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Thursday, July 17, 2008
Ahmad Faraz, RIP; Haq Maghfirath Karay...
 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: News reports and his family attest that he is still alive but struggling. Please keep him in your prayers. [09:34 Pacific Time.]
http://pakistaniat.com/2008/07/17/ahmed-ahmad-faraz/
Labels: Muslim Civilization, Muslim Culture, Poetry, South Asian Language and Culture, Subcontinent, Urdu
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Mohsin Hamid on Events in Pakistan
 Mohsin Hamid's latest op-ed is pretty good. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to know how things looked/look from the perspective of the every day life in Pakistan. You can read it here, on the Washington Post site. I attended a talk by him at Stanford last year, and my first reaction was that what he was saying, the world view and experiences were the experiences of any Pakistani of our age and station, so to speak. (I think he's about a year older than me.) And he writes well. It's good to have him around, with his facility with English and "global" culture to bring that voice, that view of the world to the table. And given his visibility and position as a globally-best selling author, to have what he says read and noticed. Of course, I am still very disappointed with him and others of our generation and/or background--and this even includes, to some extent, folks like Imran Khan, who made sympathetic noises--for initially supporting the military take-over in 1999. But more on that as and when I can write--or maybe some readers can comment and discuss that aspect.
Cross-posted on the iFaqeer, Wadiblog, ProgressiveIslam.org, and Pak Tea House blogs.
Technorati tags applicable to this post: Benazir - Pakistan - Mohsin HamidLabels: Benazir, CrisisPK, Dictators, Expatriates, Mohsin Hamid, Pakistan, South Asian Diaspora, South Asian Language and Culture, Subcontinent, Writers
Thursday, December 13, 2007
What is Civil Society? Just a Nice Phrase?
"Civil Society" has become the new touch phrase in Pakistani politics. And it's gotten to the point where people express the same kind of cynicism about it that is usually reserved for words like "Islamist", and "War on Terror", and, well, "Progressive Islam". A friend on one of our alumni mailing lists was getting pretty disgusted by Nawaz Sharif's piling on to the Civil Society bandwagon. But words have meanings, and undue cynicism can be self-defeating. In fact, we need to fight the battle of perception and how things are framed. That's been quite a discussion in US politics and thought, particularly kicked off by the book by George Lakoff titled Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the DebateAnd in our own situation in Pakistan, it is important to keep people honest in their language.I think it would go go a long way towards a better society. And honestly, I have the same attitude towards "terrorism", "moderate", "Islamist", etc. See, for example, my post on the concept of one man's terrrorist being another man's freedom fighter or other posts on being flip with language, such as this one about terrorists that are "Hindu" or "Islamic". And to further that cause, here's my definition of "Civil Society": Anyone who's not affiliated with a political party or a government servant (including military). What's yours? What's your pet peeve in terms of language? Technorati tags applicable to this post: Pakistan - Emergency - CrisisPK - George LakoffLabels: CrisisPK, Media, Muslim Civil Society, Muslim Thought, Pakistan, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Rhetoric, South Asian Language and Culture
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Thoughts from a tired, but joyous activist
