Monsoon Days

Aata hai yaad mujh ko bachpan ka voh zamana.
About 40 years ago in India this is kind of experiences I had which I miss at my age living in canada.
No body can react those memories od childhood and youth.
It has been ages ago that I have seen lightening and heard thunder as I did in Panjab.
I miss clear sky and glittering stars at night.Artificial light anf artificial life has taken away the nature from our lives.

#27 by tahmed32 on July 7, 2003 9:20pm PT
``Just check with us panjabis when you karachiwallas are struggling with urdu. ``
#135 by RZaidi on July 22, 2003 1:20pm PT
``And is it such a big crime to speak a decent sophisticated language? And since when did showing respect to someone become a sign of whimpy-ness??``

``Urdu is the language of Pakistan, not Punjabi or Pushto or any other dialect.``

First of all being from Karachi does not necessarily mean Urdu speaking. Secondly Urdu was the language of the army and not the elite of India.

Language is just a means of communication. It is culture that counts. Differences between people are primarily on the basis of ehnicity, dress and eating habits. Language and religion of course are factors, with religion probably coming in last.

Urdu was never the language of Pakistan but was spoken in areas that are part of India today, whereas Punjabi and Pushto both are. These languages are not dialects but are languages though without their own script.

#121 by roohi on July 16, 2003 8:05am PT

``BTW - Is it right to say in Pakistan literary Urdu is the language mostly of the elite and educated ... in North India Hindi dialects are both the mother tongue of the masses and refined and embellished are the language of the educated too. ``

I would agree with tahmed 32 that Urdu is not the literary language or the language of the elite in Paksitan. The elitist language is English and if you look at any person outside of a few cities in Sindh, who may be categorised as partof the ``elite`` , then the language would be their respective mother tongues. Urdu typicaly is spoke by the lower middle and the low income groups in some cities.

OK! I read almost all of the replies to this article and its amazing that people have managed to completely forget the article and itself and talk about everything and anything but the monsoon that Bina`s talking about!

#27 by tahmed32 on July 7, 2003 9:20pm PT
``Just check with us panjabis when you karachiwallas are struggling with urdu. ``

Since when did Punjabis become the masters of Urdu? as far as my knowledge goes, Punjabis speak Punjabi because they live in Punjab! whereas proper ``bhagaar``- ``kaanch`` type Urdu is the language spoken mostly by people who migrated from India..
I do however have a problem with Punjabis always thinking they`re somehow better than urdu-speaking people or Karachiwallas in particular. I think Punjabi is just a twisted completely slang version of Urdu, which is a mix of at least 2 very beautiful languages...Arabic and Farsi or Persian (just a little clarification for the tahmed32`s of the world)

As far as the word ``bijli`` is concerned...in proper Urdu the word bijli means electricity NOT lightening as in thunder and lightening or ``garaj-chamak``

garaj = thunder
chamak = lightening

I really wish people would just shut up about things that they have no knowledge of!


#41 by hamidm2 on July 8, 2003 8:29am PT

``punjabis, on both sides of the border, should secede and create a homeland where we can be free from the tyranny of the urdu speakers;``

that`s exactly why Pakistan has failed to rise above the ``developing country`` status, because of the Punjabis and the Pathans and the God-knows-what-nots of Pakistan, who dont seem to be satisfied with the fact that they have a country they can call their own. A country that was made so they could lead proper Muslim lives. Why cant we just call ourselves Muslims and learn to live together?

And is it such a big crime to speak a decent sophisticated language? And since when did showing respect to someone become a sign of whimpy-ness??Are we so cruel because we`re urdu-speaking? Urdu is the language of Pakistan, not Punjabi or Pushto or any other dialect. And I`ve never come across a single urdu-speaking person who actually makes fun of the Punjabi accent. I`ve always been made fun of because I DONT have a punjabi accent and because I cant speak a word of Punjabi. Shouldnt I be calling Punjabis tyrants then?

And the article by Bina, its a simple article talking about something extremely beautiful, why do we have to ruin it by bringing differences of culture between it?

I think its a great article, esp for someone like me who lives in Dubai where the weather is almost always dry and humid, for us rain is truly a blessing and reading this article made me want to go to karachi asap!

Way To Go Bina!

Ref sameerJB #102

{harimau:
There is always an earlier stage when words for a new discipline can be added and as the discipline grows, the words in that language grow. That is why, Spanish, German and French have equivalent words or spellings for equivalent technical terms. Unfortunately when scientific disciplines were developing in Europe, University were being open, our guys were doing Sufi poetry, Urdu poetry, buliding Taj Mahal, chasing Anarkali [on Lahore-Islamabad motorway], killing their brothers to get to the throne and in a constant state of war/ empire building with no interest in science.}

Unfortunately, you have bought into history, even scientific history, as told by Western historians.

While inhabitants of South Asia and their invaders from Central Asia may not have arranged known elements on a periodic table, they did know of and make use of metals such as copper, tin, lead, iron, silver and gold. They also seem to have known of the value of a particular crystalline form of carbon: diamonds.

To this day, there is no explanation of who forged the 1600-year old, 7-meter tall, 6-tonne iron pillar that stands outside the Qutb Minar and has stood there for 1600 years.

How many people know that the Potala in Lhasa at 17 stories remained the tallest building in the world until the early years of the 20th century?

hunney khatam...main te ajay boleya ee nai.:-)

tahmed: I consider you amongst the few relatively sober people on chowk...I am sorry to say that the argument that I called hypocrite happened to come from you..this time....but it is very common. Some people have rationalized in their minds that aborting of `other` languages and cultures and religions to bring other people into `our` language, culture and religion is good for `other` people because `our` religion, culture and language is superior to `other`s. sorry..my language, culture is as important to me as others` is to others. Religions, I am finding, are equally bad. As a Pakistani you can`t fathom the thought of India swallowing Pakistan to bring everyone together for everyone`s better future. I totally understand it. then why should Sindhi be swallowed by Punjabi or Punjabi by Urdu or Tamil by Hindi etc etc? If it is based on economy or the need in the market then everyone should be forced to learn English and color their hairs blonde because we know that English speaking persons are richer and blondes are more free than people with say black hairs.

dost-mittar #129 And on that happy note, I think we can end our discussion on this particular board. Thanks for an interesting exchange.

AlephNull #130 So you are basically pointing to the similarities between ideologies, whether they be Communist or Islamic. I agree with that, nor is that inconsistent by any means with the extract from my post that you pasted.

I would add that ideological ways of thinking does not stop with Communism or Islam... But from your post it seems you dont see it that way, and that is fine.

Tahmed #117 writes:

{{ Even if one agreed in principal that banning religion is a good idea (I shall discuss this further a bit below), the fact is that this has been tried as part of the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union for 70 years - and yet, after two or three generations of suppression and brainwashing of schoolchildren that ``religion is the opium of the masses`` after which religion should have been a distant memory of the Czarist days, as soon as the Soviet State ended lo and behold: the priests were back in their finery and the faithful were back doing what the faithful are supposed to do.}}

As usual you fail to see the obvious.

Communism displays all the characteristics – in belief and practice - of a revealed prophetic millennial religion. Its closest parallel is Islam.

It is a dogmatic system of belief which pivots on intangible notions, inaccessible to logic and empirical investigation, eventually declared to be beyond argument of any kind (and thus a matter of faith). It typically claimed its belief system to be final, absolute, complete, perfect, based in reason, and inevitably destined to be the common universal creed of all mankind. It became the common duty of communists to hasten the approach of the millennium through actions ranging from proselytization, to political intrigue and armed struggle, to outright seizure of power.

Communism has its ponderous tomes of Holy Scripture and its pantheon (panhagion?) of sainted prophets. The exact set of canonical works varies from one sect of communists to the other, but all would include the works of Hazrat Karl Marx, Rasul of the Proletariat. The precise set of recognized prophets varies as well, but Hazrat Marx inevitably has pride of place as the visionary founding prophet, with Hazrat Engels and Hazrat Lenin also occupying places of honour.

Each sect elevates one or more of its Great Thinkers and Leaders to the Communist pantheon as subsidiary Nabis while denouncing the leading lights of other sects as impostor Nabis – witness the fate of schismatic Communists from Trotsky to Lin Piao.

Like some other well-known revealed religions, Communism had its designated repositories of evil and targeted hate objects that had to be either converted to the True Faith or liquidated. These foes of the Path of Righteousness included at different times the bourgeois, kulaks, imperialists and deviationists from the straight path.

Further like common revealed religions, Communism has its promised heaven – to be attained when the dictatorship of the proletariat is established and the state withers away – some time in the indefinite future, rather than after death. This ludicrous pie-in-the sky promise is just as hollow as its predecessors in Christianity and Islam.

The evolution of Communist sects as a social phenomenon, in regions where it was a minority creed without effective political power, displayed strong analogies with the typical evolution of sects in dogmatic religions, with its eternal doctrinal squabbles, futile polemical theological debates, lurid accusations of heresy, and constant schism and fission and subdivision.

In countries – such as Russia and China - where some Communist sect or other managed to capture temporal power, they rapidly moved to make their control absolute, and then set up a repressive theocratic totalitarian police state where their particular variant of Communist doctrine became the official state religion. All other religions and sects were denounced as ill-founded or rejectionist or heretical and their adherents could expect to face increasing degrees of social disability, expropriation of property, physical violence, etc. At this point, ‘philosophical’, i.e. doctrinal divergences, were punished through the expulsion or liquidation of dissenters. Satirical attacks on the Supreme Leader and the True Faith were verboten and were punished with death. The risible notion of blasphemy was as strongly disapproved and punished under Communism as under Islam (and mediaeval European Christianity). There are strong parallels between the typical theocratic Communist police state and the theocratic Medinan state set up by Muhammad.

---

So seen in the proper cynical light, Soviet Communism was simply another revealed religion like Islam, moving as Islam typically has to stamp out all competition from religions native to the soil of the region. The brainwashing of schoolchildren that `religion is the opium of the masses` exactly parallels the indoctrination given to young Muslims that most other systems of belief are kufr and jahalat and the like. Given that the Russian Orthodox faith was thoroughly imbricated in a thousand years of Russian history and culture, it is no surprise that that faith would recrudesce at least partially in the vacuum left by the defeat and discrediting of Communism.

tahmed32:
Rest assured, I love Urdu as much as you do, if not more, and speak it with a Dehlvi , not panjabi accent :-).

roohi #121 In response to your question, I dont think it is correct to say that urdu is the language of the elite in Pakistan. Some urdu lovers in karachi no doubt wish it was, but the fact is that english is the language in which all serious business (professional education, government business, modern private sector business) is conducted. And in discussions, panjabis speak either in panjabi or in urdu (the latter they use generally if the group includes non-panjabi speakers). Pathans (including their elite) are much more uptight about their regional language (pushto or pukhto as some of them call it), and will almost invariably switch to pushto if two pathans are talking. I am not sure about sindhis, but the few i have known spoke urdu and/or english.

I think things are a bit different for indians who seem to not only use english for business, education, government but also to communicate with people who dont speak their regional language. I would be interested in any thoughts you may have on this.

dost mittar #125 I agree with most of what you are saying. One minor puzzlement (to use the term of the King of Siam): you seem very touchy about other urdu and arabic. I used panjabi merely as an example. But since you seem to assume that this means i care less for panjabi or ANY OTHER language, let me state what I think should have been obvious: Urdu and arabic are as much destined for extinction as panjabi or tamil or ANY OTHER language (other than the one universal language that has emerged, namely english).

