum bhais Ghalib thamaasha-e-ehl-e-karam dhaikthay haiN
Taking the guise of the poor, the dervishes, we, O Ghalib, Watch the spectacle of the blessed; of power and pelf —Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

صنم - The Poet's Object of Devotion

2005-04-27T01:19:00.000-07:00

The word (or trope, or concept) Sanam (صنم) is often used in Urdu and Persian poetry and is some times translated to "idol". In the humble opinion of this فعیر (Faqeer, if you will), just by itself and with no elaboration, that is a rather basic translation of the concept.

"Object of complete and utter devotion and allegiance" comes much closer. The poetry of Sufism, of course, in its inimitably paradigm-subverting way, keeps the question of whether the Sanam being addressed is made of flesh, stone, or is a Higher Being open--and often fluidly shifting in the mind of the reader/listener. If you keep that in your mind (that the Sanam could be the Ultimate Cosmic Force, or an idol of stone, or your ..er ... fleshy...beloved) you start to scratch the surface of the worlds Sufi poetry opens up to your mind...

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

دُعا - A Prayer for the Creative from Iqbal

2005-04-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

ٓA post on the blog by one of our co-contributors here drew my attention to a prayer from Iqbal that seems like it is for people like us, striving to be creative despite our mainly pedestrian, vanilla lives:

http://manzoorkhan.blogspot.com/2005/02/audacious-prayer.html

I thought I would attempt my own translation:

خُدا تُجھے کسی طوفاں سے آشنا کردے کے تیرے باحر کی موجوں مین اِزطیراب نہیں اقبال	Khuda tujhey kisee toofan se ashna kar dey, Key terey baahar ki maujon me iztirab nahin. —Iqbal
(May) God make your acquaintance with a storm; For the waves on the surface of your existence are devoid of tumult. —Iqbal

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

کھتے ھین اگلے زمانے مین کؤی میر بھی تھا - Acknowledging the Shoulders We Stand On

2005-04-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

I included the following in the article on Urdu in the Wikipedia; thought I would share it here:

ریختھ کے ایک تٔم ھی اُستاد نھین غالِب کھتے ھین اگلے زمانے مین کؤی میر بھی تھا	''Raikhtha kai aik thum hee ustadh nahee Ghalib Kehthay hain aglay zamaanay main ko'ee Mir bhee thhaa
You, alone, are not the master of 'Raikhta', Ghalib They say that in days of yore, there was one called Mir —Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

آداب	Adaab,
فقیر-i	iFaqeer

اسلام علیکم

2005-04-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

..اردو مین کوشس حے

For the record; between 8 and 10 pm (Pacific Standard Time), I finally learnt--for the first time in my life, I kid you not!--how to write Urdu properly. Thank you, QadeerAhmed Rana aka "shahpar86"!

Adaab,
iFaqeer

Urdu Museum

2005-04-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.eurdubazaar.com/web_museum.htm

Adaab,
iFaqeer

Urdu Blogs

2005-03-30T23:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of blogs in Urdu:

http://www.sovereign-renditions.info/urduwiki/UrduBlogsDirectory

I have mentioned the site itself before. It is a Wiki in Urdu.

I will post more on blogging and wikis in Urdu as I find it...

Adaab,
iFaqeer

Sahir Ludhianvi Remembered on His 83rd birthday

2005-03-22T02:13:00.000-08:00

Originally uploaded by iFaqeer.

Yaum-e-Sahir, an event rememberring Sahir Ludhianvi, a major poet and lyricist from South Asia, was held at the India Community Center in Milpitas, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The event, which fell close to the 83rd anniversary of Sahir's birth on March 8, was attended by over 200 people and the two hours that it lasted were educational as well as being pure entertainment for the attendees. Yaum-e-Sahir was the latest in a series of successful literary evenings arranged in tribute to the masters of Urdu literature by Hamida Chopra, who has taught Urdu at the University of California, Berekely, and is a relentless patron of the Urdu language and literature. Previous events have included "Jahaan-e-Ghalib" and "Darbar-e-Zafar", the latter devoted to the major poets associated with the last Mughal court in Delhi.

The proceedings started with Ms. Chopra's recitation of a poem in which Sahir describes his writing and the moving spirit behind it:

Dunya nay tajurbat aur havadis kee shakl mein
Jo kuchh mujhay diya hai, lota raho hoon mein

She then introduced Dr Tariq Rahman, a linguist who holds the Quaid-e-Azam Chair in Pakistan Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who presided over the evening. The microphone then passed to local writer and multimedia artist, Ali Hasan Cemendtaur, to emcee the program. Cemendtaur has seven books in Urdu and English to his credit and is currently working on an animation film and a documentary.

The evening proceeded with a recounting of Sahir's life and achievements, and recitations of his poetry.

Prem Joshi, a retired Engineer originally from Allahbad, sang,

Pyar per bas to nahin hain mera laikin phir bhee
Tu bata daay tujhay pyar karoun ya na karoun

in a melliflous voice that appeared to be much appreciated by the audience.

Rajni Dubey, who originally hails from Delhi and who has sung on radio and TV in India, sang "Havis naseeb nazar ko kahin qarar nahi".