Folks I need to get some sleep. I have installed Picasa and will get more functional on the Wiki and lists and so on tomorrow. Promise. Shab Bakhair, as the traditional greeting goes; a good night to all--and may the Subha, the morning, be even brighter. I am not kidding when I say that my pride and joy in all the activism and engagement we are seeing today far, far outweighs my pessimism over where our country and our communities (South Asian, Progressive, Muslim, ...) find themselves today. At least for this one moment in time, it is good to be part of something. I haven't yet gone to a gathering where I can open up and just scream some naa'ray, but that might change this weekend. I leave you with something that's a work in progress and an attempt to update the chant of the late 70s when the people borrowed Bhutto's " Jamhuriyath kay theen nishaan; Talba, Mazdhoor aur Kisan" [Democracy (has its) three symbols; The Students, The Workers and The Peasant] and chanted: Talba bhee maangain Azadi Mazdhoor bhee maangay Azaadi Kissan bhee maangay Azaadi Is Martial Laa say Azaadi Is General Zia say Azaadi Azaadi, Azaadi, Azaadi....The Students demand Freedom! The Workers demand Freedom! The Peasants demand Freedom! From this Martial Law; Freedom! From this General Zia; Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! ... Like I said, we need an update, please help me finish this by finding something to rhyme with "Mazdoor" and complete the picture on who's involved: Talba bhee maangain azaadi
Wukla bhee maangain azaadi Mazdhoor bhee maangain azaadi
Akhbaar bhee maangain azaadi
Kissan bhee maangain azaadi
Jawaan bhee maangain azaadi
Imran bhee maangay azaadi Is Martial Laa say Azaadi Is General Sia say Azaadi Azaadi, Azaadi, Azaadi....The Students demand Freedom! The Lawyers demand Freedom! The Workers demand Freedom! Newspapers demand Freedom! The Peasants demand Freedom! The Soldiers demand Freedom! Imran demands Freedom! From this Martial Law; Freedom! From this Black General; Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! ... Good night, and good luck. Technorati tags applicable to this post: CrisisPK - Pakistan - Emergency - SlogansLabels: Dictators, South Asian Language and Culture
Monday, September 03, 2007
The Stuff The Taj is Made Of ...
... lives. That's the first reaction I had to a piece a young friend of mine who lives and works in Hyderabad sent me. I have been wondering what I can say about recent events in that city, and just as when "my city" was burning, or when a sister city burnt across the sea, I was in pain, this young writer has had to deal with what he has always described as a stab to the heart of the place he loves dearly. And now, he has captured his feelings in a way that is too beautiful not to reproduce in full here; it is the same spirit that has led to great and noble things in that region of the world--from the Taj Mahal, to the deepest, most profound sufi poetry in the world. And it is uplifting to see it alive in those younger than oneself. Here is Manzoor's piece: The Sultan’s Prayer
 Hyderabad is a multi-religious and multi-cultural abode for millions of people, and this is not any recent phenomenon. Multiculturalism is the very foundation of this great city. It is said that some 400+ years back, Prince Quli Qutub Shah of the Qutub Shahi dynasty fell for the beautiful Bhagyamati and rebelled against his father, the King, to marry her. On becoming King himself, he bestowed upon his beloved Bhagyamati the title of ‘Hyder Mahal’. It was this romantic and chivalrous king who—like the emperor who created the more famous monument to love in Agra—built a whole city on the banks of river Musi, and named it after his beloved wife.
That is how Hyderabad happened.
While laying the foundation of this city, the Sultan is reputed to have prayed to his Creator that “Let millions of men and women of all castes, creeds, and religions make it their abode, like fish in the ocean." And truly, the Almighty heard every word of his prayer. For over 400 years, Hyderabad has lived up to the romance of Sultan Quli Qutb Mulk, wherein people of different religions, languages, and ethnicities have dwelled and prospered peacefully. The vibrant, rich, and progressive culture that we see in the air of Hyderabad today is the cumulative love of the 400 years since the Sultan’s prayer.
Love, however, has its enemies everywhere. This romantic and peaceful city was brutally stabbed on 25th August, 2007 by people with no love and no respect for humanity—by those who hate to see love blossom; by people envious of Hyderabad’s peace and tranquil. It was like stoning a lover whose only crime is that he believes in love and compassion.
But the thing about love is, it’s not just brave and immortal–it’s also undyingly optimistic. Hyderabad, the city of love, has always braved incidents triggered by the hate mongers, and persevered with the message – loud and clear – that it will not give up its character. Surely, the Sultan’s prayer has more power than the evil intent of a few hate mongers.
