Urdu shyri in SMS

Urdu has been able to survive because it quickly adapts to new situations. Bollywood, internet and now SMS is the latest example.


Some Meaningful Shayari for Gen X
Anisha Sharma

The Queen's language can take an exit bow, what's catching Gen X's fancy now is Urdu shayari on SMSes!

Urdu poetry written in the Roman script is doing the rounds on smses famously. But hold your breath, it is Gen X that is responsible for promoting the language of tehzeeb.

Urdu is just as suited to express fine emotions now, as at the time of its inception, when Persian mingled with local dialects, gave birth this poetic language.

Mirza Ghalib and Majaz Lakhnawi among other illustrious poets may have long gone in person, but their spirit touches many a Lucknowite today.

Nivedita Srivastava, a Standard XII student actually writes some of the Urdu love poetry that is hot stuff on SMSes nowadays.

She shares a couplet with LT, "Hum kabhi apno se khafa ho nahi sakte, dosti ke rishte bewafa ho nahi sakte. Aap bhale hume bhula ke so jao, par hum aapko yad kiye bina so nahi sakte."

Sentimental messages that many lovelorn people want to get across to a dear one. Quickly forward this SMS to the object of your devotion! Interestingly, some of Nivedita's SMSes are so popular that they're finding spaces in newspaper columns and even in greeting cards.

Danish Khan is another one who writes from the heart and prefers Urdu over English. "I adore Urdu for the freedom it gives me to express my feelings." The language itself being poetic, many wannabe poets pick up the strings effortlessly.

Danish opens his diary to leaf out a selection, "Is qadar na har baat yaron se puchho, jo baat raaz ki ho isharo se pucho.

Leharo se khelna samander ka shauq hai, lagti hai chot kaise, kinaron se puchho." Mysticism and romanticism, philosophy and day to day experiences of love and strife aid the young poets to spontaneously pen down or type deep emotions into a couplet.

Nishtha Upadhaya, who enjoys Urdu SMSes she gets from friends confesses, "I learnt a lot of Urdu words through these SMSes and whenever I come across a new one, I try to find its meaning."

Aditya Anand, who has just passed his Standard XII receives many Urdu poetry SMSes from his friends and finds that though, "I don't always understand all the words, the message always gets communicated. It feels good!"

Like Nishtha and Aditya, many youngsters' interest gets whetted as they gain familiarity with the language of nawabi Lucknow, and continue to receive and forward these verses. Rammani Kapoor, a businessman brought up in Chowk, finds it "heartening that youngsters are using Urdu couplets as SMSes."

Bookseller, Vishan Prakash however takes a different stand when he says, "Urdu shayari is basically premised on philosophy, romance and satire.

These snippets that do the rounds through SMSes are not shayari in traditional terms." Yet something is better than nothing, he seems to be saying.

"99 per cent of the time, people are just carrying and forwarding agents of these SMSes. But youngsters might take to buying books on Urdu shayari if their interest is incited through an exposure to these smses," he adds.

[Times of India]

Don't give Urdu a communal colour

To associate the language with Muslims alone is wrong: ex-IAS official

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 22213167.

source : The Hindu

Art of writing ghazals dying due to lack of knowledge: Ghulam Ali

I believe there are still good poets, it is just that we don't have the people who can understand good poetry or know the difference between good and bad.


The art of writing ghazals is virtually dying due to the lack of proper knowledge of Urdu language, feels renowned Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali. Known for his mellifluous rendition of ghazals, Ali says the art form can be revived only through Urdu education (urdu ki taalim) and hard work.

"Very few good Urdu poets exist today, and there are even less ghazal writers," he told PTI. "If you want to sing, listen or write ghazals, you have to have knowledge about Urdu," said Ali, who performed in the capital last night. "Now people listen to ghazals which are very cheap in wording and have nothing to do with the classical patterns," he said adding that people listen to music without applying their brain. "Log akal se hat kar gaane sunte hai." He emphasized that the new generation singers and listeners should learn Urdu to do justice with the tradition of ghazal singing. "No one can progress without proper education. We also learnt the hard way," Ali said.