Hope this sets to rest any suspicions you may have of favoritism towards any particular language.

roohi:
You are right about the tragic sacrifice of magdhi, bhojpuri, brajbhasha, etc. The big fish have eaten the small fish. You are right too about khari boli being the base of Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani. I think these languages have become the victim of the religious politics of language. Starting with the 20th century, hindus started identifying with hindi and muslims with urdu, so the other languages had to be sacrificed to the great religious divide. Urdu is now suffering in India because of that continuing association.
Panjabi too would have gone the same way except for the same politics of religion. Fortunately for panjabi, sikhs identified with gurmukhi, the script in which Guru Granth Saheb is written, which in turn is identified with panjabi. This is ironic in a way because most of the gurbani actually is not in panjabi but in the languages you mention, though written in gurmukhi script. As an example, ardaas has a more or less similar status for sikhs that aarti has for hindus. And the starting lines of the ardaas are actually in bhojpuri, as follows:
aagya bhai akaal kee
tabhi chalaayo panth
sab sikhan ko hukam hai
guru maanyo granth

tahmed32:
`` While I do indeed have great love for pakistan, and i do indeed consider islam to be a very positive religion if properly understood, this by no means implies that it is at the expense of disrespect for any other culture``
By comparing islam with ``other cultures``, you seem to imply that islam is not just a faith but also a culture. I agree with you here though it contradicts your general position that isalm is nothing more than the essence of quran which is the same as any other religion.

Coming to the main point of discussion. Culture and language are inseparable. Language is the umbilical cord which cannot be separated from a culture. You dont have to go farther than North America to see the evidence of that. The majority of people in New Hampshire, Louisiana and a large number of Americans in many other states have French roots and many still carry their French names. However, there is hardly any trace of French culture left in them (unless you think cajun food as french!) as they have lost their language. On the other hand, French Canadians in Quebec have maintained a very vibrant french culture there because they have been able to zealously retain their langugage even at the cost of curbing some individual liberties. I do agree with them that some individual freedoms have to be sacrificed for the rights of ``collectivity``.
So, when you say that you respect other cultures and at the same time talk indifferently about the death of panjabi/tamil etc., you are really not showing respect for other cultures. Now, if you had given as an example, the death of arabic, urdu, etc. , the reaction would have been different. But when you offer the others` oxes to be gored instead of your own, you can expect them to protest.
[I know you are panjabi, too, but your religious and national identities seem to be stronger than your linguistic/cultural identity].

Linguistic map of South Asia at:

http://www.himalmag.com/2003/april/map_of_the_month.htm

Dost etc.
Sadly Hindi can die too at the hands of Hindi ... all the different bhashas of northern india from Khari Boli, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Braj Bhasha, Maithali, Maghadhi ... have been lost in the standard sankritised hindi taught today. Khari Boli of Delhi area is the base language that today’s Hindi/Urdu started from ... but consider the beauty of the Braj of Kabir and Tulsi and the Awadhi of Surdas. Maithali (Northern Bihar) even had/has it`s own grammer and script. Of course probably every major Indian language has a large % of Persian Arabic loan words.

BTW - Is it right to say in Pakistan literary Urdu is the language mostly of the elite and educated ... in North India Hindi dialects are both the mother tongue of the masses and refined and embellished are the language of the educated too.

dost mittar #119 (I may have accidentally re-sent my post #117 so please ignore that with my apologies).
So we agree on the freedom to practice religion, AS LONG AS that freedom respects the right of other people to peace and quiet. I personally consider all religions to be indistinguishable in the essence from one another anyway, this being a combination of a desire for learning more and certain broad universal values (like individual freedom as we have just discussed). One can call it islam, or hinduism, or christianity, or agnosticism. It does not matter.

On what is lost in the translation: I think we make too much of what is lost in the translation - after all, the finest works of literature and art transcend boundries of space and time anyway. There is certainly a certain beauty to verses in the original language, that cannot be replicated in the translation. Here we have a trade-off: since everyone cannot learn all languages, one can either share the finest works of one`s culture with others by translating it into english (the common language around the world today), or else leave it for only the subset of the human population that understands the regional language. Anyway, I have (like others) read many works from other languages and cultures that have been translated into english, and enjoyed everyone of them.

dost mittar #118 While I do indeed have great love for pakistan, and i do indeed consider islam to be a very positive religion if properly understood, this by no means implies that it is at the expense of disrespect for any other culture. I have therefore always called for respect for other religions, including hinduism, in a hundred different ways on chowk. I have expressed appreciation for the rich culture of India.

It is true that I dont tolerate bs (paki bashing OR hindu bashing for that matter) and have sometimes gotten into some nasty exchanges with such posters. This does not change my basic views, although they do provide a dose of realism - neither all indians nor all pakistans, even after education, are free from the primitive aspects of their culture (and ridiculing other people`s religions is certainly the mark of a primitive environment the individual grew up in).

So could you please explain exactly what the problem is that you say you and dullabhatti have with what i write?? Is it that you dont really believe what I have written about respect for all cultures in the first para. above. Or are my conclusions in the second para. in anyway contradictory to what I have written in the first para.?? I am really curious to understand.

tahmed32:
...and I object to azaan only if the muezzin is `besuraa`:-).

tahmed32#117
I am not for banning religion; that post was only in retaliation to your remark about the killing of panjabi/tamil.
And you are right, even seventy years of official atheism could not kick the soviet citizen`s addiction to their `opium`. I have always maintained that religion fulfils an important need of many people to have a sense of certainty in their lives and hereafter and may add to their sense of fulfilment.
But you are wrong about the ability of translation. Could you tell me of a single translated ghazal of Ghalib which had captured even a fraction of the beauty of the original? Or of Shakespeare`s Hindustani translations achieving the same effect? I suspect that the same is true of the translations of Rumi or Omar Khayyam. The wealth of languages and cultures, even religious cultures, has been accumulated over millenia and it would be criminal of us to lose this wealth in the name of globalism.

dullabhatti#116:
Some people love their religion more than their country or culture, some love their countries more than their religion or culture, and some love their culture more than their religion or their countries. All are okay in my book as long as they do not want to score points at the cost of others. This is where you and I have a bit of problem with what tahmed says.

dost mittar #115 Freedom to practice one`s religion is in fact as much the right of any individual as is the freedom to not practice any religion. So, I would say that banning religion in fact means curbing individual freedom. An agnostic has as much of a right to be an agnostic as a hindu or muslim has to his beliefs.
Even if one agreed in principal that banning religion is a good idea (I shall discuss this further a bit below), the fact is that this has been tried as part of the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union for 70 years - and yet, after two or three generations of suppression and brainwashing of schoolchildren that ``religion is the opium of the masses`` after which religion should have been a distant memory of the Czarist days, as soon as the Soviet State ended lo and behold: the priests were back in their finery and the faithful were back doing what the faithful are supposed to do.

Having said the above, I understand your frustration with the mess that has been made in the name of religion in India and Pakistan. I think the problem is caused because, while religious freedom is permitted, the Second Law of Freedom that I mention in my post #113 below (namely, that ``your freedom of action ends where my nose begins``) is not applied. Under the second law, while everyone can practice religion, they can only do it as long as they dont bother other people - I oppose the muslim practice of ``azaan`` since it is clearly violating the right of other people to peace and quiet. Similarly, any mixing of religion in the workings of the state represent a violation of freedom. In Pakistan of course things are much worse than India in this respect, but India is no bed of roses either from everything I have read.

dullabhatti #116 if i had a penny for every time I have been called a hypocrite by some Indian poster (without the caller burdening himself with cutting and pasting anything I wrote as proof of what he was talking about), I would be a millionaire. So thank you for adding to my riches. Furthermore, if i had a penny for everytime i have been ridiculed as a muslim by indian posters for following the ``religion of the Arabs``, I would be a billionaire.

Harimau #114 It would indeed be sad to see the rich folk heritage disappearing from various regional languages as cultural change takes place. On the other hand, culture can be preserved - and the common language of english has made it possible for you to share with non-tamil speakers the beauty of this verse which would otherwise have been available only to tamil speakers. Just as the english translation of Rumi and other eastern writers have given them a far broader audience today than they would ever have had - since the persian of Rumi`s time is not understood even by the persians themselves. In any case one can no more stop people from coming up with a common language when they merge into a broader community (and due to globalization we are all basically becoming a single community in many ways) than one can stop the sea tides from rising.

Dost ji, those were harsh words by me indeed...sorry for any uncomfort. frankly one corner of my heart loves both countries immensely...or atleast Punjabs or ex-punjabs parts of both...I might dislike few but I don`t hate any other ethnic group..but at the same time I don`t feel obligated to shower my love left and right in the neighborhood to prove any kind of patriotism...why limit any such brotherhood to biharis or tamils only?..mere swedish te philphino gwanDiaN ne ki wighaReya ay? The problem I have is with hypocrite arguments like the one by tahmad below, put forward by some people... So one gets more freedom by giving up ones language and culture....I bet one can get many times more freedom by giving up ones religion and country too. tahmad sahib when are you giving up your Pakistani patriotism and Araby religion to get the freedom you preach to others? because when you decide to do that let us know and I will promise not to raise a voice for Punjabi again. urdu te hindi de halway manday Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Gujrati di kabar te kiyoN pakkan? if you think these religional languages are a barrier in some kind of Indian or Pakistani brotherhoods, let us give up all native languages, let all suffer equally,and adopt Spanish instead. But why my language has to die at the expense of some else`s in a country that I call my own and in the freedom that I fought for?

tahmed:
The biggest constraint on individual freedom is relgions, especially established religions (including Hinduism and Sikhism) which imprison the minds of their followers through indoctrination that starts at birth. These established religions have the arrogance to deride newcomers as `cults`, forgetting that their own religions would have been called cults too if their founders today claimed that they parted a sea, were born without a father or kept hearing self-serving messges from God for 23 years. The true freedom would be to challenge these notions.
So, if you want true freedom, BAN RELIGIONS, not cultures.

Ref tahmed32 #113

I don`t know about Punjabi or Gujarati but if Tamil dies down we will forever lose poems like this written some 1500 years ago:

``Ko-keri-ko, crowed the rooster
My poor heart missed a beat
That the sword of morning came down
To cut me off from my lover
Entwined in my arms.``

dullabhatti #111 I think that if Tamil, Punjabi, Gujrati, Sindhi etc. die, then in fact that gives birth to true freedom for the individual. He or she is no longer a Punjabi or a Tamils or whatever, but an INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING. He or she is no longer burdened by the baggage of ``culture`` (which is basically habits inherited from earlier generations), expected to live in certain ways, but is truly free to live as he or she pleases. No longer is he or she expected to marry a fellow panjabi, for example, of the same religion and/or caste and/or social status. No longer is he expected to follow the profession of his elders, as has been the case for thousands of years. No longer is he expected to hold certain views. I could go on. These are the various types of shackles that bind people, far more so in India and Pakistan than in the US or UK for example.

The only thing limiting the freedom of each individual is the nose of other people (``Your freedom ends where my nose begins``, as Justice Oliver Holmes said). This is true freedom. Everything else is oppression of one kind or another. The British Raj never touched the lives of the vast majority of people, nor the Mughal Raj before that. The oppression of social expectations, of language that exposed them to the thinking of the small community around them, of cultural practices - these were the true masters to which people of the subcontinent have been slaves for thousands of years.

dullabhatti#111:
Veeji, ina ghussa kyon?
If tamil or panjabi disappears (and there is no sign that it will) it will not be the govt.`s doing, at least in India. I think the founding fathers of India did well in recognizing all major languages as official (look at the Indian rupee notes). As far as panjabi is concerned, can you recall any period in history (including the sikh rule!) when panjabi literature, music, etc. flourished as much as it does now? Believe me, this would not have been possible without official patronage. Gosh, I get panjabi programs even in Ottawa all day Saturday and even on Sunday and I can even order a 24-hour panjabi TV channel from India for less than $10 a month. If some panjabis in Delhi have stopped speaking panjabi at home, they should blame themselves and not the govt. Even in Delhi, some official street signs are in panjabi. I think we panjabis should do more to develop pride in our language than blaming others. Our attitude to our language is best shown in that popular panjabi song ``Pancho Rama`` (which was also shown in Monsoon Wedding). The song is about this snobby groom`s party assessing potential brides. The song switches from Panjabi to Hindi/Urdu when the groom`s party says,
Hum to nahin karenge
hum to babu log hain
hum to genterman hain!
I think we panjabis have to get rid of this notion of not speaking panjabi because we are `genterman`.

Demise of the languages, that are spoken by millions for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years like Tamil, Punjabi, Gujrati, Sindhi etc, if happens is a genocide..pure and simple genocide of language and culture...sadly happening after all these subjects of a thousand years of slavery attained FREEDOM. Fuc* you India, Fuc* you Pakistan and Fuc* you Freedom. and fuc* you queen of England for throwing us in the dog house.

