Irfan Siddiqui, a noted ghazal poet from Lucknow, Uttarpradesh was the guest
at a reception jointly hosted in his honour by Fiction Group and Adabistan. Mr Siddiqui enthralled the audience not only by his ghazals but also enlightened them on India’s literary scene in the context of Urdu.
Mr Siddiqui termed the first two decades after independence as a “traumatic period” since the administrative machinery too was hostile to Urdu.
But “we have since long come out of this trauma, and it is no more the problem of, somehow, keeping Urdu alive,” he said.
There exist and actively functioning Urdu academies in different states (provinces), in all 18, not only supporting the writers in publication of their books but also offering scholarships, providing succour to distressed writers and awarding the best publications.
In the central government, a council for the promotion of literature (which also includes Urdu) has been found which has taken upon itself to publish classical literature and quality books recommended by the experts, Siddiqui said.
Apart from official efforts, Urdu medium private schools and “deeni madaris” are also doing commendable work in the promotion of Urdu. The Urdu literary bodies in UP and Bihar are very active in the promotion of Urdu language and literature. In colleges and universities Urdu is part of curriculum and research studies, he informed the listeners.
Mr Siddiqui further revealed that Urdu periodicals and newspapers, according to circulation figures, stand fourth and fifth respectively among other language papers.
The Inqelab and Urdu Times from Mumbai(Bombay), Siasat and Munsif from the South, Qaumi Awaz from Delhi, Hind Samachar, and Wir Bharat in the Punjab are widely circulated papers.
There are 20 newspapers appearing from Kashmir, scores of dailies from Delhi and some papers even from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Mr Siddiqui agreed with a questioner who said that Urdu is the most popular language of India, written in Hindi script. Zehn-e-Jadid, Naya Safar, Naya Waraq and Shabkhoon are valued literary journals appearing from Allahabad and other places.
As for the role of English, he agreed that it dominates in India as well; Urdu in Pakistan and Hindi in India are the official languages, no doubt about it, he remarked.
Talking about the literary trends, Irfan Siddiqui said that prose-poem is gaining grounds in India, and verse as such is popular as ever. Haiku appears to have no future. The films and mushairas have contributed a lot in the promotion of Urdu but “commercial mushairas” have damaged the sober and serious poetry, specially the ghazal. Despite the “destructive role” of “mushaira poetry”, serious ghazals are written with a zest and the prevailing situation is not that saddening.
Later, Dr Fahim Azmi in his brief remarks praised Irfan Siddiqui for his distinct style in ghazals, using the popular symbols and idioms with freshness and originality. He, however, asserted that fiction written in Pakistan is far superior than that written in India.
hmmm…Interesting – thanks for sharing. By the way what’s the main difference between Hindi and Urdu, other then the script?
Sabah,
as far as i know, nothing! Both have the same puzzling gender of words that make it impossible for me to speak one full sentence without making a dozen mistakes! But seriously, i get the idea that both are mostly the same, except that when it has a bit more of turkish flavor, it's called urdu and when it has a sanskrith flavor, it's hindi.
To give an example, it's "chand grahan" in urdu while it's "chandra grahan" in hindi.
Depends on whom u read. Nida Fazli (e.g. ghar se masjid hain bahot door, chalo yun kar le, kisi rote huye bacche ko hasaya jaye! )can easily pass away as Hindi writer, but Majrooh wont. But there r poets like Mahadevi Verma or Nirala or Bachchan (Amitabh's father, what a sorry situation, people have to be introduced Kaifi Azmi as Shabana's father, apart from Shabana, he produced some poetry, but that is concidental, anyway...) these guys are highly sanskritized. 'swapn bhi chal jagaran bhi, bhoot keval jalpana hain au bhavishyat kalpana hain...' etc by Mahdeviji would be an example.
But in fiction, they come together. Was Munshi Premchand a Urdu writer or Hindi is not decided yet. In poetry, the poets want to express an idea in a way that is not expressed before and thus want to use words that are not in common use or used before, or not used in that reference. Avadhi, bhojpuri and and other bolis provide some. But majority of wors are taken from Sanskrit in Hindi and from persian/arabic in Urdu.
This has an interesting consequence. Indian Punjab which hardly has Muslims, still has Urdu newspapers that sell well and they complain about Doordarshan Hindi which is too sanskritized for them. On the other hand south Indians, who are far from Hindi, can still recognize many sanskrit words. You would be surprised to know how much percentage of words is Sanskrit origin in Malayalam.
The reach of Sanskrit in old times is evident in name of Indonesian vice president 'Megavati Sukarnoputri' (which means magnificent daughter of a person with good ears, never mind that her father did not hear about a coup by suharto, since a coup in a place other than Pakistan would not be advertized so well in advance.)
[This message has been edited by ZZ (edited October 23, 1999).]
queer
Where have you been? Busy busy ya yooN hi :)
Thanks, that was an easy explanation and instead of Turkish flavor hmmm Persian. By the way what exactly do you mean by puzzling gender of words? Maybe some more qualified members or I can help you.