The ace singer said he was against mixing western music with the traditional ghazal form, as is done by some artistes. "For us music is life and for them it is a profession. We can even sing on with an empty stomach," he said. "However, if we get some good notes and styles then we should accept that. If that becomes a choice of people then every body would listen to it," Ali said adding "it happens so very rarely."

http://www.indiadaily.com/

Urdu medium students shines without help

No teachers, infrastructure, but Urdu medium girl scores 78.6 pc
Abhay Mishra

New Delhi, May 23: BINISH Aqil of Pahari Bhojla, a small alley near Turkman Gate in Old Delhi, is on cloud nine today. Securing 78.6 per cent marks in the CBSE Class XII exam, she is perhaps the highest scorer among Urdu medium students.

Daughter of a carpenter, Binish wants to study economics. “This is a wonderful subject. I like it very much because its mathematical,” said the 17-year-old student of Hakim Ajmal Khan Senior Secondary Girls School in the walled city. She wants to go to St Stephen’s College to get a degree in the subject.

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However, her dream might not come true — her family has something else in mind for her.

“I am not keen on sending her to college. My only concern is to see her happily married,” said her father.

Her family feels she better learn some vocational course like tailoring.

Though Binish says she would do whatever her family wants, her hope is not shattered completely. “I have a lot of time still. Till this morning, nobody thought of this success. I hope my family would also consider the option of sending me to college,” she said.

Binish has scored 393 out of 500, getting A1 in six subjects — Economics (91), Political Science (75), Urdu Elective (92), General Studies, Physical and Health Education, and work experience. In History, she ranked A2, but could score only 58 in English.

Stating that there was no teacher for English and History her in her school, she said, “Urdu medium students are not inferior to anybody, but the reason why Urdu schools have only around 30 per cent success rate is because the government doesn’t care much. The school doesn’t even have Urdu books.”

Her teacher Qeisar Zaman was all praise for her. “She is a brilliant and laborious girl. I expect a bright career for her and she needs all our support.”

Firoz Bakht, an education activist who was one of the first people to congratulate her, said, “There are around 13 Urdu secondary schools in Delhi. I am not very happy with their performance. Apart from the government, the community is also to blame, as they take little interest in promoting education.”


http://cities.expressindia.com/

Indian philosophy in Urdu poetry

Philosophy in Urdu poetry

INNER VOICE | MG Kapahy

May 18, 2006


There is a misconception that Urdu poetry is all about gul-o-bulbul, shama-parwana, women and wine.

In fact, many Muslim Urdu poets are exponents of ancient Indian philosophy. You have only to go deep into their verse and evaluate it. Ghalib says, for example, Asale shahood-o-shaido mashood ek hain/Haran hoon phir mushaida kis hasabe mein (You and He whom you are searching for are in fact the same person. I wonder what this search is going on for). This is the Vedantic concept Aham tvam asmi (I and You are the same).

Iqbal uses the first line of this verse as such and then asks Ghalib ka qaul such hai toh phir zikr-e-ghair kyoon? (If what Ghalib says is true then who is ‘mine’ and who is not?). Again, Ghalib says, Ishrat-eqatra hai darya mein fana ho jana (A restless drop of water gets solace only when it condenses into the river). Ancient Indian philosophy has it that a person gets solace only when he becomes one with Brahm (the Supreme).

Iqbal believes in the continuity of life. In his poem Kinar-eRavi, he says that the surface of the waters of the Ravi is never without a boat. If one boat disappears from sight in one direction, another one appears from another side. It is the same with the caravan of life. In his long poem in memory of his dead mother, Iqbal comes nearer to the idea of awagaman (rebirth).

He says, Maut is gulshan mein juz sanjeedan-par kuchh nahin (Death is just like a bird sitting on the branch of a tree to shuffle and rest its wings so that it can fly away again). His imagery of the bird is akin to the concept of Atman (soul). In his poem Naya Shivala (A New Temple), Iqbal says, Shakti bhi, shanti bhi, bhagton ke geet mein hai (Both power and solace abide in the songs of devotees). In the Vishnu Puran, God tells Narada that he lives neither in Baikunth nor in the minds of yogis, but where devotees sing of Him!

http://www.hindustantimes.com/

How to fund Urdu language programs

15 people*$1000 a year* 5 years : language gains new students


UCSC receives $75,000 gift to fund Hindi/Urdu language program

By Scott Rappaport

A consortium of donors has committed to funding Hindi/Urdu language courses at UCSC through spring of 2010. The combined gifts in support of the program total $75,000 and will enable the university to provide courses that would otherwise be eliminated due to budget cuts.