Sulekha Choudhary, a scientist by profession and introduced as Bulbul-e-San Jose, sang "Khuda kaay wastay ab bay rukhee saay kam nah lay". Her beautiful rendition visibly moved the audience.

Anil Chopra, a professor at UC Berkeley, in his presentation, said that sentimentalism and a desire for revolution were the two important themes of Sahirâs poetry. He read Sahirâs "Teri Awaz" to illustrate the sentimental side of Sahirâs poetry:

Raat sunsan thee bojhal thee fiza kee sansain
Rooh peh chhaaay thaay bay-nam ghamon kay saay

Mr Chopra then read Sahir's famous poem on the "Taj Mahal" as an example of a poem soaked with a desire for revolution:

Yeh chaman zar yeh jamna ka kinara yeh mahal
Yeh munaqqash dar-o-deevar yeh mehrab yeh taaq
Aik shahanshah nay daulat ka sahara lay ker
Hum ghareebon kee mohabbat ka uraya hai mazaaq

Sudha Jauhar, born in Gujarat, Pakistan, sang "Tang aa chukay hain kash makash e zandagi saay hum".

Rajni Dubey, in her second appearance on the stage sang Sahirâs famous poem, "Chuklay" (Brothels). This poem is not for the faint-hearted. Sahir packs more than a few powerful punches in it. He challenges the "eulogizers of the sanctity of the East", or "Sanaakhwaan-e-thaqdhees-e-mashriq" (who are often also the strongest critics of the Westâs immorality) to go and see for themselves the exploited women in the brothels of our Eastern lands:

Yeh koochay yeh neelaAm ghar dil-kashee kay
Yeh lut-thay hoay karvan zindagi kay
Kahan hain kahan hain muhafiz khudee kay?
Sana-khwan-e-taqdees-e-mushraq kahan hain?

It is hard to read or listen to Sahirâs âChuklayâ without a stream of tears flowing down your cheeks.

Madad chahtee hai yeh Hawa kee bai tee
Paighambar kee ummat, zulekha kee baitee

In the prose-section of Yaum-e-Sahir, running in parallel to the recitations, the poet's life, his achievements and peculiarities were noted by Cemendtaur, Hamida Chopra, U. V. Ravindra (Ravi), Sabahat Ashraf (iFaqeer), and Tariq Rahman.

Cemendtaur presented a rather interesting comparison between Sahir and Saadat Hasan Manto. He said that writers and poets are supported by their pen only when these creative artists are able to be compensated for their toils, and the market for their writing is directly dependent on the literacy level in a country. âBecause of the overall low literacy in South Asia, people who live by their pen, in general, donât seem to live a comfortable life. But writers and poets are supposed to be proud of their creativity, so how come these creative artists of our lands donât find creative ways to be financially strong?â Cemendtaur said that Sahir and Manto took diametrically different paths. While Sahir moved from Lahore to Bombay, Saadat Hasan Manto moved from Bombay, where he was pursuing a successful career in writing, to Lahore to ultimately die in poverty. In Cemendtaurâs view Sahir made the right choice by creatively finding a way to live off his pen. âWhen the general population in our region is not reading books and instead watching movies, then our creative artists should fit in somewhere in the production of the movies.â

Hamida Chopra read an informative paper on Sahir. Her paper delineated the life history of the man who was born as Abdul Hai in a landed family in Ludhiana, now in the Indian part of the Punjab; saw poverty in his childhood as his mother decided to move out of his fatherâs house when the father married a second wife; his unrequited love in the college; the move to Lahore during the Partition of the Subcontinent; finding out a few years later that an arrest warrant had been issued for him for his ârebelliousâ writings in the newspaper âSaweraâ moving back to India and then ultimately ending up in Bombay and working for the film industry. Chopra peppered her paper with interesting anecdotes that gave a glimpse into the idiosyncracies and private life of the great poet. She said that Sahir was not happy writing film songs because he didnât believe this was what a true poet should do. However, Sahir never hesitated to fight for his own or other peoples' rights, among other things serving as the President of the Film Workers' Union.

Mr U.V. Ravindra, usually known as "Ravi", read a paper that focused on Sahir's career in the film industry. Ravi chronologically described most of the films Sahir wrote songs for, informing the audience that the first film Sahir wrote for was "Azadee kee rah peh", released in 1948, before he moved to Bombay. He said that whereas Sahir spent quite some time in Lahore his longest stay was in Bombay where the film industry made great use of Sahir's talent in poetry. "Sahir's first superhit movie was 'Bazee.' The last film Sahir wrote songs for was 'Jio aur Jeenay do' posthumously released in 1982 (Sahir died in 1980)", along the way forming very productive partnerships with such musical greats as SD Burman, OP Nayyar, Roshan, and others.