The peace march in which we participated on September 1 was but a fulfillment of the Sultan’s prayer and his wishes. A multitude of us Hyderabadis, with varying ethnicities and beliefs, uniformly clad in white kurta/shirts, with a heavy heart and a message of peace, walking silently over a kilometer’s stretch, and finally lighting candles and praying in front of Lumbini Park – I promise, Sultan Quli Kutub Shah must have been be very proud of his city this day.
I thank all who participated. God bless Hyderabad and God bless you all.
Aadaab Hyderabad!
Technorati tags applicable to this post: Hyderabad - India - Indian MuslimsLabels: India, Moderate Muslims, Muslim Civilization, Muslim Culture, Muslim Thought, Progressive Muslims, South Asian Language and Culture, Subcontinent, Sufism
Friday, July 13, 2007
Hindi Blogging takes off...
Regular readers of this blog and other places I post might have noticed me trying to follow blogging in the Devnagri script, and often wondering why we--or I, at least--don't see more blogs in Devnagri. (See here, for example.) Now either blogging in that script is taking off, or they're getting to where I am noticing them. See here and, more generally, you can follow it here: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/-/languages/hindi/
Now on to what I'd really like to see in the blogsophere: Purabiya, Bhojpuri, Avadhi, ... or at least the blogging equivalent of what Inshajee wrote. Technorati tags applicable to this post: Hindi BloggingLabels: Hindi, India, Purabiya, South Asian Language and Culture, Subcontinent, Technology and Society
Friday, June 29, 2007
Update: Poem from The East on Oppression and The Oppressed
Once upon a time, I had posted a translation of an Urdu piece by Gauhar Raza, and had been trying to get in touch with him to submit it for his attention and maybe get his okay for posting his poem here. 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 RazaLabels: Iraq, Muslim Civilization, Muslim Culture, Poetry, South Asian Language and Culture, Translations, Urdu
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Now you can blog in Hindi--without typing in Hindi!
Being one of the folks that's pushed the use of, and blogging in the Urdu script on the Internet, I am still confused about the display the Devnagri script for Hindi. It seems that the situation is more complicated than we have for Urdu, where the existence of UTF-8 support on Windows, the Mac OS, etc. makes it possible to view Urdu text as long as it's done in that coding scheme. Anyways, here's some news that might help bloggers and others--from the Blogspot blog, so to speak: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/now-you-can-blog-in-hindi.htmlIf anyone can explain the situation in terms of Hindi online, please do drop me a line. Technorati tags applicable to this post: HindiLabels: Bloggers, Hindi, India, South Asian Language and Culture, Subcontinent, Technology and Society
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Lord's Prayer in Urdu
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.htmlHere'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... [First posted on " Urdu ke Naam"] Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Christianity - Pakistan - India - InterfaithLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Giving One's Life in the Holy Land
I am not big on reading newspapers (though not for the same reasons as you-know-who), and newspapers from societies where the press does not operate very independently are even further down on my list. But following a link from something else, I happened to run into this story (click on the graphic to see a clearer version of the graphic if the one on this page is blurry):  [I am not sure if the story is still available online, but click here to check, if you want to.] Now I was in a rather odd mood when I first to saw this story, because I have to admit that on the one hand, it is a very, very sad, depressing almost, thing to read. But on the other hand, an couple of couplets from a "naat", a peaen to The Prophet, very popular in Urdu-speaking communities came to mind and wouldn't go away for quite a while. Of course, from just a short newspaper story, I don't know what the real particulars of the case are, but the spirit of these lines echos through my mind; it evokes a kind of religious, or spiritual fervour that is very, very different from the kind that is so common today. It evokes a gentler, deeper, more spiritual attachment to things we hold holy than the type of car-burning, Kalashnikov-toting one so often in the news today. Here are the lines I am talking about: 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 That spirit of unselfishly loving something, even the very dirt of a a place you hold holy, with all one's spirit, and of not wanting or expecting anything in return--no virgins or Houris, no looking forward to rivers of honey, no glory for one self or one's community, no status as a martyr or a Shaikh--seems so far from the folks so often associated with faith today, be it Muslim militants, telegenic Shaikhs and Imams, evangelical pastors, or Bible, Qur'an and Geeta-spouting politicians and pundits. Like I said, I don't know the particulars of this case; but I'd like to think that if something like this happens, it is in this spirit... Technorati tags applicable to this post: Faith - Spirituality - IslamLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Sufism, Urdu
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Rumi. And Hafez. And Khayyam. And Of Whence They Spake.