The gift was initiated by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Kamil and Talat Hasan, who put together a group of 15 donors who have each committed $1,000 a year for the next five years to support the language classes.

Kamil Hasan noted that the Hindi/Urdu language program is the anchor for UCSC’s South Asia initiative--a project established in 1999 to create an enduring resource for understanding the region and its cultures. “History, economics, literature, music—they all depend on knowledge of these languages,” he said.

The addition of second-year Hindi/Urdu courses provides the essential language preparation necessary for UCSC students who plan to continue their education in graduate programs. Funding for the classes initially began in January, and two UCSC students have already benefited from the generosity of the donors. Maia Ramnath, a graduate student in history, and Max Bruce, a 2005 graduate in philosophy, were just awarded fellowships to study the Urdu language at the American Institute of Indian Studies program in India, after completing two years of Hindi/Urdu study at UCSC.

The Hasans hosted a dinner in April at the India Community Center in Milpitas to thank the donors and give them a chance to meet UCSC Chancellor Denice D. Denton, language program chair Gildas Hamel, interim dean of humanities Gary Lease, and Hindi/Urdu lecturer John Mock.

“It was a very positive event,” noted Mock, who teaches all the Hindi and Urdu classes at UCSC and holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from UC Berkeley in South and Southeast Asian studies, specializing in South Asian languages and literature. “The donors were very happy to see that their gift is already paying off.” Mock’s expertise includes the languages and cultures of northern Pakistan, and he speaks Urdu, Wakhi, Hindi, and Nepali, among other languages.

“I’m so excited that this project has enabled us to bring new donors to UC Santa Cruz,” added Talat Hasan. “It was so heartwarming to see the outpouring of support that within two days, we were able to get this group together. We endowed a chair in Indian music several years ago, and our feeling was that knowledge of the languages of North India—Hindi and Urdu (we often call it Hindustani)—is crucial to understand and appreciate that music.”

Interim humanities dean Lease said that the campus was particularly honored and deeply appreciative of the contributions from the donors, noting that they have established “an absolutely essential foundation for further and expanded studies of the Indic subcontinent.”

“This gift ensures five years of support for the instruction of Hindi/Urdu, and perhaps even more importantly, it provides us with precious breathing room to seek a more permanent ongoing funding base for South Asian Studies at UC Santa Cruz,” Lease added.

The consortium of donors includes: Prakash Agarwal, Anil and Sonali Batra, Anil Godhwani, Gautam Godhwani, Kamil and Talat Hasan, Sridar and Anita Iyengar, Anuradha Luther Maitra, Javed and Shaheena Khan, Arjun and Kiran Malhotra, Asha Jadeja and Rajeev Motwani, Venktesh and Abha Shukla, and Sanjay and Suniti Subhedar, Vish Mishra, Zafar Hamdani, and Raj Jaswa.

http://currents.ucsc.edu/05-06/05-15/languages.asp

Learn Urdu through Hindi or Telugu

There is a renewed interest in learning Urdu, it would be great if this trust makes their books available online too.



Hyderabad, May 13 (UNI) Abid Ali Khan Educational Trust, the charitable arm of the leading Urdu daily Siasat, is distributing Urdu books to learn the language through Hindi, English and Telugu.

According to a Trust release, 20,000 Telugu, Kannada and Hindi speaking students, had learnt Urdu through 'Dawn Primer', the method developed by the Trust.

The Trust,formed in memory of founder-editor late Abid Ali Khan, is running more than 300 schools in Hyderabad and other districts to propogate the language.

The copies are available from the office of the daily here, the release said.

The adventures of Amir Hamza

dastaan amir hamza has a special place in Urdu literature, it is recommended for ever Urdu literature student and used to be required reading for all children studying Urdu. To compare we can say that it was 'harry potter' of its time but more popular and more interesting.

This was an attempt to capture the tradition of dastan-goi which we have reported before in these pages. It is a good news that dastaan of amir hamza is now being translated into English.

It is really strange that I got my copies of amir hamza recently from the Pakistan, same day as I got information about translation in English. And then....

http://www.amirhamza.com/

Interview with VOA Urdu chief

Interview with Brian Q. Silver
Voice of America, Urdu Chief
by Komal Mahkdoom
April 30, 2006

His response to a request for an interview was the question “How long would it take?” Rushing through broadcast schedules and running in and out of recording studios, Brian Q. Silver almost never has the time to actually be at his office seat.