Sabahat Ashraf, a Silicon Valley writer and activist who blogs extensively under the name "iFaqeer" (his blog is at http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com) paid his homage to Sahir from the point of view a person that grew up in the 70s, when such movies as "Kabhi Kabhie", named after a poem by Sahir, were popular. In his homage to Sahir, Sabahat said that the poets give people the words and sentences that people use to express themselves. Mr. Ashraf said that everybody is affected by things around them but only the poets and the writers have the skills to portray their experiences in words, and the rest of the community uses these descriptions to help others--and sometimes, themselves--understand the experiences and feelings that they go through. He said that for several generations of South Asians, the first exposure to Sahir, and often to Urdu literature itself was through the movie lyrics that Sahir wrote. He said that because of the fact that Sahir did not compromise the standards of language or depth of thought that is usually associated with Urdu poetry, he served as a bridge between pop culture and the world of Urdu literature. His closing thought was that that this bridge is a very important one, serving to raise the level of discourse in pop culture while at the same time providing the community that identifies itself with the Urdu language a seat at the table in the 21st century's media-dominated society. [His speech is available in full, as written, on this blog at: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/03/address-at-yaum-e-sahir-in-milpitas.html]

Tariq Rahman, the president of the literary evening, acknowledged his ignorance about Urdu literature itself, but said that he had studied Sahir and his poetry from the point of view of its importance in development of political movements and political thought in South Asia.. Dr. Rahman said that whereas Sahir himself was not a philosopher, his poetry was often used by the philosophers, especially by the thinkers of the Left. For example, the quatrain quoted above from Sahirâs famous poem "Taj Mahal" were often quoted in progressive and communist circles in the context not only of the imperialism the Mughals, but as a powerful statement about all kinds of imperialism.

Tariq Rahman said that whereas at one time he had thought that it was a great loss for Pakistan to have driven Sahir Ludhianvi away, his thinking had evovled to where he understood that poets and artists do not belong to any particular country their work enriches the life of all who are reacched by their art. Even though Sahir left for Bombay what he produced is now enjoyed by and edifies Pakistanis just as much as it would if he lived in Pakistan itself. To that this writer adds that had Sahir not left Lahore, he probably would not have become the part of the popular culture the way he did become, and consequently would not have reached the multitudes he now reaches.

The evening ended with Hamida Chopra thanking the audience and annoucning about the next program in the series--an evening on Jigar Muradabadi and Asghar Goandvi, to be held on June 25 at the India Cultural Center (www.indiacc.org). She ended the evening by reciting Sahir's poem "Hiras".

Teray honton peh wo-h tabassum kee halkee see lakeer
Mairay takhayul mein reh reh ker jhalak uththee hai

It was not only the sweet memories that the attendees were able to take home with themselves. An audio CD of Hamida Chopra reciting Sahir's poetry from his book "Parchahian" was available for sale at the event.

[Pictures, papers read, and other information about Yaum-e-Sahir will be presented at www.AzadSouthAsia.org/events/Sahir.]

The Ghost of Urdu?

2005-03-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

A rather dated article from Chowk is making the rounds on discussion lists of South Asian writers. It is titled "The Ghost of Urdu" and was written in 2003. Here's a link to the original piece:

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00002498&channel=gulberg&start=0&end=9&chapter=1&page=1

Anyone care to comment? I am working on a response myself; will post it when I can.

Address at Yaum-e-Sahir in Milpitas California

2005-03-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

iFaqeer (Sabahat Ashraf) Speaking at Yaum-e-Sahir in Milpitas California
Originally uploaded by iFaqeer.

I had the honor of speaking at an event in memory of Sahir Ludhianvi last weekend. Reproduced below is my paper as written. (I apologize for posting this in English/Roman script.) The Press Release will be posted here soon.

Audio of the speech is here, with an English introduction included for a pilot podcast for the iFaqeer blog.

Sub say pehlay thoe shukriya adhaa karna chaahtha hooN Hamida Saaheba ka, aisee mehfil munaqqidh karnay kay liyay. Yahaan pay maujoodh ka'ee naujawaanoN kee thar-haa, main un logon main say hoon jin hoon nay yay zabaan apnay waaldhain kay g-hutnoan kay aas paas seek-hee aur jin ka Urdu zabaan say tha'aalluq aur laga'o aisee hee mehaafil kay zariyay banaa hai. Yay thaqreeban pehla aisaa mauqaa hai kay maiN Urdu main main aik adbee mehfil say, yaa ithnay logon say bayak-waqth mukhaathib hoe rahaa hooN. Kuch lazim saa lagtha hai kay peshgee mu'afee maang loN. Agar mairee ko'ee baath, ya mairee zabaan, adbee mayaar par pooree naa uthray, thoe mu'aaf kar dhijiyay ga.

Thoe Sadr Saahab kee ijaazath say, baath shoroo kar thay hain.

Aaj, hum sub yahaaN Saahir Ludhhianvi naamee aik shahyar koe yaadh karnay jamaa huway haiN. Aur uss say bhee zyaadha, Saahir nay shaayaree ka joe khazaana bakhksha hai humaiN, uss main tatolnay jamaa huway haiN kay humay, yay Sha'eir, yay adeeb, yay mufakkir, kyaa asbaaq muha'eeyaa kar sakthee hai, kay jin say hamaaree zindhagee ka safar kuch sehel, yaa kum-az-kum bardhashth kay la'eq hoe jayay.