Ref dost-mittar #101

[Why blame second rate politicians? How about the ``visionary architect`` of India who sent his grandchildren to Doon school instead of letting them rub shoulders with the children of janata-janardhan in the schools run by his socialist government?]

It is well-known that J. Nehru was the last Englishman to rule India. He wasn`t going around naming his kid Hindi Rani or, God forbid, Queen Victoria!

Despite all the attempts at imposing Tamil on Tamilians (as opposed to the Central Government`s imposition of Hindi on Tamilians and the rest of the country), Unesco has placed Tamil among the languages that are in danger of disappearing within another century. This is a language that is spoken in Sri Lanka (for close to a thousand years), Malaysia and Singapore in addition to India.

Oh well, the glory of the Tamil language will live on in names like Tamil Arasan, Tamil Mani, Tamilkudimagan, much to the delight of Soysauce.

dost mittar #107 I did see Monsoon Wedding to check out the Delhi branch of the Panjabi family, and was glad to see that the lively spirit that characterizes any full-blooded panjabi guy or gal was alive and well. The movie was in english though, the language in which money talks. :-)

The panjabi language does seem to be developing some roots in the expat community thanks to daler mehndi.

tahmed32:
I partly agree with you regarding the uncertain future of panjabi -as well as other languages- in the diaspora. One can maintain one`s language beyond one or two generations in another country only by adopting a colonial attitude towards the `inferior` natives, like the Indians did in East Africa or the British did in India or the muslims in India did by creating/adopting a new language.
But panjabi as a language is not going to die if it dies in the diaspora (even here it is difficult to predict a certain death because of the emergence of the new multicultural global `pind`). The attitude of muslim panjabis in Pakistan and hindu panjabis in India is however not because of their hatred for their panjabi roots, of which most of them are quite proud, but because of a misplaced notion that their language is paindoo. This attitude persist despites the phenomenal success of the panjabi pop music, so you have panjabi kids talking in hindi/urdu and then bursting into a `shaawa-shaawa` song. This attitude was well displayed in the movie monsoon wedding. (you should start seeing some good movies, btw!!:-) )

Ref Romantic-Air #91

[I don`t know about everyone else, but I plan to start taking Chinese language lessons soon. And I seriously think, Pakistan should start pushing Chinese as a foreign language, to fill the large amount of jobs that will open up in the booming Chinese in 25 years.]

I really like your love for the Chinese and the Chinese language. It is so romantic and we all know romance is so hard to find on Chowk unless you count Ali1`s trolling for boyfriends as romance.

But seriously, do you believe that there is going to be a labor shortage in China in the future? Any economic data to support it? Or just wishful thinking?

Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi are not substitutes for English. English is a must for diaspora and also provides an edge in the job market in subcontinent. It is a question of bilingual kids or multilingual at some later stage in life. Desi children not knwoing Urdu, Hindi or Panjabi is not a loss in the job market but a disppointment for those who wish this most important part of heritage to pass on to the next generation.

The desi diasporta in Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Fiji has practically lost all language heritage, just as African slaves to Americas, but African American problems are least due to losing heritage and desi diaspora is doing fine with losing heritage, becoming elites and primeministers except in Fiji recently. German diaspora across the globe does better than their neighbors, in Paraguay, Brazil, Russia but they have also lost language heritage.

However, most of the heritage losses of desis and others occured before modern means of communication, travel and staying in touch in many different ways than in the past when migration meant abandoning past. Yet heritage should never become an additional burden and should not be detrimental as Islamic heritage in the west is currently perceived with some reality. The clash of Islamic heritage and the western culture is a great example and lesson for all those who have some degree of desire of preserving heritage in the next and future generations. I have seen both type of kids from Pakistani and Indian families in USA. some parent want not a shadow of past/ heritage to be transferred and some want too much. One thing they all must consider and that is: parents should never play a conscious or unconscious role of unevening the level playing field for their kids in practical life. But they do it all the time, here as well as in subcontinent for their own ego, sensitivites and insecurities.

Ally #103 I seem to have disappointed my fine fellow panjabis on both sides of the border (first dost mittar, now you) by saying that panjabi is a dying tongue (like all other tongues).
Let me present my case is this way: As expats, I ask you two to look at panjabi children born in the west - do you know of even ONE panjabi child (born of pakistani or indian parents, it does not matter) born in the US who is more comfortable in panjabi than in English?? Just ONE child?? Is there any reason to think that what is happening to the expats today will not happen to the inpaks (to use Mr. Madani`s unique contribution to the english language) tomorrow??

I rest my case. :-)

I agree that it seems incredible that a language spoken by 150 million people (I assume this is a good figure Ally came up with) is doomed to extinction in just a few more generations.

dost mittar #100 I must admit I am more of an armchair theorist on this, and not one to start a campaign to teach the Quran in english. The closest I came was when I volunteered once as a sunday school teacher for small kids (which included my own). First thing I did, I went through the Kalima in English (``There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet``), and we spent three or four Sundays discussing the implications of this one sentence only.

As for expressing oneself in one`s mother language, I think you do a pretty good job of expressing yourself in English. :-) You and I could probably have a great conversation in panjabi on chowk e.g. = but we dont, since that basically means cutting every nonpanjabi speaker out. Sometimes temporal starts off in urdu and then i respond in urdu, but that too is unfair to non-urdu speakers who are therefore deprived of out incredible wit and wisdom. ;-) So, lets have a universal language. If you want to learn gurmukhi, that is fine. But it would be a matter of personal interest, not to promote better communication with other souls on this planet (including the unfortunate souls who were born non-Panjabi).

tahmed #93,

i dont think its fair for you to say that Punjabi is a dying language, many more Punjabi ppl, are now turning back to their native tongue though not for anything professional, there has been a renewed interest in the language from Punjabi ppl, and more so from the ppl abroad. I am taking time out to read in Shahmukhi, and train my eye to read it without confusing it with Urdu, also i would like to learn Gurmukhi, and there is so much help on the internet and things for those with an interest.

Eventually the borders will ease, and Punjabi ppl will communicate with each other, they will do it, in Punjabi. There will eventually end up being more interaction and development, between Chandigarh and Lahore. Punjabi has a sophisticated vocabulary, its been forgotten, but now ppl are reviving it, there are efforts under way to add more vocabulary to it. As Punjabi ppl progress and prosper, so will their language. So i wouldn`t write the native language of about 150 million people worldwide off the books just yet.

harimou:
``Oh, the same thing happens amongst Sangilikkaruppans and Sudalaimuthus of Tamil Nadu in India where the politicians send their children to English-medium schools while opening Tamil-medium schools for the hewers of wood and drawers of water. `
Why blame second rate politicians? How about the ``visionary architect`` of India who sent his grandchildren to Doon school instead of letting them rub shoulders with the children of janata-janardhan in the schools run by his socialist government?

harimau:
There is always an earlier stage when words for a new discipline can be added and as the discipline grows, the words in that language grow. That is why, Spanish, German and French have equivalent words or spellings for equivalent technical terms. Unfortunately when scientific disciplines were developing in Europe, University were being open, our guys were doing Sufi poetry, Urdu poetry, buliding Taj Mahal, chasing Anarkali [on Lahore-Islamabad motorway], killing their brothers to get to the throne and in a constant state of war/ empire building with no interest in science. Now it is too late to create Kendriya Hindi Sansthan and try to unify northern Indian languages and make it scientific using Sanskrit.

There is not a single element in the periodic table that owes it to Indian, Chinese, Arabs, Muslims or Turkish empires. The disciplines require systematic and constant approaches which were not there. The scholarships in certain areas owed it to few scholars and with the death of the scholar or his disciples, the area of specialty suffered.

Hindi, Urdu, Panjabi are good for communication, producing movies, songs and literature and culture. These are the languages of about one tenth of humanity. These languages are here to stay but for the above mentioned purposes. But we do have misplaced and obsessive infatualtion with our languages and the rivalries between them is additional headache. Two northeners would be fighting over it a third northerner would be inventing scientific equivalents words. All three are wasting time. North has to learn many thing from south India and Language development within rational boundries is one of them. Actually ``What North India should be taught by (or should learn from) South India`` is a good topic worthy of several articles at chowk. Perhaps you or somebody from south should take this challenge.

I disagree with Romair that no multi-ethnic country should have an absolute majority of a single group. He forget to mention Britain and Switzerland surviving without any problem while Russia and Yugoslavia did not. Similarly the rise of China or India in the future would not invent wheels to Mandrinize or Hindiaze all scientific languages. They will actully find way to spell the already developed words in Mandarin, same as we have haspatal and iskool for hospital and school respectively or French, German or Spanish do with new scientific words.

tahmed#93:
My reference to arabic and quran was in the context of language rather than religion. So we can then expect you to lead a camaign against the teaching of arabic in the madrassas of the U.S:-). And you didn`t say that you would like to replace urdu with english in Pakistani schools and colleges. There is nothing natural about the decay of Panjabi in Pakistan or among hindus in India. These tendencies are a hangover from the pre-partition notions of hindi-hindu-hindustan and muslim-urdu-pakistan. I am only now learning gurmukhi script so that I can enjoy some of the new panjabi literature. I believe people can express themselves best in their mothertongue. There is something pathetic when one hears a panjabi saying things like `meray godday mein dard ho rahi hai!``.

romair:
I agree with some of the things you say. It was not long ago that french was considered to be the language of international communication (hence the term lingua franca?) . You are right about the rush to learn chinese. I remember that after the oil crisis of 1970s, there was a rush to learn arabic. The domination of english also may not continue for ever, though it is likely to remain so during my lifetime.
But I disagree wrt hindi/urdu. And this is because of its status in India. Hindi is NOT the lingua franca of India, english is and is likely to remain so. Protagonists of hindi fought and lost the battle to make hindi the official language of India in the 1960s. Almost all office work in India in the govt and private offices takes place in english or in the regional languages in the states. This is unlikely to change.

`Horde`` originated from Turko-Mongol word “Ordu” (as in the hordes of Mongols descending from the Central Asian Steppes), which means army. There is a city by the name of Ordu in the northern Turkey, near the Black Sea. Even the military museum in Istanbul, closer to Taksim Square, if I remember correctly, is called Ordu museum.

Urdu evolved as a lingua franca of Delhi’s armies between 1200 and 1600. The language evolved as a necessity to allow troops from diverse background, speaking Indian languages, Persian, Turkish and Arabic, could communicate with each other effectively. Thus its vocabulary and composition. The language became sophisticated and gentrified when Delhi-based bureaucrats gradually adopted it.

Romair: #91 The goras may be going into extinction due to low birth rates and intermarriages, but what used to be called the third world is not that far behind: Both China and India have undergone reductions in birth rates over the past two decades that even the best and the brightest did not dare to predict back in the 1960`s and 1970`s. The same is happening whereever urbanization takes place, the link between low birth rates and urbanization being a phenomenon that has been well understood and recorded by demographers starting from the 19th century.

Also, reality is more complicated and such linear thinking is no predictor of the future: in addition to falling birth rates we must recognize other dimensions of change (revolutionary advances in genetics, growth of a common culture, the increasing irrelevance of race resulting from intermarriages) that are now taking place. While no one can predict the future, one thing we can predict I think for sure is: it WONT be a linear projection of today`s world.

Thus, for example: english is no longer the first language of the english only. For example, in the US, the largest ethnic group today is of German descent - and virtually all of them think of english as their first language. The US (and Canada too I think) is expected to continue a significant population growth for the rest of this century due to continued immigration - and US born children of virtually all immigrants - hispanic or asian -speak english fluently (and in most cases are more comfortable in it than the language of their parents).

dost mittar #90 In answer to your question, I think the only language one should read the Quran in is a language which one understands. To read it in Arabic is as absurd as to would be to read the Faust in the original German without knowing a word of German.

I have always maintained on chowk that the spirit of the Quran is opposite to the violent and chauvinistic spirit of the muslim extremists, and that is all the more reason for muslims trying to understand Islam to read the Quran with understanding. So I am surprised that you should even feel need to ask me this question.

