Urdu through the years

 Urdu through the years

When Nawab Mirza Khan, known to most of us as Daagh Dehlvi, wrote this shayr

Urdu haé jiska naam, hameeñ jaantay haéñ, Daagh,

Saaray jahaan mayñ dhoom hamaari zübaañ ki haé!

he had certainly not seen what was to become of the national language of Pakistan. Urdu certainly seems to have become less written or read in India (and even more so from just a few years ago) but it is also disappearing fast in its own ‘official country’.

Pakistan made Urdu its national language, allowing the Mohajirs (people who went to Pakistan after the 1947 partition) to ’own something’, I guess. Others, of course, had a land that they could call their own. (The local people had their own languages in Sindh, Balochistan, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), which they chose as their provincial language. Punjab, despite its own well spoken language in all of its areas, chose Urdu as its provincial language. This was fought against heavily by others in Punjab, but to no avail.)

When I arrived as a child to Pakistan, I discovered that the language that my neighbourhood children spoke in, had many words that we had never heard of. But we adopted these as well. Many children came from Kutch, Bombay, Hyderabad, UP, Bihar in India and the local kids came from Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab, and occasionally from NWFP. The Bambayya market language was the most common one I think, at least among the groups that I played with. Many Gujaratis and Parsis spoke that often, as did many Christians when they decided to speak in Urdu. The Anglo-Indians spoke ‘thorough’ English.

In my own house, Urdu was a very strongly important area. I was not to use the ‘stray’ words I picked off the streets when talking to my parents. (Purbi, which some older women in the family spoke, was something I loved but I could never speak it.)

Urdu plays took place often, and mushairas took place every few days, from little ones at houses to large ones at public places. Poets from India and Pakistan were seen at most of them. The English newspaper Dawn, had an Azeem-ush-Shaan Mushaira (which everyone called Azeem-ud-Dawn Mushaira). On Jigar sahab’s death anniversary, one of the finest mushairas took place in Karachi and is still remembered by anyone who heard it.

When I was at sea for 25 years in the Merchant Navy, I spoke in English to even our own people whenever ship agents came on board, because we’d been taught that it’s rude to use a language that others can’t comprehend. But the Germans, Dutch, Belgians and the French, sat through dinner with us and spoke often to each other in their own language as they did to us in English. They hadn’t been ruled by the Brits who’d set these ‘laws’ for us. When the ‘foreigners’ were not around, we generally spoke Urdu.

Each time I returned home from a trip, I found it strange to see people speaking to each other increasingly, in English. The waiters at restaurants would answer in English even if my questions were in Urdu. Soon, some of them even seemed to have forgotten common words. If I wanted more ice in my drink and said “Zara aor barf chahiye,” (or ”baraf’, if that’s how you pronounce it) I’d get stared at by the waiter who’d then ask, “You mean ice, sir?”

Four years ago, an American professor visited me and stayed in Pakistan for nine days. He wrote on his website that in his years of going around the world, Pakistan was the only country where he noticed that families spoke to each other in English at restaurants and other public spaces.

A school teacher in my daughter’s school said that children must take Urdu books from the library so that they can understand and speak it better. She added, “otherwise how will you speak to your servants if you don’t know their language,” which certainly put an end to the national language question in the minds of the students.

Of late, many people have come up asking how to get rid of this crazy ‘Englishophobia’. I don’t think there is a direct answer or even if there should be one. However, the Urdu language isn’t that difficult, is it? In Pakistan and in India, we listen to ghazals, geets, watch films that are Urdu-Hindi-Hindustani, whatever you want to call it. Ghalib is heard and liked (despite some terrible mistakes in the well-known play). Faiz still gets people jumping with joy when a singer recites his verse. Akhtari Bai’s and Talat Mahmood’s ghazals thrill thousands.

The problem is the fact that people can’t read it. I wish they could, but this is not the biggest problem at all. I can’t read many languages and have to read their translations and some of them are nowhere near the original work.

But technology has changed. Recordings of Urdu works (equally usable in Pakistan, India and for our many citizens abroad) are now easily available. Usman Siddiqui runs The Readers Club, a book rental service for Karachi. With his colleague Jawad, he has also started his latest initiative Urdu Studio, an online portal for delivering digital Urdu audio books. Given the amount of time that we spend in the car (or in the bathroom), audio books are a tremendous area to get into. Urdu Studio has several good books, short stories, and loads of poems and pieces of mushairas.

Some of their current audiobook selections include the works of Asghar Gorakhpuri, Iqbal Azeem, Mustafa Zaidi, Obaidullah Aleem, Waqif Muradabadi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Muzaffar Warsi, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Athar Nafees and Iqbal Safipuri, Saadat Hasan Manto, Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai, Mehram Ali Chishti, Col. Muhammad Khan, Ibn-e-Insha, Qudratullah Shahab, Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi and Patras Bokhari.