Kyoon kay, ch-hota-moo' baRee baath; yahaaN buzurg bat-hai haiN, magar mairay nazdheek insaanee zindhagee aur mu'ashray maiN, adab aur adeeb ka sub say ehem kirdhar yehee hai. Adeeb, ya ko'ee bhee funkaar, humaiN upnay adab, upnay funpaaroN kay zaryay zindhagee guzaarnay kay liyay samaan mu'hiyaa kar thay haiN. Aur jiss fun koe hum "Sha'eree" keHthay haiN, woe iss kaam kay liyay khaas thoar pay mauzoo hai. KyooN kay sha'eree ka auzaar alfaaz hothay haiN. Aur rangon-bharee naqshnigaaree kay zaryay baath har insaan pay asar-andhaaz nahee hoe pathee. Magar alfaaz aik aisaa zaryaa haiN joe har insaan--yaa thaqreeban har insaan, kyooN jaisay buzurgoN nay humaiN bathaayaa hai, khaalis laathoN kay b-hooth b-hee paayay jaathay haiN-- Alfaaz thaqreeban har insaan thak rasaa'ee rakthay haiN.

Ijaazath dhaiN thoe iss silsilay maiN aik waqeyaa suna'oN.

Kaalij maiN humaaray aik buzurg th-hay joe kamaal kee sha'eree karthay th-hay. Aur jaisay kay kaalij kay sha'eroN kais saath aksar hoe tha hai; un kee sha'eree maiN aksariyath romaanee sha'eree kee th-hee. Aik thaizaabee saa unsar hoe thaa th-haa unkee sha'eree main. Aik dhin aik dhoast nay pooch-haa, kay "Woe kaun shakhsiyuth haiN jin kee badhaulath Bhai aisee ghazab kee sha'eree keh thay haiN. Bahoth azeem ko'ee husthee lagthee haiN." Iss baath pay main th-hoRee soch main paRh gayaa. Kyaa waqa'ee ko'ee bay-nazeer shakhsiyath th-heeN jin pay bhai nay dheewaan kay dheewaan lik-h diyay? Kyaa aur Bhaiyon pay jub ishq tharee huwaa, kyaa unka ishq uthna gehraa, uthna sachcha nahee th-haa jithna kay in bhai ka? Kyaa unkay mashooq uthnay "azeem" nahee th-hay? Bahoth izzath karthay th-hay hum apnay sha'er bhai kee, un kay ehsaasaath aur jazbay kee, magar ka'ee aik aashiq bhee hum nay aisay dhaik-hay th-hay kay jin kay ehsaasaath kee gehRaa'ee aur shidhdhath kee baraabree nahee kee jaa sakthee th-hee--aur in aashiqoN nay ko'ee sha'eree nahee lik-hee. Balkay, jaisay kay kaalij main aksar hoe thaa hai, aik dhoe thoe hamaaray bhai sha'er say kuch lik-hwaa kay bhee lay gayay th-hay.

Yay sub soachnay kay baadh, main nay uss dhoast say kahaa, kay mairay khayaal say sha'eree jiss shakhsiyath kay baaray main, yaa p-hir jiss thajarboobay kay natheejay maiN kahee jaathee hai, uss say uss sha'eree ka mayaar nahee bantha hai. Balkay, lik-hnay waalay kee, sha'er kee apnay thajurbaath, khayaalaath, aur ehsaasaath koe lafzoN maiN dhaalnay kee salaahiyath; uss ka zoar-e-qalam kehlijiyay, ya khoobee-e-qalam ka mazhar hoe tha hai hai uss kee sha'eree ka mayaar.

Thoe jaisay main keh rahaa th-haa, yay samaan joe adeeb, sha'er, humai farahum kar thaa hai, yay is soorath ka bhee hoe saktha hai kay humain woe aanay walay marhaloN kay baaray khabardhaar karay. Aur yay iss soorath ka bhee hoe saktha hai kay jub kisee waqeyay, kisee haadhsay say hum dho-chaar hoN, thoe humai jin thajurbaath, khayaalaath, aur ehsaasaath say aashnaa'ee hoe jayay, un koe aik manthaqee shakal maiN d-haalnay main madhadh karay. Iss la'eq karthee hai kay hum un thajurbaath, khayaalaath, aur ehsaasaath ka dhoosroN say izhaar kar sakaiN; ya p-hir kabhee kabhee thoe apnay aap samajnay kay qaabil hoe ja'ein.

Ab is hawaalay say, aaj ki iss mehfil main madh-hoo kar nay kay liyay joe "eVite" milaa th-haa, us kay oopar joe Sahir ka shair darj hai, (yehee shair un kee kitaab "TalkhiyaaN" kay sar-waraq pay bhee darj hai) uss pay ab agar hum thawajjay daalaiN...woe shair kuch yooN hai, kai:

âDunya Nai Trajurbat-O Hawadis Ki Shakal Main
Jo Kuch Mujhai Diya Hai Woh Lota Raha Hon Mainâ

Hur insaan ka liyay tajurbaath-o-hawaadhis ka yay silsila chaltha reHtha hai, zindhagee b-har chalthaa reHthaa hai; aur Saahir jaisay adeeb, in koe apnay fun, apnee sha'eree kay zaryay qalam-bandh kar kay paish karthay haiN, thaakay, hum sub, joe sha'er nahee hain, ya kum-az-kum uss pa'ey kay sha'er naheeN haiN (kyooN kay sha'er hona ka gumaaN thoe hum mai say khaasay logoN koe hai--ya rahaa hai); hum aam insaan, p-hir, ain us hee thar-haa say kay jaisay humaaray kaalij kay saath-hee humaaray sha'er bhai say rujoo kar thay th-hay, uss hee thar-haa say hum loag azeem sha'eroN ka; azeem sha'eree ka sahaara laithay hain apnay thajurbaath aur ehsaasaath koe samajnay aur samj-haanay kay liyay.