In his position of chief of Urdu Staff of Voice of America since 1986, Silver supervises an hour and a half of daily Urdu broadcasts to listeners in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and the Middle East. He has also designed a keyboard typeface and training program for word processing in Urdu.

Before associating with the world of broadcasting, silver remained a specialist in Indian musical theory and a performer on the sitar. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, where he focused on Urdu and Persian literature, history, culture, and music. Silver furthered his South Asian experience by teaching in the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard
University from 1974 to 1983.

In the time Silver was able to stay at his desk, he shared his experiences with South Asian culture and music, as well as his professional broadcasting at Voice of America.

Q: Your family was not particularly involved in any kind of ethnic diversity. What was it, then, that brought you into the field of foreign, particularly South Asian music and studies?

Silver: The predecessor to Indian music is actually flamenco music, which is Spanish gypsy music. I lived in Denver, Colo., and I worked in a record store and I heard some recordings of things that sounded quite interesting and one of them was flamenco guitar. So I decided, “Well, I’d like to learn that.” I couldn’t find a teacher for Flamenco. There were guitar teachers around so I took two or three lessons, but he basically said “Well, you’re gonna have to teach yourself,” so I listened to recordings and tried to duplicate what I heard in recordings. In the process I met the elder brothers of one of my high school classmates who had been doing this for several years, so I started working with him… We became the “Flamenquistas” for the whole Denver, Colo., area. After listening to flamenco music I heard my first recording of Indian music. I remember very clearly, the first time I heard it I thought “Now this should be very interesting music to play.” So I went through college trying to play Raga type structures on the guitar and banjo. Borrowed a sitar my last year from a man who became my mentor: Hyman Bloom, a very famous painter who had been interested in oriental music for years. Noodled on that a bit but I was able to get a grant to India to study sitar, and I went over there specifically to study sitar. And this was a year before George Harrison, so it wasn’t as though, you know, the sitar was a craze as it became after the Beatles took it up. It was definitely an unusual subject. But I found a very good teacher and was able, because of my professional capabilities in guitar and banjo, to pick up very quickly. And so I studied with him intensively for two years everyday. I’d get up at 5 o’clock in the morning…the ustad-shagird (teacher-student)type of silsila (routine).

Q: Did your university give you the grant to study sitar abroad?

Silver: No, it was a Fulbright grant. It was an unusual grant that was in place for three or four years. Usually Fulbrights are for pure academic programs, but this was more like a Peace Corps kind of thing where they sent us over to teach English half-time at a college and then do a research project. So the sitar and then subsequently Urdu were my research projects.

Q: Is that how you achieved your fluency in the Urdu language?

Silver: Well, because it was my ustad’s mother tongue, I started, you know, tooti phooti (broken, amateur) Urdu to get along, and then I went to a mushaira (poetry recital); aur phir maamla khatam (and it was a done deal then). I decided I had to learn this language and this literature, because…you’ve been to a mushaira? Ok, the parallels of the performance between a musician and the audience and the poet and the audience were very striking. And it sounded beautiful and I had been an English major in college and planned to go back and become a college professor in English. I thought, “Well, why not explore another culture?” So that’s how I got into the Urdu. I was fortunate to get an extension for a second year… and so my second year I’d go to my sitar ustad at 5 in the morning, and then in the afternoon I found a very fine teacher, a direct descendant of Wali Dakni, the first Urdu poet, Waris Hussain Alvi, who taught me in the afternoon. So I had a busy but happy life teaching at college and then going over to Alvi Saheb’s house.

Q: Your capability with the sitar and with South Asian languages is well known. Keeping in mind your current position at Voice of America, however, did you perform any active work in journalism before heading to broadcasting?

Silver: None whatsoever. I came in purely as an Urdu, well presumably Urdu expert, but also with management experience because in between I taught Urdu for three years at Minnesota, nine years at Harvard. But as often happens at Harvard the younger faculty doesn’t get tenure. The department actually voted me tenure but for funding reasons the deans reversed the decision, so for one month I had tenure teaching Urdu at Harvard but then that was over. Was looking for another job and a job opened up at Duke University where I became director of all of their international programs, the visa section, the study abroad, and so I had a lot of management experience. But I wanted, for a variety of reasons, to leave that job. This job opened up so I came up here, with no journalistic experience but a knowledge of Urdu and management skills, so I’ve been here since 1986.