As for panjabi being a dying language, I think I am merely stating the obvious. As a fellow panjabi, I enjoy speaking the language as much as you do. But please dont shoot the messenger. :-)

And btw, if the rest of humanity can live a perfectly fulfilling life without knowing a word of panjabi, I think so will future generations of panjabis. After all, all cultures change anyway - the Lahore panjabi culture today for example is vastly different from the village panjabi culture of the 19th century, and indeed (for the middle and upper middle class at least) vastly similar to urban culture in any other city in the world.

Ref Mullah32 #71

[.... although Lahore drivers still seem to drive as if the family honor is ruined unless they chase a couple of pedestrians off the streets and unless they cut across the guy in front.]

You must admit that that is a vast improvement over believing that their family honor is ruined unless they kill their daughters. ;-)

PS. That smiley is my usual pathetic attempt at sick humor.

PPS. My PS spares the resident Mullah from pointing it out.

Ref sameerJB #77

[There is no necessity for 130 million people anywhere in the world to be forced to adopt overtly as in Pakistan and covertly as in India to a language of 450 million people. Neither of these languages are scientific or technical to provide an edge for any speaker in market place. These languages are not going to invent 35-40 million new words just to name all the chemicals in the world. This is just as example.]

There are some countries where they do go to the trouble of inventing new words. An example is Bahasa Malaysia/Bahasa Indonesia. Some 15 years back, the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia added 200K new words to their language to be able to teach scientific subjects in the native languages. This gave rise to words such as `sains` for `science`, `teknologi` for `technology`, etc. The confusion is compunded when the Malay word for water is `air` (pronounced a-yer) and because they abandoned their Jawi script 70+ years ago and adopted the Roman script.

The Northies also attempted to introduce thousands of new scientific terms into Hindi. With the result that a state like Bihar that produced Rajendra Prasad today produces Lalloo Prasad and a state like Uttar Pradesh that produced Jawaharlal Nehru today produces Mayawati. Meanwhile, Telugu and Tamil seem to be the most common languages among expatriate software engineers in the US, and not Java or HTML.

#Ref tahmed32 #83

[I was surprised a few years ago when, visiting Bangladesh, my Bengladeshi colleage spoke bitterly about politicans talking about making Bangla the national language and medium of instruction in schools while sending their own kids to english medium schools and sending them to the US or UK at the first opportunity.]

Oh, the same thing happens amongst Sangilikkaruppans and Sudalaimuthus of Tamil Nadu in India where the politicians send their children to English-medium schools while opening Tamil-medium schools for the hewers of wood and drawers of water.

At least, the Bengalis have the sense not to name their kids `Bangla Babu` as opposed to the `Tamil Kings` that you see in Tamil Nadu.

#Ref UmerMurtaza #82

[I`m not trying to be rude but who are you?]

Just someone whose respect for the Punjabi language increased dramatically when I read somewhere that 85% of Punjabi is high-velocity abuse and the other 15% is low-velocity abuse!

#Ref Saminasha #82

[Interestingly enough, my Indian friends make very little distinction between Urdu and Hindi...which makes Hindi a vehicle weighted with the same freight as Urdu, nahin?]

Don`t even get me started on Hindi. My native language is Tamil.

PS. My cousins and nephews who grew up in Delhi speak fluent Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu. I ask them to translate Hindi movies for me but even they stumble over Bombay Hindi which is something else!

PPS. I do watch Hindi movies on the flights to India (they have subtitles) because they are so unintentionally funny.

tahmad/dost-mittar #90: ``In future, everyone will speak the same language. And that language will be english. ``

I was sitting in a restaurant and heard an interesting conversation, the other day. Two Canadians were discussing the USA`s war on Iraq. And one guy said, ``I don`t know why all these people are fighting over these things, eventually the whole world will be Chinese and Indian, and we (goras) will be extinct.``

I think English was definitely the dominanting language of the 20th century and continues to be the dominating language of the 21st. But I think, it has reached its peak, or is close to its peak as the percentage-wise dominant language in the world. It was dominant, not due to any in-built features in the language that made it easy to understand. It was dominant due to two English speaking countries that ruled the world in the 20th century, i.e. England and USA.

These countries will remain powerful, however, other areas of the world are going to become powerful also, thereby, introducing some new languages into international lingua franca. China`s economy may be the size of the USA`s in 25 years. This will make Chinese a far more understood language than it is now. People in other countries will have to learn Chinese to get a share of this market, just like people have to know English to get to the US market.

Similarly South Asia will not always remain as poor as it is, while its population is going to keep growing. It will not dominate USA, but it will grab a much greater chunk of the international economic market, thereby bringing South Asian languages like Hindi/Urdu into the international mainstream.

The whole continent of South America is lying dormant. Someday it will be a major player in the economic arena, and this will lead to a rise of Spanish and Portugese again.

The Arab speaking countries are not going to remain (rich and) backwards forever. As they advance, Arabic will gain a more solid footing in the world and will add its economic value to its religious value.

While third world countries are progressing, they need to go out of their way to learn the dominate language(s) of the world. However, once they have reached a certain level of confidence and progress, they tend to start looking at their own roots, and want to shed, ``outside`` influences. They actually start to go towards their own historic culture. I don`t know if this is good or bad, but this is what human nature seems to do. Apparently, now Sottish and Irish Gaelic language teaching seems to be political issues in Ireland and Scotland (not sure about this). Much of this, may have to do with the new found confidence in Ireland due to its IT boom. The furthur third world countries progress (specially those with huge populations like China, India, Brazil and Pakistan), the more other people will be forced to start learning these countries` languages, making these languages stronger in the world.

There are about 1 billion speakers each, of the following three languages in the world: Mandarin, Englilsh, Hindi/Urdu (other languages in the Indic set). There are around 500 million speakers of Spanish/Portugese. http://www.linguasphere.org/languageNJ.html#most%20spoken.

However, there are only 375 million native speakers of English, while there are 885 million native speakers of Manadarin alone. And I believe English is the official mother tongue of only a few large countries and a bunch of tiny ones. While Mandarin is the official language of well over a billion people. Hindi/Urdu is the official language of over a billion people also.

The number of Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu and Spanish native speakers in the world is increasing, while the native English speakers is close to constant or even decreasing. In fact, of the total English speakers, 750 million actually speak it as a second language. As soon, as the countries speaking Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu and Spanish start making their mark in the world, the influence of these languages is bound to increase (there own populations are large enough to ensure this). This will result in English actually losing its hold as the dominant language and not increasing it. One can even see this within the USA, with Spanish becoming more and more popular in the Southwestern states. Many signs are in Spanish, etc.

I think the world will be speaking English as the only dominant language for a while (maybe 50 years). Meanwhile, Mandarin, Spanish and Hindu/Urdu will start making their marks as the international lingua franca. In the following phase, the world will be English, Spanish/Portugese (due to very sharpe rise of Spanish speaking population within the USA and rise of South America) and of course Mandarin (due to China) speaking. Then Hindi/Urdu is going to make a mark. And eventually at some stage, as the whole world progresses to US levels (who knows when - maybe in 100 to 200 years), Mandarin and Hindi/Urdu will dominate (just due to population alone).

So anyone looking out for a Hindi/Urdu or other Indian dialect is actually doing us all a favor. Professionals who can speak English and Chinese are right now worth their weight in gold in the international business market. Someday individuals who can speak English, Chinese and Hindi/Urdu will be worth their weight in diamonds and uranium.

So contrary to the initial point about English in previous replies, anyone who can, ``just`` speak English, will probably be, according to my opinion, left completely behind starting in from the middle of the 21st century by those who can speak the above three languages (plus Spanish as an added bonus).

Most of us desis already know two of the above three. I don`t know about everyone else, but I plan to start taking Chinese language lessons soon. And I seriously think, Pakistan should start pushing Chinese as a foreign language, to fill the large amount of jobs that will open up in the booming Chinese in 25 years.

It is very difficult to consolidate the costs of multiple languages with their benefits. It adds culture, but can and does potentially divide people. This is a historic fact. Countries with one language tend to be more cohesive than countries with multiple languages. However, forcing a language down everyone`s throat is not a solution.

Language differences are a results of hundreds of years of cultural evolution, and are thus an indicator of differences amongst communities. These differences could be due to lack of interaction because of geographical boundaries, different religions, kingdoms etc. It is only natural that words will enter a language due to the above factor. Urdu has so many Turkish words in it. Urdu now has English words in it. There is nothing wrong with that. It is neither here nor there.

If Arabic words appear in Punjabi and people accept it, so what. That is how languages evolve in the first place.

What is more important is the equal distribution of resources and wealth amongst people in different areas. I think one of the biggest problems facing Pakistan is the size of the Punjab province, not the decline or rise of the Punjabi language. Punjab needs to be divided into smaller provinces, so that other provinces can get a fair deal. After the break up of USSR and Yugoslavia (not 100% sure), I think Pakistan is the only country left in the world where one province/state has a larger population than the rest of the provinces combined. We have seen what happened to the USSR and Yugoslavia. I think the same thing could happen to Pakistan, due to the dominance of Punjab in every field due to its large size.

Sooner or later, the dialects of Urdu and Punjabi and Sindhi etc., will evolve in different directions between Punjabis and Sindhis and Lucknowis in Pakistan and India. This is a natural process, when people speaking the same language end up in different countries. I am not sure how and why that can or should be stopped. It should neither be shoved down people`s throats nor discouraged. I think Pakistan (and India) would be better off and more united within their countries, if their different languages evolved towards one common language within each country. I certainly wouldn`t have any problem if Urdu and English was the only languages spoken in Pakistan. Even though neither is my mother tongue. Or English and Punajabi, or English and Pushto etc. Provided it was not done forcefully.

tahmed32:
`` From a practical perspective, a language is a merely a means of communication. Far too much has been made of the ``language issue`` over the past 50 years. In future, everyone will speak the same language. And that language will be english. ``
Would you say the same thing about arabic and the language of quran? Will you advocate the end of teaching arabic in the madrassas in the United States, if not in Pakistan and India? Would you also start a campaign on chowk that Pakistani schools and offices should stop using urdu as a medium of instrunction and work and use only english for this purpose? Or is this only a convenient tool to deny panjabi its rightful place in the province where 75% of panjabis live?

It did not end in 1971. Guess what language is Nazim from, the newly introduced word for mayor by Mutt and Naqvi, as if people were unhappy with the word mayor of the city. Nazim is not even used much in Urdu except for JI who calls their section incharge as nazim and nazim-e-aala etc. There is actually a commission under the chirmanship of a professor in Panjab University, Lahore, working to remove and add words fit with Pakistan ideology.....

tahmed32 #86.

As I mentioned: ``21st February 1952 was the beginning of the end of Pakistan and Two Nation Theory.`` That was the day the seeds of Bangladesh were sown and we saw the outcome in 1971. During these two decades, we were also guilty of further alienating the majority of Pakistan, with our behaviour, with our power, with our supposedly superior culture and with our actions.

Rahe naam Allah ka.

Banjaara #85 I have driven by those monuments, but have not visited them. I also saw smaller monuments of a similar design (like an inverted U, with the top part bent 45 degrees) in a number of small towns in Bangladesh when I used to go there in 1996-99. I was surprised to learn that the monuments were for the language riots of the 1950`s, not victory monuments to 1971. Clearly, the language riots seem to have left a much deeper impression on the Bangla psyche than the events of 1971, contrary to common belief outside Bangladesh.

tahmed32# 83

21st February 1952 was the beginning of the end of Pakistan and Two Nation Theory. Five killed in police firing, three bystanders and two jute mill workers, none of the leaders was wounded or killed. The Bangladeshis pay homage to their language movement on 21st February known as `` Ekkuish February- Matro bhasha aandolun dibosh``. They raised a national monument at the site of the killings, which is located between the old campus of Dhaka University and Dhaka Medical College.It is the most visited spot in Bangladesh after the 1971 Martyrs Memorial in Sagar, 20 kilometer north-east of Dhaka.

jayjay #80

Excellent article by Safir Rammah. To a degree it absolves the urdu speaking people from the oft repeated charges that urdu has been imposed on the Punjabis by the Urdu speaking clique and puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Punjabis themselves. Sometime ago someone mentioned on Chowk that not a single newspaper in Punjabi is published, whereas there are so many in Urdu out of Lahore alone. Perhaps the person was unaware of the fact that most of the owners, printers and publishers of the urdu language newspapers are Punjabi themselves, amongst whom the names of Majeed Nizami and Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman are at the top of the heap. Both of whom are long dead but their publications are still holding aloft the banner of urdu journalism in Punjab.