Also posted on the blog Urdu ke Naam, with the title "rumi-o-hafiz-o-khayyam ka dhaik-ha hai kalaam". 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 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 MuslimsLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Sufism, Urdu
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
A Blast from The Heart (Do Not Read If...)
Also here with the title "ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee! !حاءے كمبخت تو نے پي هى نهين".
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
fakar 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 MuslimsLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Sufism, Urdu
Monday, July 10, 2006
The Poet is Eternal; The Man is Ephemeral: Urdu Poet Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi Passes On
 [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 or 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 and a longer Urdu ke Naam post from your humble correspondent (including links to more pictures and more poetry) about Qasmi Saahab is at: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2006/07/qasmi-kaun-kehtha-hai-kay-mauth-aayee.html Technorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - Poets - Ahmed Nadeem QasmiLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Friday, March 17, 2006
Holi: The Festival of Color...and the Color of Mystical Truths
This is the season of Holi in South Asia. The festival itself is mostly seen as a Hindu festival, and mainly of Northern India--especially in these increasingly polarized and parochial times. But 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. Here's a post I just put up on Urdu ke Naam, a blog started out of Hyderabad, India, that I have the honor of being a contributor to: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2006/03/holi-hay.htmlTechnorati tags applicable to this post: Urdu - India - Holi - Color in Sufi Poetry- Sufi PoetryLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
"Installing Urdu" on Windows XP
I have made a lot of noise along the way 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.txtOnce 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! First published on Urdu ke NaamLabels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Monday, September 19, 2005
Urdu Technical Blog
At this point there are now more than one blog from Pakistan on technical issues. And at least a few devoted to Urdu on the Internet. (See this previous post, and this one.) 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. Labels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Is Urdu Ready for the Information Superhighway?
July's cover story in Spider magazine (the Dawn Group's Internet Magazine) is titled " Sifting Scripts: Is Urdu ready for the information superhighway?". Details and links are on the "Urdu ke Naam" blog: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/07/is-urdu-ready-for-information.html[Main blog at: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/ ] The cover package includes a story on the Urdu blogosphere by yours truly: http://www.spider.tm/jul2005/cstory2.html Labels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Monday, May 16, 2005
Urdu Blossoming on the Internet
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/UrduHomeFor 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.htmlSouth 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.orgBy 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.htmlOne 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.htmland http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/on-being-saahib-e-zubaan.htmlBefore 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.
NOTE: Versions of this article have appeared in my column in Al-Mizaan and at http://Urdu-ke-Naam.blogspot.com/ and http://PakistanFutures.blogspot.com.Labels: South Asian Language and Culture, Urdu
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Sufism, Urdu poetry, and related topics
Finally starting to do something I have been meaning to do for a while; publishing thoughts and translations on Sufism, Urdu poetry, and related topics. For now, it will be mainly on the following page: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.comThe blog's not really "mine", but a collaboration with some folks (see this and this) who are mainly in Hyderabad (India), one of the traditional homes of the Urdu language. Labels: South Asian Language and Culture, Sufism, Urdu
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
ثنم - The Sufi Poet's Object of Devotion
I was just saying, on the Urdu-ke-naam blog, that the word (or trope, or concept) of Sanam (ثنم) is often used in Urdu and Persian poetry and is some times translated to "idol". In the humble opinion of this فقیر ( 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... PS: I have also posted a translation or two from Urdu poetry there. Take a look. Labels: South Asian Language and Culture, Sufism, Urdu
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