Thoe is silsilay maiN, iss hawaalay say Saahir aur humaara saath poorana hai. Main un logon mai say hooN jin kaa bachpan 70 kee dhahaa'ee maiN guzraa'. Zindhagee kay hawaadis aksar bay-saakhtha Saahir kee sha'eree koe humaaree zubaan, qalam aur keyboard pay lay aathay haiN. Woe kabhee kabhee humaray dhil maiN khayaal aayay kay zindhagee kisee kee narm ch-haa'on maiN guzarnay paathee thoe shadhaab hoe bhee sakthee th-hee; ya Taj Mahal kee kisee thasweer koe dhaikh kay bay-saakthaa uss dharya kay kinaaray; uss munaqqash dhar-o-dheewaar; uss mihraab; aur uss thaaq, kay jiss ka zikr Saahir nay kiyaa hia, un ka khayaal aatha hai. Ya p-hir zidh kay aalam maiN yay baath zehen goonjay kay "lay dhay kay apnay paas, faQath aik nazar thoe hai; KYOON dhaik-haiN zindhagee koe kisee kee nazar sai hum?!"

Magar humaaray hum-asar shakhsiyaath kee Saahir say aashna'ee sub say pehlay kisee aur tharhaa say hu'ee th-hee..aur yay baath adbee mahaul maiN hoe sakthaa hai giraan guzray, guzray thoe mu'aaf kijiyay ga, magar Urdu sha'eree kay iss azeem suthoon say, balkay hum mai say khaasay logon kay liyay thoe mayaaree Urdu sha'eree say hee hamaaree pehlee waqfiyath filmoN main Saahir geeth aur gaanoN kee shakal hu'ee.

Magar filmaiN, gaanay, aur geeth thoe humairee Urdu aur Hindi boalnay waalee dhuniya mai kasrath say payay jaathay haiN. Geeth, gaanay, ghazal, qawwaliyaN kay railay hain ab "Paap Culture" main. Aur bahoth sha'eroN nay--jiss maiN har simf kay Urdu kay sha'er aur Urdu aur Hindi kay geethnigaar, aur kavi shaamil haiN-- bahoth saar lafzi qalabaziyoN kay namoonay aur moseeqee pay thakyaa karnay waalay hazaaroN shahkaar hamaree samaa'at kay liyay paish kiyay haiN. Aur uss main aksar Urdu kay saqeel alfaaz, aur hadh thaa kay Ghalib kee sha'eree kay "tukRay" ya "tota" bhee shaamil kiyay haiN.

Magar yay soachiyay, kay abhee bhee, yehee paanch maheenay peHlay, jub mairay kunbay pay ba-thor-e-rehmath aik saahabzaadhee kee wilaadhath hu'ee, thoe main nai aik bahoth mukhthasar saa barqee paighaam, yanee "e-mail", lik-haa jiss main unka naam, thareekh aur waqth-e-paida'ish darj kiyaa aur bhaijnay say peHlay, jub computer nay unwaan, yanee "Subject" pooch-haa, thoe baisaaktha theen lafz ungliyoN say keyboard aur keyboard say screen pay uthray...buss ithnaa likh dhiyaa kay "Mairay ghar ayee..." aur "Send" ka "button" dhabaa dhiyaa. [Aap logon kay radh-e-amal say pathaa chal rahaa hai, aap koe bhee bathaanay kee zaroorath nahee hai, kay mairaa ishaara kiss misray aur nazm kee tharaf hai.]

Aaj-kal kee dhuniya aisee hai kay kuch hee ghanton main aik azeez dhoasth ka Karachi kay jawaabee paighaam aaya (yay khudh bhee achchay khaasay shaa'eir haiN), jiss maiN iss andhayshay ka izhaar th-haa kay aglee nasal apnay buzurgoN say aashna'ee paa sagay ge ya nahee, toe p-hir baghair kisee zeHnee mashaqqath kay, bay-saakhthaa thoe dhoe sathray lik-h kay jawaab arsaal kiyaa, kay:

Thoo apnee ada'ein baksh inhay; main apnee wafaa'eiN dhaythaa hooN
Joe apnay liyay sochee th-heeN th-hee kabhee woe saaree du'aiNn dhaythay haiN

Jaisay humaaray aik aur dhoast keHthay th-hay, humairee poadh kay liyay zindhagee ka safar uss jagaa say shoroo hoe tha hai jahaan dhil mai khayaal yehee hoe thaa hai, kay "Main pal-dhoe pal ka sha'er hooN; pal-dhoe pal mairee kahaanee hai" aur wahaan thak jaatha hai jahaaN yay baath samaj aathee hai "Main har ik-pal ka sha'er hooN; har aik pal mairee kahaanee hai".