Harimauji,

Urdu comes from the Turkish word meaning ``encampment``- and considering the diversity of its speakers, its not such a bad description. Interestingly enough, my Indian friends make very little distinction between Urdu and Hindi...which makes Hindi a vehicle weighted with the same freight as Urdu, nahin?

sameerJB #77 Historically, language has periodically become an issue in pakistan only when some ideologue tried to impose urdu as a ``kaumi zabaan``. This happened of course in bengal, where the language riots of 1953 created a bitterness in Bengal that soured relations ever since all the way to 1971. It happened again periodically after that, particularly in Sindh. Today, it is not just expats who appreciate the value of english (lacking that, they would have no jobs except the lowest paying ones), but also ordinary people in Pakistan.

I was surprised a few years ago when, visiting Bangladesh, my Bengladeshi colleage spoke bitterly about politicans talking about making Bangla the national language and medium of instruction in schools while sending their own kids to english medium schools and sending them to the US or UK at the first opportunity.

re: 79

I`m not trying to be rude but who are you?

Umer M

http://www.apnaorg.com/articles/safir/psn.html

Status of Punjabi in Pakistan

Safir Rammah

Punjabi is the mother tongue of the majority of people in Pakistan. According to 1981 census, the last census for which the figures are available, Punjabi (including Saraiki, Hindko and other variations) is the “commonly spoken in the household” language for 60.43 per cent Pakistanis, followed by Pushto for 13.14 per cent, Sindhi for 11.77 per cent, Urdu for 7.60 per cent and Baluchi for 3.02 per cent. Yet, Punjabi has no official status either in Pakistan or in West Punjab. The medium of teaching in government and private schools in West Punjab is Urdu and, to a lesser extent, English. There is not a single Punjabi medium school in Pakistan, as compared to 36,750 Sindhi medium schools in Sindh and 10,731 Pushto medium schools in the NWFP, per a study in 2001. Except for a very small number of writers and activists, Punjabis are illiterate in their own language – they can neither read nor write Punjabi. The rich tradition of Punjabi literature, going back to the 12th century AD when Baba Farid composed his poetry in a highly developed and sophisticated Punjabi language, has been forgotten. Among the educated classes of Punjabis, instead of pride and affection, contempt and shame for their culture and language is commonly observed.

A closer study of this unique social phenomena of systematic and deliberate denial of their own ethnic identity by West Punjabis, as highlighted by their rejection of Punjabi language, provides many insights into the dynamics of search for an identity by various ethnic and religious groups in the subcontinent during and after the British colonial period and the way power structure has evolved in Pakistan.

The Lack of British Patronization: Prior to the annexation of Punjab by the British in 1849, Punjabi language had developed on the same course followed by most other regional languages in India. Throughout the period of Muslim dominance of India, Persian was the official language of Delhi durbar for conducting the official business until it was officially replaced by English in 1837. The language policies of British Government provided the catalyst for a number of local languages to flourish and develop into their modern and standardized forms. Prior to the British rule, a large number of local schools were functioning in the Punjab. They can be classified as madrassas (for Arabic and Islamic education), maktabs (for Persian education), Gurmukhi schools (for Punjabi language in Gurmukhi script and Sikh religious studies) and patshalas (Sanskrit schools). In all of these schools, Punjabi was the medium of teaching even though the main purpose was to teach other languages and religious subjects. For a number of years after the British conquest of the Punjab, official circulars and court orders were published in Punjabi. The subject of adopting Urdu or Punjabi as the official vernacular and medium of education in government schools was widely debated among the British officers. A number of them supported Urdu for various reasons, including their fear of resurgence of Sikhs if Punjabi was officially promoted. Most of the low level functionaries in the British governments bureaucracy in the Punjab had come from Urdu speaking areas. They also supported Urdu. Eventually, the British government adopted Urdu for Punjab’s schools and lower courts. Although Punjabi continued to be taught in some private schools in Gurmukhi script to Sikh children, it only served the purpose of religious studies since government employments were available only in Urdu and English. Punjabi missed the boat of British patronization that was the key turning point in the development of other regional languages, e.g., Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Sindhi, etc.

Urdu and the Muslim Identity: During the same time, the Hindi-Urdu controversy had erupted in Northern India where militant Hindu nationalists had begun to identify with Hindi language and the Muslims with Urdu. The fact that the Muslim League had made no inroads in Muslim majority provinces, including Punjab, until a couple of years before Partition and most of its following was in the provinces where Urdu was the spoken language of Muslim minority, helped Urdu to become the official language of Muslim League. The paramount political need to claim a separate identity of Indian Muslims overshadowed all regional sentiments among them. The educated classes of Punjabi Muslims accepted the hegemony of Urdu without any question. A review of Punjabi literature during the first half of 20th century reveals that while during the previous millennium, Muslim writers and poets had dominated Punjabi writings, they were conspicuously absent from the Punjabi literary scene after Urdu medium schools had replaced the traditional local schools in the Punjab. Corresponding to this change in the education system, the golden era of Punjabi Sufi poetry ended with Khwaja Ghulam Farid and Mian Muhammad at the beginning of the 20th century. Sikhs and Hindus wrote most of the Punjabi literature during this period. Punjabi Muslim intellectuals, writers and journalists abandoned their own language and willingly aligned themselves with Urdu as an indispensable requisite of their claim of a separate Muslim identity.

The Post-partition Crisis of Identity: After Partition, the language policy of Pakistan became a tool in the hands of military-civil bureaucracy axis that viewed the promotion of regional cultures and languages as a threat to their centralized power. Soon after independence, many regional movements, demanding a fair share of the state’s resources, had risen in East Bengal, Sindh, Baluchistan and the NWFP against the powerful center that was dominated by Punjabis. To counterbalance these demands for regional autonomy, efforts were made to develop a new national identity for all Pakistanis based on a Pakistani, and later Islamic, ideology and by making Urdu language as the symbol of this national identity. The predominance of Punjabis in civil bureaucracy and armed forces necessitated the complete submergence of Punjabi identity into an all- pervasive Pakistani identity as a political tool to legitimize the rejection of all other regional and linguistic identities. Punjabis were projected as the vanguards of Pakistan’s ideological frontiers. The Bengali Language movement of 1952 and the growing Bengali nationalistic tendencies that eventually led to the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, and the growth of regional movements in other provinces, further justified the educated Punjabis’ complacent attitude towards denial of their cultural and linguistic identity. The politics of language in the multi-language Pakistan is the politics of power struggle between a predominantly Punjabi center against various ethnic groups who demand their share in the national resources based on their regional nationalities. The self-serving opinion in the ruling classes of the Punjab since the Partition is to suspect all sentiments in favor of regional cultures in other provinces as anti-Pakistan. In their efforts to legitimize their hold on power and to eradicate the menace of provincialism, they lead by example by disregarding their own cultural and linguistic roots.

Language and Status in Pakistan: Language is an important symbol of status and class differentiation in Pakistan. English, as the official language of Pakistan, is the working language of all high-level government officials. Without knowing English, it is impossible to get lucrative jobs in the civil bureaucracy, military or in the private sector. English is the real language of power in Pakistan, just as it was during British colonial government and as Persian was before that. Learning Urdu is also a pre-requisite for entering the middle and low-level job market in Pakistan. The government runs a class-based discriminatory system of education by providing subsidized English education in state-run educational institutions for the children of power elite whose parents belong to armed forces and other government agencies, while mass education is provided in Urdu, and on a smaller scale, in Sindhi and Pushto. The fees for good private English schools are out of reach for common Pakistanis. On the one hand this creates a self-perpetuating elite class in Pakistan and on the other hand it makes various languages as class identifiers. English as a symbol of upper class, Urdu of middle and lower middle classes and Punjabi or other regional languages representing the uneducated peasantry and unskilled labor class. This provides a strong incentive for class conscious Punjabis to distance themselves from their language and common culture. The process of gentrification for an educated Punjabi begins with adopting Urdu for all formal usage and is further enhanced by learning to speak English.



In the villages, markets and majority of the rural and urban homes of West Punjab, the use of Punjabi language in conversations is as robust as ever. Most of the market-based popular media, outside the realm of state controlled radio and TV, is in Punjabi. Punjabis have become used to the contradiction of talking and listening in Punjabi while reading and writing in Urdu or English. Even Punjabis living in the Diaspora shift from a telephone conversation with their parents in Punjabi to writing them letters and cards in Urdu without noticing the obvious change of language from one form of communication to the other. The small cadre of Punjabi activists and writers, who have been struggling against all odds to promote Punjabi language, literature and culture, have so far generally based their case on emotional appeals to save their beloved mother tongue and culture. Unless they fully understand the underlying institutionalized and entrenched power politics of languages in Pakistan, they will have little hope to win many adherents to their worthy cause.

http://www.apnaorg.com/articles/aziznation.html

In Support of Punjabi Language

Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

[The Nation, Lahore - May 24, 2001]


Punjabi language is the largest spoken but the most neglected of the languages in Pakistan. On account of its richness and its large stock of vocabulary, it could have been made an official language in Punjab`s mofussul offices, district courts and the provincial Assembly. This would have provided relief to local people who are not fluent in any other language and have to undergo the inconvenience inherent in expressing themselves through intermediaries and translators. As it is not a medium of instruction at the primary level, children are forced to cram lessons in Urdu or English without fully understanding these, which is harmful for learning. As a proficiency in the language is no qualification for a job, many students do not offer it as an elective subject at the college level. Neglecting one`s cultural heritage, of which the mother tongue is a vital component, deprives a community of a most valuable source of spiritual sustenance without which no creative activity can be undertaken whether in the realm of arts or sciences. Further, the neglect erodes the community`s confidence in its ability to perform. By bringing up a generation ignorant of its language a community gradually loses its roots.


Providing government patronage to Punjabi would have in no way harmed Urdu which enjoys the status of a national language and is bound to continue as a lingua franca throughout the country. It would have in fact enriched Urdu. Starting from the beginning of the 20th Century, writers belonging to Punjab have added vitality to the Urdu language by introducing in it local vocabulary and turns of speech. The Urdu purists who disapproved of the activity have in fact done disservice to it by standing in the way of its becoming a more widely understood language.


Fears are often expressed that the propagation of Punjabi might weaken the basis of the Pakistani nationhood. There are those who think that as the language is spoken in the Indian Punjab also, any emphasis on the commonality of language could give birth to the thinking that borders between the two countries are irrelevant. Anyone who has studied the question thoroughly will question the argument.


There is no denying the fact that the existence of a common language serves as a bond between Punjabis all over the world. It is not unnatural for them to spontaneously start communicating in their mother tongue when they meet anywhere even ignoring the presence of others who may not understand the language. This is by no means unusual and is in fact a universal phenomenon. The English speaking communities in Great Britain, North America and Australia have always felt nearer to one another than to the French, Germans or Italians. But this has not weakened their national loyalties or their international relations in the least. Similarly, despite all the sense of solidarity permeating the Arabic speaking communities, it has in no way affected their respective national bonds nor for that matter eliminated political rivalries between their governments. All the linguistic and cultural affinities between Bangladesh and West Bengal have similarly not stopped the former from continuously strengthening its national identity. In all these cases, people of each country have developed political, social and economic linkages over years which have in turn given birth to a sense of particularity. They have developed certain commonalties which they do not share with those speaking their language in other countries. This has strengthened the already existing national boundaries. Similarly, people belonging to various provinces in Pakistan have developed numerous social, political and economic linkages which act as a strong binding factor. Despite numerous complaints which occasionally surface and which are not unusual in federations, these linkages have become so strong that the provinces may not remain viable without one another.