ZZ
Nida Fazli and Majrooh Hindi writers ehhh I would say Urdu writers. However I don’t know what others call them but what would make them Hindi writers or Urdu writers (no I’m not taking about their nationalities)? For me if someone wrote something like this, (quoting yours) ’ 'swapn bhi chal jagaran bhi, bhoot keval jalpana hain au bhavishyat kalpana hain’, he/she would be Hindi writer, and ghar se masjid hai bohut door, would be Urdu.
This has an interesting consequence. Indian Punjab which hardly has Muslims, still has Urdu newspapers…
Is Urdu still seen as a muslin language in India?
Oh by the way interesting post. :)
Sabah,
i’ve been very busy, that’s why. And i’ve been kinda scared of your threads, now that you are a moderator sahiba, can’t afford to annoy you 
YaRight, it should be persian…(isn’t that Farsi?)
Puzzling gender of words => i dunno if it should be “Mez par rakha hua kitaab” ya “rakhee huee kitaab”. Sort of feel it’s the second, but if i think a lot, i get all confused as to why it should be. Oh man! Why did they make it all that complicated?
http://www.pak.org/gupshup/frown.gif
Is urdu still seen as a muslin language in India?<
Urdu words are increasingly used in what may be called hindi. The script is the main barrier as non-muslims don’t have the initiative to learn the Arabic script. What might be surprising to you is that the movie “Sarfarosh”, with an unfriendly attitude towards Pakistan’s ISI and stuff, can boast of kattar urdu lyrics! Maybe you should try listening to some of the songs in the movie, they are pretty nice and have nothing anti-pakistani.
hey ZZ,
know anything about the deccan dialect of urdu called "dakhini"? It's supposed to contain lesser persian words than "real" urdu, but is considered a dialect of urdu rather than of hindi coz of the script!
Saw you mention malayalam and its connexion with sanskrith. Malayalam is indeed a good mix of sanskrith and tamil. An interesting thing is malayalam speaking muslims have adapted a few urdu phrases into their vocabulary! Pretty amazing, maybe it was Tipu Sultan's influence or something.... surely not the arabs??
Ya! deccan tradition of Urdu is interesting topic. I know little about it. But hope someone more knowledgeble writes.
Why malyalam, even Tamil has enough sanskrit words though not as many. Even the very first literature has books named as 'mani-mekhala'. At least 'Karunanidhi, 'Jayalaitha', 'subrahmanyam swamy' and 'Ramdass', these names could have well been names in a sanskrit drama of Bhas, who wrote kinda political plays of his own time, and could have had a good farce to his credit.
Urdu as a Muslim language.. well.. the blame goes reasonably to politicians. It all started in aroung 1930's and we know the rest.
Readers of Urdu script are reducing. There is no state whose state language is Urdu. So only poetry fan(atic)s end up studying script.
Maybe encouraging Urdu to be written in more than one script will help. Even now, Ghalib, Meer and others sell more in Devanagari script than in Urdu script. (sanskrit is written in more than one script. in fact, for most indian languages script has changed over period of time. Assamese lost its old script and adopted bengali, but language is not lost. Marathis lost modi script and adopted hindi script. The differences in script have also been attributed to the handwriting of Hrishis (teachers) who wrote it and kind of leaves on which they wrote :)At least the conical nature of bengali script is attributed to the leaves on which they wrote, it was not possible to have rounded strokes even if u want. This is something like Kumar Gandharva adopting a particular style of singing cuz he lost one lung due to disease and his fans trying to imitate him despite having both lungs intact. But then it is a poltical issue again.)
[This message has been edited by ZZ (edited October 25, 1999).]
queer
Sorry, for being late, oh and >> scared of your threads, Oye sachi :)
And yep Persian = Farsi.
OK, I’ve found some rules; maybe they can help you. So here we go:
- Arabic and Persian words that ends with an ’Alif’ or ’Hey’ (the little round one) are masculine
- Word that ends on ’Yey’ are femine (dhoti, kursi..), there are a few exceptions though, like ghee, pani..
- Hindi words that ends on ’Ya’ are femine (Dibbiya)
- Arabic words that ends on a ’Tey’ are femine (Rifat, shaukat, balaghat etc.)
- Words that end on ’Pan’ are masculine (laRakpan, bachpan, dewanapan)
- Urdu words that end on ’Yey’, ’Aai’, ’nit’, ’hat’, ’Tey’, ’wat’ and ’seen’ are femine.
- Words used for groups or natins etc. are masculine (Musalmaan, hindu, Rajpoot, sunni)
- Names of days are masculine, except (Joomerat), which is femine
- Names of months (any language) are masculine. (March, Ramzan, Sawan)
- Digits/numbers are masculine.
Names of pryers are masculine.
Chand is HAI, and sitare HAIN
So if the word is femine, like kusri: Its paRi hui,
And musalmaan khaRa hai, because its a masculine word.
:)
Sabah,
that was nice, pretty good to have some guidelines. My hindi teacher at school used to claim that it was all just a matter of practice and the only way is to read a lot. Maybe when i go home this holidays, i'll give my teacher some expert advice :)
?Alif? or ?Hey? (the little round one)<
that will be in the arabic script, right? :P i know only the devnagri one, but i kinda get the idea.
And one more diff. for you, probably it's just a consequence of the script - laRka = laDka in hindi .