Hawaadhis kee iss qathaar main, jiss koe hum zindhagee kehthay hain, jub hum sha'eree sunthay ya paRhthay haiN thoe woe humaray zehnen main aksar un thajurbaath say munsalik hoe jaathee hai jin say hum guzar rahay haiN aur jin ka woe bahoth khoobee say izhar kar thee hai. Magar baqaul sakhsay, sirf wohee sha'eree iss gehree say humaree hasthee main rach-buss jaathee hai, joe thajurbaath aur aap-beethee kee bh-hatee main seenchee gayee hoe, aur p-hir khoobee-i-qalam aur zoar-e-bayaan say ehsaasaath kee aik ka'enaath koe alfaaz kay koozay main uthaar layay. Saahir ka kamaal yay hai kay un hoo nay "Paap Culture" kay mangal bazaar mai hissaa lay thay huway b-hee Urdu sha'eree kay adbee ma'yaar aur khayaalaath kee geHra'ee ka dhaaman nahee ch-hoRaa. Aur iss zaryay say, woe hamaree adbee saqaafath aur nayay dhaur kay "Paap Culture" kay dharmiyaan aik pul ka kaam dhaythay hain. Aur yay raabtha, mairee haqeer ra'ey maiN bahoth ehem hai. Hum Urdu kay sheh-da'iyoN kay liyay bhee; aur hamaaray khittay kee aam zindhagee, hamaaray "Paap Culture", kee sehath kay liyay bhee. Iss say aik tharaf humaaray hum-asar aur hum say agay aur p-heech-hay kee k'ee podh kay logon kay liyay Urdu Urdu Adab kee pooree adbee ka'eynaath thak rasa'ee ka dharwaaza k-hulthaa; aur dhoosree tharaf ek-keesweeN sadhee main "MTV" aur "Satellite" kee rangeen mehfil maiN Urdu adab aur Urdu boalnay waalon kee "microphone" thak dhastharass yaqeenee hoe thee hai.

Urdu in Guyana

2005-02-24T21:50:00.000-08:00

The history of Urdu in Guyana begins in the mid nineteenth century when Urdu-speaking villagers from India were brought to Guyana, by the British, to work as labourers. Until the late 1960s, Urdu and Hindi were the main languages spoken by these people and their descendents.

Two main developments led to the decline of the Urdu language. Urdu started to be perceived as the language of the minority community - Muslims, though it was spoken by both Hindus and Muslims of Guyana in the past. Though, now many people have moved to English as their primary language. Another factor in decline of Urdu is the reduced contact between the Guyanese people of south asian extraction and between Indians and Pakistanis.The second blow came when the Muslim community gradually moved fromits Indianess towards Arabness and as a result, Urdu suffered. However, Urdu is still taught at many a madrasas along with Arabic, for religious instruction.

Qasida is popular among the Urdu speaking Guyanese population, though its popularity is rapidly declining. Sad'r Islamic Anjuman offers programmes for teaching qasida and even country-wide qasida competitions are held in Guyana.

Contributed by:
Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad

Role of Urdu in Indian Freedom Struggle

2005-02-18T02:55:00.001-08:00

Urdu played a very important role in the freedom struggle of India. The electrifying speeches delivered by some of our prominet leaders like Gandhiji, Pandit Nehru and Maulana Azad, were in Urdu. The slogan that used to echo in the whole country - "Inquilab - Zindabad" has nothing but two words in Urdu. These two simple words were enough to bring about a powerful "revolution".

The sher,

"Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamarey dil mein hai
Dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qaatil mei hai "

was recited by our martyrs like Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaq Ullah Khan while they happily welcomed their death sentence.

Urdu journalism was the basic media that used to regulate the struggle for independence. The sheer number of Urdu publications during the Indian Freedom struggle can speak for it. Following newspapers and magazines were started to support the freedom struggle- Khilafat, Siasat, Ujala, Taj, Roznama-e-Hind, Ajmal, Hilal, Milap, Partap, Tej, Qaumi Awaz, Jung, Anjam, Inqualab, Nawa-e-Waqt, Hindustan, Aftab, Jumhuriat, Nadeem, Iqbal, Asr-e-Jadeed, Azad-e-Hind, Sandesh, Vakeel, Khidmat, Musalman, Azad, Paswan Weer Bharat and Al-Jamiath. Even Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru started Qaumi Awaz from Lucknow in 1945. The reason would surely been his awareness of the fact that Urdu was a language of the masses of the country. The names like Milap, Partap, Tej and Sandesh tell a lot about the universal acceptance of Urdu as a language of all, irrespective of community. It was not considered a language of Muslims. Urdu was born in the army barracks of the Mughals. Urdu means lashkar (a conglomeration of people from various backgrounds).

Post-Independence, a lot of these Urdu newspapers ceased to exist. The reasons were -

The Primary Objective i.e. Freedom from British rule, was achieved

The Partition

Urdu being branded as a language of Muslims

Call for suppressing Urdu and Urdu Press

Even after that, Urdu didn't disappear from the country. It continued to give pleasure of expression to those who sought it. Urdu newspapers in the Post-Independence era are - Siasat, Inquelab, Salar, Urdu Times, Munsif, Rehnuma-e-Deccan, Awam, Azad Hind, Akhbar-e-Mashriq, Rashtriya Sahara (Urdu), Nai Duniya weekly/ Awam daily, Qaumi Awaz and Akhbar-e-Nau.