In federations secessionist tendencies develop only in provinces which suffer from a sense of prolonged deprivation. This has never been the case with Punjab which is not only the biggest but also the most prosperous province in Pakistan. While all federal units have gained from the creation of the new country in various degrees, Punjab has been the greatest beneficiary among them. Its prosperity is dependent on its continuing to strengthen the federation. It receives from other provinces the bulk of the gas and electric power which keeps its factories running, sustains its agriculture and keeps its households warm in winter and cool in summer. Being a landlocked province, it depends on the port city of Karachi for imports and exports. Its business community has invested in all the provinces and its professionals and workers are spread all over the country. No reasonable man in Punjab belonging to any section of society would therefore go for a bigger Punjab at the cost of a united Pakistan which has given him all that he possesses. Opting for a bigger Punjab does not suit those living in East Punjab either, as they belong to the most developed and prosperous state of the Indian Union.


The desire on the part of the Punjabis to preserve and develop their language must not therefore be taken as something subversive. Punjab has a rich literary tradition and a vibrant language. The concern to transfer the heritage to the coming generations therefore is quite understandable. This brings together Punjabis not only from India and Pakistan but also from
other countries.


There are bound to be all types of elements in the ranks of those who want to preserve and popularize the Punjabi language. Here and there one may meet a racist dreaming about the revival of a Punjabi empire or somebody who would like India and Pakistan to become one again. But these are freaks who hope to turn back the irreversible wheels of history. The majority of the people involved in the holding of international Punjabi moots are those who believe in the sanctity of national borders, while they are at the same time genuinely concerned about the preservation of the Punjabi language and cultural heritage.

---

Ref UmerMurtaza #73

[In UK, every Punjabi speaks Punjabi, irrespective of your origin. Yes, Urdu is considered more sophisticated because well…er, it is more sophisticated.]

Urdu: Derived from `horde` meaning army camp. Urdu is considered the rough and ready language of the army camp, a language that used (and still uses) words from several languages mixed together so that the soldiers normally speaking different languages can have a common language at the camp.

This language is considered more sophisticated than Punjabi? I don`t know if that is an insult to Punjabi or a symptom of the great inferiority complex of the Urdu speakers.

interesting to note how lahoris (Lhauris)...and karachities get into these mindless debates...even on this chowk platform......its only but natural for anyone to grow up in his city or environment with a natrual inclination for it....whether the sleepy pace of lahore or the uptown buzz of karachi....to each his own :)

tahmed32:
Yes, too much has been made of the ``language issue`` over the past 50 years within the context of local politics for understandable reasons. The necessity must dictate the choice of language and not sponsorship of one at the expense of other for no reason. There is no necessity for 130 million people anywhere in the world to be forced to adopt overtly as in Pakistan and covertly as in India to a language of 450 million people. Neither of these languages are scientific or technical to provide an edge for any speaker in market place. These languages are not going to invent 35-40 million new words just to name all the chemicals in the world. This is just as example.

But when Panjabi samachar from All India Radio Panjabi service become unintelligible to P-Panjabis and Panjabi khabraN from Radio Pakistan, Lahore become incomprehensible to I-Panjabis, despite ethno-linguistic kinship, and yet no understanding problem talking face to face with each other in New york or any other place, makes one wonder the motives behind such a difference at states` controled media. One wonders why does Pakistani media loves to Persianize and Arabize Panjabi as much as possible and why does Kendria Hindi Sansthan, a Union Public Service Commission subsidiary, dictates ``appropriate`` Sanskrit or Hindi words to All India Radio Panjabi Samachar and culture ministry of I-Panjab.

So talking about the importance of English in diaspora and to some extent back home is one thing, discussing language politics back in subcontinent is altogether different matter . The national governments never stop interfering in the local issues that can be dealt naturally out of necessity as has been the case for millenia.

[The conclusion drawn in the following segment of this post is just my gut feelings. I have heard and read some rudimentary evidence like ISI and intelligence communities attending some of these conferences - particularly one held at Nankana Sahib under a bogus organization named Muslim-Sikh Student federation and attended by Khalistani Sikhs and large number of uniformed military officers - but they are not conclusive. So it should be just a hypothesis for now]

You might have noticed in the upsurge of Sufism and sufi poetry with seminars, workshops, musical function, discussions, lectures, conferences and books about Sufism all over P-Panjab. Some people are thinking of this as an alternate to fundamentalism of wahabi-deobandi schools, by the establishment. How come this is localized to Panjab and not in NWFP and Sindh with many great sufi-poets? The terms Sufism and great Sufi-poets are thrown arbitrarily as if both are same thing. A good mullah does not make mullahism good and there are many good wahabi and deobandi mullahs. However, the current surge in Sufism marketing is due to the necessity of neutralizing liberal and secular Panjabis who got great boost from media advances, freedom to interact and World Panjabi Conferences during last 5-6 years. The Muslims, Sikhs and Hindu literati started mixing each other and many Panjabi Muslims started reading Panjabi literature by non-Muslims Panjabis. Tauba, tauba, Pakistan ideology was in danger. Something had to be done to keep Muslims away from reading non-Muslims` literature (never mind most of the Englsih language literature is also by non-Musims). Well, Sufism and great sufi-poets literature came in handy and is re-marketed as the favored literature for Panjabi Muslims - to keep them away from kafir Panjabi literature. Sufism and Sufi-poetry is forwarded as the preferred or possibly only literature (of course, Panjabi prose is missing from Sufi literature and prose by non-Sufi Mulims like Najam Hussein Syed, Shafqat Tanveer Mirza, Fakhr Zaman, Maqsood Saqib and many others is getting no backing or attention) to Panjabiat lovers - if they can`t live without Panjabi literature - with the full backing of establishment. The result is that WPC is begining to fizzle out since BJP in India also came out against it. This has happened before. A small Panjabi literary society was banned by Ayub Khan for being too dangerous to state ideology. Establishment is always ready to deal with native languages sponsored terrorism than any other kind of jihadi terrorism.

Nobody, definitely not me, would argue about the beauty of classical Panjabi Sufi poetry but it is too little. All of it can be printed in one 1000 page book with most of the memorable poetry belongs to Bulley Shah, Shah Hussein, Waris Shah and Ghulam Farid. Whatever memorable from Mian Mohammad Bakhsh poetry was, was presented by rozaiba in couple of posts recently. I bet there are people in the establishment who are looking forward to adding this issue into Strategic Depth initiatives also, like fundamentalism and Taliban creation. Panjabi is the only language besides Bengali whose literature is divided between different religions and with partition, the literature batwara is deemed essential too by the masters of desi destinies. Funny! they see no danger from Hindi movies and songs.

The poltics of languages in northern subcontinent is as dirty as any other pissing matches often witnessed at chowk.

sameerjb: From a practical perspective, a language is a merely a means of communication. Far too much has been made of the ``language issue`` over the past 50 years. In future, everyone will speak the same language. And that language will be english.

Today there are only two kinds of people in the world - those who know english (and thus have the global labor market open to them) and those who wish they knew how to speak english. This was not the case even thirty years ago when third world demagogues talked grandly about socialism and language. So, it feels good to speak in panjabi, the practical value of this ``language skill`` is rapidly shrinking - the PRACTICAL value is limited to speaking with those who cant speak any other language. And even in those cases money talks a language that everyone understands anyway.

Umer M #73:
Interesting thoughts.
[The real difference between myself and my eastern friend is that he is `proud` and (unless Punjabiat becomes functional and of use to me) I don’t really care. Complex has nothing to do with it.]

You can say the same for not just Panjabiat or Panjabism but also of Islamiat, Pakistaniat, Indiaism, Kashmir, Hindusim and so on. They are not functional and of no use for diaspora. Our livelihood depends on English, work and skills; social life is subjective and can exclude all of the above -isms and -iats. The freedom of choice exists in all matters for us as long as there is nothing unlawful.

People strike a balance between ethnicity, nationality and religion for identity. Some factor in more of one than others. In dispora, for people who are determined to live out thier entire lives there, motherland or ancestral nationality means least if it is not the same as ethnicity. Out of remaining two, one group gives more importance to religion and another more to ethnicity if they both are not complemeting each other. Religion is non-functional for me just as panjabiat is not functional for you. Glad to have freedom of choice!!!

Then there are hobbies. Urdu poetry is my hobby though no use for me in practical life. While disagreeing with you about any language sophisticated or unsophisticated, Panjabi will survive in diaspora because of sikh religion just as Arabic has survived and will continue to survive because of Islam. English was not very long ago considered unsophisticated by the British monarchy and French sophisticated but something happend to English that changed that impression. People started taking pride in speaking it and writing in it.

Umer # 73

You are right. For Sikhs, Punjab is everything including religion.

But for people like me, who are very fuzzy about religion, at the end of the day - It is your own language, your own people and your own soil that comforts you - no matter how nasty, poor, backword, hot. (However, do not mind spending short periods abroad)

A punjabi from any religion would be good for me.

I spent three years in Middle East - do not like the Arabs and vowed never to go to Saudi Arabia again in my life.

Zahra 69,

That was a good post, probably with a pipe bomb well concealed under the salwar, and am I to believe that pakistan has progressed so much that madrassa are also trainig females.

Nazar and others,

Allow me to add my two antagonistic shillings:

In UK, every Punjabi speaks Punjabi, irrespective of your origin. Yes, Urdu is considered more sophisticated because well…er, it is more sophisticated. Of the seven or so dialects, Pakistani Punjabi is sweeter and pleasant whilst East Punjabi versions are friendlier, carry a bit more `pataka` with them and some you will not understand at all.

Just because someone may not say Kidhan or `ahun wahun` at every turn of the corner or act as the proverbial Punjabi tw@t (a jolly justice seeker - a friendly farmer - a naïve nutter with soil between his toes and always carrying a tumbhi or a chimta - as has been portrayed sometimes to please the lower class masses) doesn’t diminish their pride for their home town.

And what the hell is this pride stuff anyway? We have a lot of the fake imposed version of this stuff going around here also. Ah-ha-hachoo. Bless me.

As for the lack of Gurmukhi, for God`s sake, let`s learn one alphabet before we start going into variations. I think you know the illiteracy statistics in Pakistan. In a country where 2.something % of GNP goes onto education is a country where you should spend every single penny wisely. No offence to Gurmukhi but unless oil, weapons and microchips are replaced by the bangra/pangra the world will recognise English, not Gurmukhi.

Yes, Sikhs make the most noise about Punjab. Give them credit. And yes, to a cultural commoner like myself, Sikhs will put Punjab on the map - no one else. That is without a shadow of a doubt. In all honesty, I don’t think the average UK Indian (minus Punjabis) even knows that Punjab is not entirely an Indian product. Since my Punjabi is better than all of those in my circle, it`s interesting to hear someone say, `but you’re not Punjabi?` Romair`s right, Indians don’t know much about Pakistan. At times, it`s out of a grudge due to what they`ve been fed by their elder. Other times, Pakistanis don`t advertise themselves.

Regarding the `noise` made by the Sikhs, it may be due to:
1) Genuine pride in their soil.

2) Fear of losing power. Majority of present day Punjab is inside Pakistan. Despite its agricultural importance to India and the green boom it gave in the 60s, Indian Punjab has been broken down bit by bit. A Sikh friend of mine once mentioned the imposition of Hindi over Punjabi as the primary provincial language. There was resistance.

3) Punjab is Holy Land for the Sikhs. Punjabi is their Arabic. Amritsar and Harminder Sahib are their Mecca and Kaaba. Their prophets/ professors were Punjabis. You only need to see the desire Pakistanis have to link themselves to the Arabs to see why Sikhs want to be Punjabi. Try telling a jatt or a tarkhan that his ancestry was from Sri Lanka or from Timbuktu. `Oi teri pan di-` will be his first four words.

(Someone help me out here. Harpreet? Am I wrong, am I right?)

But I can see the point you make. Sadly, for the newer generations of Punjabis, I think our understanding of this place is limited to a tumbi on steroids going, `tang dang tang dang`. Many young Punjabis talk bad Punjabi - feel proud of it for some reason - accentuate the `p` on pangra or a `t` on a tol (as in tuole) and jump about like monkeys on a hot plate pronating wrists as if screwing imaginary light bulbs in imaginary sockets. How many of us know about it`s history? It`s art?