Q: Do you think that this job limited you in any way, considering that this field is more vocal, and does not actively involve live instruments or language instruction?

Silver: Well, I had made a conscious decision at one point not to become a full time musician. I figured that would be difficult given what the market was. Quite frankly, being a Gringo, you know, a gora (casual Urdu term for “white man”) I had found difficulty in general circles, not among musicians, but in general circles about getting credibility, like “He’s an American, he can’t play our music.” So I sort of trained myself as an ethnomusicologist and actually applied for a couple of positions teaching as an ethnomusicologist even though I had no academic background whatsoever in it. So when this job opened up it was interesting and, as challenging as the Duke job was, I missed South Asia. I mean I’ve lived a long time in South Asia, and I wanted to get back to South Asia. This was a perfect way to get back into the mahol, the environment of South Asia, so here I came and here I am. I miss teaching, I love teaching, but on the other hand… my teaching gig had been basically first and second year Urdu and I don’t know that I would have wanted to do that for 30 years. So, this has been a challenge, it’s brought me to Washington, a city I love, and I have a variety of activities outside the job that are challenging so I can’t complain.

Q: So do you think that says anything about the nature of the professional field of international journalism? Would it be true to say that command over language overrides qualification as a journalist?

Silver: Well, this was a case of an organization needing, I mean a unit needing management, and ideally management by someone who knew the language. When I came there were a couple- three cases of service chiefs who didn’t know the language.

Q: But did you know anything about the broadcasting equipment and formats?

Silver: I had done professional recording and so forth so the technical side was no problem. I mean I could edit quickly and do those sorts of things, and then I went ahead and I learned the electronic editing.

Q: What is the nature, then, of the duties you perform as a supervisor?

Silver: Well, in the simple, good old days when we had only an hour and a half a day and a staff of 16, we would have shift editors but I would work. There was a period when there was someone who had been a managing editor here, he retired where I took over that role... and I would come in and I would edit the morning show. And at a certain point the staff communicated to me they really would like to edit themselves and that made sense… Responsibilities have expanded. We went from an hour and a half a day to three after Sept. 11, and then up to 12 hours, and put in the music component, then we started internet and now we’ve started television, so I’m managing all three. To be perfectly honest the management and administrative demands are so great that my journalistic activities are minimal at this time. I mean in the quiet days I would do interviews myself, I’d do a weekly program, a music program with one of my colleagues, and I…I’d have to say really dabbled at journalism. But I’m not trained as a journalist, and not really experienced as anything other than a managing journalist. I mean I’ve gone out, done reports, edit them and put together but it’s mostly administration.

Q: Although you are the chief of the Urdu Staff at VOA, is there anything you have personally learned from the nature of your programming?

Silver: One of the interesting developments of this expansion to twelve hours is we decided to include a music component, discovering all about the Pakistani rock scene. I hadn’t realised that exists; I’m a very sticking to metal, stuffy classicist. But it was very interesting to see that this whole industry was developing, and quite successfully.

Q: Finally, if this interview gets published, would you teach me to play the sitar?

Silver: If you’re willing to put in the effort, sure, I’d be happy to.

http://www.planetblacksburg.com/interview/komal-043006.html

Group reading : excellent idea

Urdu Academy conducts group-reading camp

AS part of celebrating 2006 as the "Year of Reading" announced by the State education department, Gujarat Urdu Sahitya Academy completed its first five-day session for school students on Saturday. The Academy has been allowed special grant of Rs 3 lakh to conduct camps of group reading and related activities in 10 schools this year.

The first camp was organised by Chhipa Welfare Girls High School with participation from three other schools in the city. As per the arrangement, the school concerned is asked to bear the expense and on completion of the event, the money would be reimbursed by the Academy, said V V Pandit, registrar of six academies in the State.

He said that except for Gujarati, each of the academies was assigned to conduct around 10 reading camps. The Gujarati academy is allotted Rs 10 lakh for the activity.

The activities at the camp include address by experts of different fields, eminent writers, authors and columnists.

In the just concluded camp, Mohammad Alvi, Varis Alvi and Dhanraj Pandit interacted with participants. Academy members M G Bombaywala and Nisar Ansari were also there. The Academy plans to organise such camps at Palanpur, Patan, Modasa and Himmatnagar among others, Pandit said.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/060429/48/63w7q.html