Some prominent dailies that closed down after the Independence were Qaumi Jung, Nazim and Aeilan (Rampur), Mazdoor Vahini (Kanpur), Noor-e-Bareilly (Kanpur), Dukhti Rag (Kanpur), Subh-e-Awadh (Gorakhpur), Alas-Subh (Lucknow), Ghazi Sandesh (Bahraich), Garaj, Aina-e-Alam and Moonis (Moradabad), Mishal-e-Azadi (Aligarh), Sardar Times (Azamgarh), Safeer (Etawah) and Siyasat Doot (in Farrukhabad).

During my childhood, we used to get Qaumi Awaz in our home in Lucknow. But now, it has disappeared from the scene. Perhaps, in those days , it must have been continuing to be published from Lucknow. Maulana Abdul Waheed Siddiqui started ‘Nai Duniya’, which is still publishing under the editorship of his son Shahid Siddiqui. Today, it is one of the famous Urdu weekly in India. Sahara Group also publishes ‘Rashtriya Sahara (Urdu)’ which is the most popular Urdu daily of North India published from Delhi, Lucknow and Gorakhpur. Recently they have also started a weekly called ‘Aalmi Sahara’.

The possible reasons behind the closure of so many Urdu Newspapers and also the reasons for their poor performance could be -

Low wages

Low Income through Print Advertisements

Costly set-up for Urdu Printing Press

Lack of computer skilled man power in Urdu

Escalation of per unit cost, resulting from low circulation

Last but most important: Diminishing number of Readers

The Panacea for Revival
Now-a-days, children aren't taught to read Urdu until quite late, even in muslim families in India. When they learn Urdu at a higher age, they aren't as comfortable reading as they are with English and Hindi. Therefore, the ultimate remedy for revival is that Urdu, as a language, be introduced in the curricula of all Urdu-speaking states of India. Urdu should also be introduced as an optional language in CBSE schools following NCERT syllabus so that children have an option or a choice to choose a language. Let's give them an option and leave the rest of it on the Shireeni (sweetness) of Urdu.

~ Qais

"Urdu belongs to us"

2005-02-17T23:09:00.000-08:00

"Out of prejudice, we should not attach the language to any religion. Urdu is an Indian language; it is born in India. It’s not even a Pakistani language; it belongs to us. It’s not a language of Muslims, but of Indians."

How very factual. Urdu couldn’t have been defended any better, as by its avid lover: renowned lyrists and filmmaker, Gulzar.

This is an extract from the piece published sometime back in Milli Gazette. The article also speaks about National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), a goverment body dedicated for the revival and promotion of the language.

"In the aftermath of partition, it was felt that Urdu was the language of a religious minority and would not survive. That has not happened", says Dr M Hamidullah Bhat, director NCPUL.

You can read the complete article at: http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/01-15Feb04-Print-Edition/011502200473.htm.
It’s an informative article; and, among other things, it also speaks about the way Internet is helping in making the langauge popular.

~ Manzoor Khan

The Resolute

2005-02-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

Actually, a good many Urdu dailies are alive ‘n kicking in India, today:

Rashtriya Sahara (Delhi, Lucknow, Gorakhpur)
Qaumi Awaz (Delhi)
Urdu Times (Bombay)
Inqualab (Bombay)
The Siasat Daily (Hyderabad)
Rahnuma-e-Deccan(Hyderabad)
The Munsif Daily (Hyderabad)
Hamara Awaam (Hyderabad)
Qaumi Tanzeem (Patna)
Nadeem (Bhopal)
Salar (Bangalore)
Azad Hind (Kolkata)
Akhbar–e-Mashriq (Kolkata)
Hind Samachar (Punjab)
Aalmi Sahara (Delhi)
Afkar-e-Milli (Delhi)

And, never to leave out the eminent BBC Urdu; though, it's not an Urdu daily, but nevertheless a vast source of Urdu news on the web.

~ Manzoor Khan

Urdu Dailies: the Indian Edition

2005-02-16T06:09:00.000-08:00

India has several thousands Urdu speaking people; but, relatively, the Urdu press isn’t that ubiquitous. Still, several Urdu dailies are existent in cities all across the country, where you have people understanding and appreciating the language.

Hyderabad, as you’d expect, has a strong presence of Urdu press. Leading from the front is the city based Siasat and Munsif, with a decent circulation. Siasat Daily was founded by Late Mr. Abid Ali Khan, who was also an active social worker. Today, Abid Ali Khan Educational Trust is doing a commendable job of education and promotion of Urdu.

Siasat Daily’s close competitor, The Munsif Daily, was acquired, and now being run by Chicago based industrialist: Khan-Lateef-Khan, also its current editor-in-chief. These two occupy the major mind and market share in the city. Besides the duo, other known dailies are Hamara Awam and Rehnuma E Deccan.

Going westwards to Bombay, Inqalab from the house of Mid-Day, and Urdu Times Daily are suppose to be the leading Urdu dailies of the city.

Though my knowledge about Urdu Press is confined mostly to Hyderabad, I must mention that in many cities like Delhi, Lukhnow, Indore, Calcutta, etc, Urdu newspapers are being published, though may not be in the grand scale as of those mentioned above; but their presence, howsoever humble, helps in keeping the avid followers of Urdu closely associated to the language; all the more as for many, the language is part of their identity, too.