A Sikh mate, despite his fierce pride, doesn’t know Gurmukhi, cannot read the language and has never read Guru Granth Sahib. He knows the songs though. He`s not the only one. I know didly squat about Punjab`s history and its art and literature. The real difference between myself and my eastern friend is that he is `proud` and (unless Punjabiat becomes functional and of use to me) I don’t really care. Complex has nothing to do with it.

Umer M.

ally #67 first my congratulations on being from Hoshiarpur. People from Hoshiarpur are the nicest, friendliest people on earth, my grandmother used to assure me. By sheer coincidence, she and all my other people, were all from Hoshiarpur. My wife`s people are all from Jullunder, which is close enough I guess. I feel very sad that so many of our beloved countrymen are not similarly blessed to be from Hoshiarpur. I spent seven years in Lahore as a student, and those were really good, carefree times. I look forward to being in Lahore later this year for a couple of days, and will carefully observe the traffic: it has been improving in recent years I admit (largely due to improved roads), although Lahore drivers still seem to drive as if the family honor is ruined unless they chase a couple of pedestrians off the streets and unless they cut across the guy in front. I agree that trucks, regardless of number plates, are the terror of the pakistan highways. But, if you observe carefully, you will I think agree that pakistan truck DRIVERS are in fact often very well mannered - they will actually slow down to let you pass, even blinking the right hand signal which is their way of letting you know that the road ahead is clear for you to pass. Its these guys in their shiny new toyotas and hondas that i have problems with.

Ally, sameerJB, Sobia, Tehmed32

About the Punjabi`s Inferioriority complex

We need to thank the ex-patriate Sikh Punjabi bands in UK which put Punjabi on the world scene. And the new generation, with no baggage from the past, accepted it.

The Sikhs were always proud of Punjabi language and Punjabism. Only the Pakistani Punjabis felt apologetic and culturally lowly.

But now, I feel, there is an overall pride and owning of the Punjabi language and Punjabism. Personally, I feel cheated by the Pakistan state that I was never taught Punjabi in school, have not formally read the Punjabi literature and so on. I love Punjabi poetry and Mushairas but there are so few of them. Then we are missing out all the literature from East Punjab since that is in Gurmukhi script. Any solutions?

It has been a long long time to even remember Monsoon, but browsing through this piece certainly makes one feel that the Monsoon Season still exists...

Chowk Staff:

While you are up to making changes in the attire of your website and adding the three lines under each article and before the interAct window, it`s important that you realize that many times the offending remarks and crude statements are not necessarily uttered by morons and maniacs, but are chanted by the so called scientist cum perverts. Post 61 is an ideal example. So, please make sure that you create a corner for the perverts in order to satiate their desire to indulge in such language and its pertinent scientific process flows.
After all, the perverts should be able to have their corner to read, write and think per their true mettle!

Thanks.

roohi/dost mittar: Speaking of rain songs, I forget to mention my favorite one. I used to sing it daily in the shower, when the .com boom was going on. Sometimes I sang it even when I was not in the shower. Unfortunately, I didn`t realize what I was singing for would actually happen: Woh kaghiz ki kashti - Woh barish ka pani

daulat bhi gayee, aur shuhrat bhi gayee....abb siraf jawani rah gayee hay (I think).

The demise of the raindance, not to mention the demise of ZKCDMCD dialogue will spell the end of the Indian movie industry. Previously, even if the movie was terrible, at least two out of the Rs. 5 spent on renting it, could be justified by the two above-mentioned scenes.

Madhubala is before my time. I have only seen one or two of her movies. She is more from Dost-mittar` days. My timeframe starts from the Zeenat Aman/Rekha days and goes to the Karishma Kapoor days. I guess I could stretch it to her younger sister`s days.

On a sidenote, is it true that Karishma Kapoor was Jinnah`s great grandson`s girlfriend at one time.

A good Pakistani rain song: Aye abr-e-karam tu itna baras - itna baras kay woh ja na sakay (I believe Wahid Murad)

Tahmed,

when you fly to Lahore, you do pass over mountains, i have been to ISB (most bore jigga in Pak) and actually prefer to see the mountains from the air on my descent to Lahore, talk about crazy drivers, have u ever seen some of the crazy drivers driving buses from ISB to Murree and the North with AJK number plates, they`re worse than any Lhauri... so there... and the saying is `jayney Lhaur ni dekhya oh jammiya ni`... Though i love Lhaur to bits i am not Lhauri, my mums side are, with roots in Hoshiarpur, dad side are Lyallpuri or Faisalabadi with roots in Jullander, so i am Punjabi thru and thru, aggeyo pichchiyo har passey 100% Punjabi ;-)

a trip down memory lane.....nice article....but never have i come across the term ``garamchamak`` ...... do u mean `bijli`?

ally #62 Much as i love lahore, I dont recall being able to see any mountains from that town (other than mountains of food in restaurants, but that`s different). To see mountains, you lahore people have to come to islamabad, sorry to say (although admittedly you can see mountains on the way from Lahore as well). But that`s OK...after all, stretching facts a bit when it comes to boasting about the delights of Lahore is in the true spirit of any Lhauri...as in ``jaes naiN lhaur naiN waykheah aus naiN kuj naiN waykheah``.

And while I am at it, I think lahore drivers seem to have been trained by the devil. If you see a car with Lahore number plates anywhere in islamabad, you pull over to the side and come to a complete halt until it has passed you by (even then you are not guaranteed protection from the lhaur driver). I am glad they have put the fear of God in the lahore drivers a bit now by putting cops with motorbikes at every intersection.

temporal #60 zia wali cassette suni nahiN, yaadaasht maiN darj zaroor kar lee hai. Zia Moheeuddin ko aik zamanaiN main government college lahore maiN sunna thha - oos zamanaiN maiN taaza taaza janaab Zia sahib walayat say waapas tashreef laiy thhey, is liya angraezee siraf maiN hee boltay thhay. Ham log Hamlet kay bol, jokay Zia sahib naiN fur fur aur rohb daar angrezi maiN ham logoN kay sar kay ooper say goozaray, soon kay ghabbraa gai. Chand log to Zia sahib ki Shakespeare soon kar behaush ho gaye!!

Meray khayal maiN saaray Pakistan maiN aik zamaanaiN maiN siraf aik Laeeq Ahmed sahib hotay thhey jo Urdu zabaan kay parkachay uraay bagaer Urdu boltay thhay. TV pay aaya kartay thhay.

Sobia #58 So you are half panjabi half UP. Hamidm is half panjabi half pathan. Do you see a pattern here? This is a panjabi conspiracy to convert everyone into a panjabi.
Soon there wont be any sindhi, baluchi, pathan or upiite left in Pakistan. No one will be able to point out our flaws, since everyone will have a mom or a pop who is panjabi. Ha! Ha!

Sobia,

As much as i love all of Pakistan and its cultures, KHI and KHI valley included, KHI domestic connections are horrible, plus speaking Urdu/Hindi can give me lock jaw and i am happy to leave the KHI valley with their pretty, sari clad, pan chewing/spitting (eeeeuch) women in the concrete jungle that is KHI with all their no go areas for the green, lush, spacious fields of Punjab any day...

If you land in KHI all you see in one side is the sea, look down and you see a sprawling, arrid, dried looking city, when you land in Lhaur you can see the mountains of Kashmir in the distance and below neatly shaped green fields, the immigration officer smiles at you when you speak Punjabi to her, and when i breathe the polluted air of Lhaur and hear Naseebo Lal blaring from bus and truck speakers and Punjabi being spoken all around me, i know i am home ;-) and can relax... hai hai, jee odaas hogaya...

#59 by tahmed32: gar tu bura na maaney...

I guess Dost Mittar #50 provided you with an example of ``Our Highness, the Ham`` vs. ``Your Lowness, the Tum``.


…huzoor humaiN yaqeen hay kay aap agar talim yafta nahin tO t’lim yafta tou zaroor hain;)…

…dost-mittar nay aik filmi naghma quote kya tha (Hum tum ik kamray main bund ho jaiN aur chabi kho ja’aye)…aap filmi zabaan aur saheri, a’dub ya shrufaa ki ghareloo bol chaal maiN far’q tou zaroor kartay hoNgay?…

…digression: ghaliban nawway kay awael maiN kisi nay humaiN aik naujawan pakistani gawayyay ka aik naghma sunaya jis kay shroo kay bol thay…`oos na kaha…maiN nay farmaya…lahol-e-wala...!

…waisay humaiN is ka aitraaf hay kay aaj kay daur main urdu, angraiz, punjabi…zabaan koi bhee zaire-e-istimal ho…yaar-log oos ki sehat aur istimal per zaur kam daitay haiN…likhnay maiN bhee zabaan ki chashni aur lut’f ka maza aisa lagta hay kay ab srif mushtaque ahmed yusufi... aur bolnay main punjab kay zia mohyuddin tak mehdood hogaya hay…aap nay `zia kay saath ik shaam` wali cassettes suni haiN? wah wah kya tallaff`ooz kya adaigi hay...

rgds

t

...no comparison with NY to Islamabad direct flight stopping over at Frankfurt.....least Lahori and Karachi paindoos, least children running around the isles, prettiest airhostesses and highest number of doctors engineers and professionals in any flight to Pakistan......the foreign embassies staff from Latin America, mountaineers, some chinese for connecting flight on to Beijing.......taking off from JFK heading north along the east coast passing within visible distance of Boston, Nova Scotia, New Foundland and to Iceland, all to the left side...passing over Scotland over to Germany and landing at Frankfurt.........taking off from Frankfurt, flying over Austria, Poland, Lithuania and over Russia.......flying over Uzbekistan, Kazakhistan and on to most scenic aerial view in the world......flying at lower altitude over Hindu Kush in Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan and diving south to ISLAMABAD.....bypassing all the holylands....welcome to the Islamic republic of most concealed pelvises....the lowest probability of precisely guessing the torso-legs meeting point.......welcome to the world of shalwar-kameez.....

Is it Kiraanchee or Karachi? Isskool or School? Isstation or Station?

ally: hahah @ direct london - lahore flight! :D

As a fellow punjabi (mixed breed actually, mom from khi, dad from punjab), I couldn`t agree with u more about the inferiority complex most Punjabis have about their language (I`m not including hamid sahab in this, just speaking generally). Punjabis don`t teach their children the language, don`t speak to them in Punjabi and if they hear anyone else doing so, it`s ``crude`` and ``paindu``. How sad that a language so beautiful is treated in such a way.

temporal #49 I guess Dost Mittar #50 provided you with an example of ``Our Highness, the Ham`` vs. ``Your Lowness, the Tum``.

hamidm# 41

i usually laugh and agree with your posts, i also laughed and agreed with this one, however, as a Punjabi person i for sure don`t have the inferiority complex about my language as has been displayed in your post.

Urdu can be vulgar and nasty, just as Punjabi can be sweet, soft and pretty. I wish people (esp Upper Class Punjabi) would stop stereotyping the Punjabi language and its speakers.

I once had a young German teacher from Germany on exchange, she spoke Geerman so softly and nicely, removing my sterotype of this hard Hitler/Gestapo language. Likewise there are many Punjabi nari`s in many Punjabi pinds who speak Punjabi in a very soft, civil and attractive manner. Then there are also many paan eating women i have seen at KHI Airport (on my way to Punjab), speaking crude nasty Urdu ignoring the `paan thookna mannah haiN` signs all over (how disgusting that they actually have to have those signs up).

Its not the language its the way it is spoken. Lekin fer vi, thank God for the direct London - Lahore flight.

semi: yeahhh, it was divine! :D

Bina,u write good article.It reminds me of my child hood,making paper boats,collecting earth worms,making noise and runing around in rain for unknown reason.Monsoon,brshat relates always with romance.Perhaps tip,tip of rain drops are just like heart beat.
``brshat mai tum sa mala hum,hum sa mala tum``old indian song.

garamchamak

May be a typo. Following characters are neighbours of j: h u i k m n.