However, this is not to deny the fact that the condition of Urdu newspapers in not very encouraging in the country, as you can read here: http://www.tippusultan.net/news_index47.html.

~ Manzoor Khan

A Soulful Prayer

2005-02-16T03:12:00.000-08:00

Lab pe aati hai dua...

lab pe aatii hai duaa banke tamannaa merii
zindagii shammaa kii surat ho Khudaayaa merii

duur duniyaa kaa mere dam a.Ndheraa ho jaaye

har jagah mere chamakne se ujaalaa ho jaaye

ho mere dam se yuu.N hii mere watan kii ziinat

jis tarah phuul se hotii hai chaman kii ziinat

zindagii ho merii parwaane kii surat yaa rab

ilm kii shammaa se ho mujhko mohabbat yaa rab

ho meraa kaam Ghariibo.n kii himaayat karnaa

dard-ma.ndo.n se zaiifo.n se mohabbat karnaa

mere allaah buraaii se bachaanaa mujhko

neyk jo raah ho us raah pe chalaanaa mujhko

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the masterpieces by Allama Iqbal includes the nazm which goes - "Lab pe aati hai dua ..." It is a kind of dua (prayer) which asks God to bless us with some beautiful things like love for the entire world, love for one's country, love for knowledge that becomes a blessing for the entire mankind and lastly, compassion for all human beings.

No reason why this nazm can't be adopted by a reputed school like Doon School , Dehradun, India, for the morning prayer. Have a look at the web site of The Doon School which also has the English interpretation of this nazm.

This soulful nazm has been sung by melodious but a little unheard singer - Siza Roy. It is a part of famous ghazal singer Jagjit Singh's album - Cry for Cry.

UrduWiki's Parent and Shajra

2005-02-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

I think I have found the parent of the UrduWiki I mentioned in an earlier post. See:

http://www.sovereign-renditions.info/
and
http://cafe.sovereign-renditions.info/

Adaab,
iFaqeer

Urdu Reseach Center: A Rare Library

2005-02-09T22:23:00.000-08:00

The Urdu Research Center, Hyderabad, is a rare and finest collection of early Urdu periodicals and printed books.

The Centre was founded by Abdus Samad Khan. Mr. Khan was a mechanic by profession. His formal education is only limited to high school. But, since childhood, he was passionate about collecting books; and this ardor let to one of the finest collection of Urdu books, periodicals, etc.

The University of Chicago recognized and acquired his collection. The University based Urdu Research Library Consortium program is involved in preserving his books. All the materials acquired by Abdus Samad Khan over nearly 40 years were purchased by the Urdu Research Library Consortium in 1996, and moved to the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram, in Hyderabad.

The following link has the interview that Mr. Khan gave to BBC Radio, in 1975:
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/bibliographic/urlc/urc.html.

You can read more about the library at:
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1720/17201180.htm.

History of Urdu

2005-02-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

I found the following item on a mailing list populated mainly by South Asian writers. i am assuming the documentary is on Discovery Channel in India. Can someone follow up and tell us what they think of it? Where can we get copies to see?

A two hour documentary on the HISTORY OF URDU,
made by Sohail Hashmi (Concept Research and
Script), Subhash Kapoor (Direction) and Kaamna
Prasad (Producer) is going to be telecast on
Discovery Channel on 19th of February (1 hour)
and 26th of February (1 hour) between 8.00 pm
-9.00 pm (IST).

In case you get Discovery in Hindi please ask
your cable operator to give you the English Feed.
Discovery took the English version from us and
got it dubbed in Hindi, the Hindi version is
most likely to destroy the series, because their
Hindi Dubbing department is the pits. We had
offered them the Hindustaani version but they
took the English version and the dubbing
department has, in all probability, killed the
language.

Please watch the two one hours and send me your
reactions. This is something that has been a
labour of love and I would dearly like to have
your reactions.

Sohail Hashmi
[...]
Delhi 110 092

Adaab,
iFaqeer

The Last Mughal Emperor - The Memorable Poet

2005-02-09T04:17:00.000-08:00

Lagtaa nahii.n hai jii meraa uja.De dayaar me.n
kis kii banii hai aalam-e-naa_paayedaar me.n

Kah do in hasarato.n se kahii.n aur jaa base.n
itnii jagah kahaa.N hai dil-e-daaG_daar me.n

Umr-e-daraaz maa.Ng kar laaye the chaar din
do arazuu me.n kat gaye do intazaar me.n

Kitnaa hai bad_nasiib "Zafar" dafn ke liye
do gaz zamiin bhii na milii kuu-e-yaar me.n

Bahadur Shah "Zafar" - the last mughal emperor, wrote this ghazal after he was deported to Rangoon (Burma) after the revolt of 1857. He knew he would never be able to go back to his Homeland. He was buried in Rangoon itself after his death. His tomb still stands in Rangoon.

This ghazal tells a lot about his love for his kingdom, birthplace and motherland. It clearly speaks about his helplessness, wish to get back what he lost, longing and hope for independence.

Lastly, he expresses his misfortune that he couldn't get the honour to be buried in his own country. Such was the love of India for a descendant of "Babur".