But not bad because garam is also a word. It means hot or warm (just in case there is a Chowkster who did not know that). In Gujarati there is a children`s rhyme:

Aawre Varsaad, Aawre Varsaad,
Unee Unee Rotli Ne Karelaa Nu Shaak

(Come Rain, Come Rain,
Hot Rotis and Karela Curry)

During rains in our home there was a custom to cook Pakoras. I think so Bengali eat Khichadi on a rainy day. They call it Khe.nchudee. Their Khichadi AFAIK is savoury with whole potatoes and whole Onions added. I wonder what Indians used to eat before new world gave us Potatoes and Tomatoes.

Hello 21st Century Bina,

`losing their rubber chappals in the growing puddles on the city streets` did it for me. The memories came flooding back, no pun intended.

And happy birthday!!! I will not ask for your age; I know how you women get. Any presents?

Here`s your weekly astral projection:

Romantic or business dealings with an older person can teach you some valuable lessons. Don`t assume just because this person belongs to a different generation they are naive. Actually, their wisdom and experience are decided assets. Put your own opinions aside and follow their lead. You may be astonished by all you learn. Try not to let your emotions show in public; the less you reveal, the more powerful you will be. (c)2003 RussellGrant.com

And here`s your yearly projection:

Cancer (22 June - 23 July)

Love and Romance: As the New Year appears, one of the best ways to find romance is to get out and join other people in recreational activities: leisure and pleasure leads to love! From taking in a class or course or belonging to a group or club - it doesn’t matter - do what you enjoy. Throughout the month of July, kindness, caring and compassion go hand in hand. This has all the makings of a summer that you’ll want to go on and on for ever. Late August or early September is a fine time for a celebration.

Family and Home: Alterations or refurbishments you undertake throughout the year really add a touch of class, glamour and refinement to your surroundings. Keep this in mind when choosing your colour schemes and designs. Pastel blues, peach and pinks set just the right tone if combined with white, creams or ivory hues. A family tiff could arise around Easter time, with you playing the role of peacemaker. All is forgiven, if not exactly forgotten, by mid-September: from this point on relationships are much more sweet and stable.

Your Money: Your financial year gets off to a bumper start with beneficent Jupiter traversing your solar house of wealth and worth. Up until the end of August, you are able to apply your creative genius and energies to their best advantage. A risk or two will not break the bank, but you may have to be a tad more cautious with cash as the nights draw in. Use this time wisely and, come the autumn, you’ll be in a very handsome position indeed. Late 2003 is splendid for splashing out on communications equipment, to land you slap-bang in modern times and living!

Take care and best wishes,
Umer M.

Bina:
Saalgirah mubarak , or if you like, janam din ki badhayee!
In my mind, the arrival of the monsoon is always associated with the fragrance of the earth when the first raindrops hit the parched earth. No flower smells like it and you have to be in the parched summer lands of North India/Pakistan to savour that smell which lasts only a day. Now I am in a land where people pray against and not for rain (unless you are a farmer!).
Romair, you are right about the old films` romantic association with rains. My favourite monsoon film song is ``rim jhim ke taraane leke aayee barsaat`` and my favourite film scene of rain is Madhubala in the film `chalti ka naam gaadi` with Kishore Kumar singing `ik ladki bheegi bhaagi si``.
For hamidm types, too, rains had a special message, like in:
sawan ke maheene mein
ik aag se seene mein
lagti hai tau pi leta hoon
do-chaar gharhi ji leta hoon

temporal#46
Not always. Hum tum, ik kamre mein.........conversely, one can also have `main aur aap`.

roohi:

on the main page of chowk...bottom left corner...click on the name under the i-log box...

sobia:

``wonderful article, i was literally thirsting for rain while reading it. It hasn`t rained in Lahore in ages. I miss it so much. The unnatural darkness in the middle of the day, gusts of wind, the smell of water on thirst earth, thunder and lightening...mmmmm heavenly! ``


...wasn`t the rain just yummy today?...

#46 temporal ... how ? i`m clueless about where the i-logs are ... haven`t read chowk for a long time and it`s changed again ... help

roohi behna (#43) there`s more to Urdu than bihar;)

tahmed#42:

the folks who use the first person plural hum...the Urdu equivalent of the queen`s we address the other as aap not tum or tu

and #43:

check out my i-log please

Roohi #40 It is indeed sad that both sisters died during the operation. I saw them briefly on TV a couple of days ago when they were discussing the operation to separate them. They seemed so brave and cheerful (the more talkative one said how they were ``excited and, and at least I am a little bit nervous``), that when I learnt this morning that they had died, it was as if some dear friends had died. The video shown on TV of the two clicking the camera with the timer on, and then running in front of it to get their picture taken was delightful.

I guess the two sisters showed us that, with a positive and thankful attitude, we can make life enjoyable like a summer monsoon every day.

#41 by hamidm2
behkar, ba`ghaar, whatever ... or even tarka ... but what happened to plain old chonk, not in the vocabulary of your urdu-wallas ? BTW anyone who thinks ``urdu`` speakers are hoity-toity needs a trip to Bihar !!

hamidm2 #41 Interesting that there are so many words for fart in pushto. (gor, teez-mar). I suppose it reflects a kind of specialization, a special expertise. The same way that eskimos have 40 different words for snow. Each word reflecting subtle differences that escape notice on the part of the layman.

As for our karachi brothers and sisters, I am still trying to figure out why the first person so often refers to himself/herself with the royal ``Ham`` while the second person being addressed is kept in his place with a ``Tum``.

My poor panjabi brain begins to tremble and shake with the effort when it tries to understand such matters.

Ref shawaiz #36

[# 17 hamidm
Kaanch/shiisha= Glass
Aaina= Mirror]

But then, I have always been shown a room named Sheesh Mahal (this usually in some erstwhile Sultan`s zenana) which has thousands of itty-bitty pieces of mirror glued to the walls and the ceiling.

Sheesh, guys! Despite borrowing words right and left from a whole lot of languages, you Urduwallahs don`t get things right! May I suggest `darpan` (from Sanskrit) for mirror?

Very nice. The beginning of monsoon is always a magical time. But after a few days, when the air is thick with moisture and everything smells musty and you don`t feel like going out for fear of getting soaked (again), you`ve had enough..
Bina, I think Jay likes you especially. These are his love poems (kashmir, jihad, TNT, k for kafir..) I think he`s in love..

#34 Sobia ``smell of water on thirst earth`` why doesn`t someone bottle that ... ? that sondhi geeli mitti smell is pure joy !!

# Romiar - Hung up on the 70`s masaala formula movies are we ?? Can`t agree with the ``Zahil kameene`` line (smacks too much of greasy revolting villains my least favorite bit of classical ;) bollywood ) but yes the ``rain dances`` are a big loss ... if you`re including angrezi gane what about rhythm of the falling rain by cascades ?

check out folk monsoon songs at

http://www.beatofindia.com/forms/kajri.htm

# tahmed ... what an awful for it to end ...

behkar, ba`ghaar, whatever - give me liberty!

............ i hate it when karachi walas make us poor punjabis feel like such jahils and ganwars – they forget that we, along with the incorrigible pathans, make up the largest urdu speaking group ............they don’t realize that their airy-fairy urdu makes us feel quite inadequate, destroys our self esteem, and makes us look ludicrous when we try to imitate them by saying silly things like ,” aiye, tashreef laiye “ or “aap ke nawazish hai” ........... how wimpy!..........oye, call me paranoid, but I think you guys are always making fun of our accents and our loud and boisterous ways ..........you awe us with your quite whispering conversations which seem so polite, sophisticated and profound and makes us feel discombobulated and humiliated ..............

.......... and we get it from the other end as well .........growing up, my grandpa khan-baba used to tease us by commenting on our wheatish complexion and calling us “dal-khor bachaeya” (dal-eaters offspring”) or “teez-mar bacheya (gas-emitter’s offspring”).......... and this inspite of the fact that I spoke pushtu like a thief from mardan and refused to eat any kind of vegetable .........and even he, a self-hating pushtu speaker from kandahar, used to say, “ urdu sheer ast, farsi sheer-o-shakar ast, pukhto goz-I-khar ast” ( urdu is like milk, farsi is like milk and sugar, and pushtu is a like a donkey’s fart!).......and what about punjabi ?......... chopped liver, i guess .........

........there is only one thing left to do - punjabis, on both sides of the border, should secede and create a homeland where we can be free from the tyranny of the urdu speakers; where we can eat dal with tarka on plates made from shisha and begin every conversation with a loud “oye”.........let them eat ba’ghaared dal on their silly kaanch plates and begin every sentence with “pehlay aap”!

Lovely piece.

#32 by harish_hyd on July 7, 2003 9:35pm PT

and you dont??

#27 by tahmed32

I think she wants to say ``GarajChamak`` simply means thunderbolt.

GarajChamak ke-saath barish honay ka imkaan.

# 17 hamidm

Kaanch/shiisha= Glass
Aaina= Mirror

re: Monsoon songs

Ke aj mera jee karda (Kawa Kawa) from Monsoon Wedding

happy bday bina :)

wonderful article, i was literally thirsting for rain while reading it. It hasn`t rained in Lahore in ages. I miss it so much. The unnatural darkness in the middle of the day, gusts of wind, the smell of water on thirst earth, thunder and lightening...mmmmm heavenly!

Monsoons are here. My friends who own automobile garages are on uptime.

A truck loaded with sand, and then carrying bamboo balis as well as steel rods is lumbering along in the higher part in the middle. A bus following it tries to overtake from its left. Trucks skids a bit, bus also brakes and skids, rod goes through 15 year old boy sitting in the seat behind the bus driver.

#29 by ali87 on July 7, 2003 9:20pm PT

[I admire your dedication and pity your condition though!!]

The Pakis have taken note of your post. They just love you.

.... i think it is unfair on the part of temporal, roohi and others to criticize good ol hamidm on his command or lack of it , on hindvi, a language of the horrible hindoos also known as urdu which is basically a cocktail of some good and some not so good languages and dialects.whereas, his forte is English...the language of the MASTERS. rsaxena for a change has been correct in explaining the difference between the two words....

kaanch is glass, whereas sheesha is mirror. as far as the hookah wala sheesha is concerned........that is arabic and not allowed in the court of hindvi/urdu language.

wassalaam;)

Bina,
Timely topic, and nice article. Brings back memories of ``singin` and dancing` in the rain``. Well maybe not singin. and maybe not dancin, but just running around. And, who can forget that spatter of rain on the rooftops. I hear someone moving to saudi arabia actually took a tape of that spatter of rain on rooftops along.

What is the deal with the ``garamchamak``?? The word is bijli, my dear. Easy to remember: bijli. Just check with us panjabis when you karachiwallas are struggling with urdu.

roohi #13: There used to be too things that every Indian movie seemed to have. Unfortunately, now, Indian movies are evolving into science fictions, and horrors and Devdases and what not. These two things were:

- Hundred different depictions of the common dialogue, which was uttered at least once in every movie: ``Zalil Kameenay, Chaur day mujhay chaur day``
and
- The famous rain dance. Not the kind that the American Indians do. But the kind that Indian heroines do (did) when it started raining just at the right time, in all kind of wierd situations.

With the death of the above two, I am afraid, Indian movies have started to lose their audiences, as far as people like me are concerned.

Assuming that every rain song is a monsoon/sawan song, here are some more:

- Saawan aaye, Saawan jayee
- Jhula kaun jhulai
- Garaj Baras (Junoon)
- Singing in the rain (Gene Kelly)
- Raindrops keep fallin (B.J. Thomas...)
- Bheegi Bheegi ratoon mein tum (P. Udhas)
- Meray neenan Sawan badho (Mehbooba)
-

#10 by jay on July 7, 2003 2:26am PT
wow!!

I admire your dedication and pity your condition though!!

nice article Bina, brings back memories of when i used to spend EVERY summer holiday in Pakistan. we used to look out for the clouds, and then when the rain finally came like all the other kids we would go crazy playing in the rain, it was such a nice relief from the 40+ degrees C heat of Punjab. Everyone was happy, regardless of their problems, it was such a nice time, all i remember is smiles and `Rabb da lakh lakh shuker` being said by everyone... thanks for reminding me, of happier innocent days...

To all chowkies: May I suggest we all take time off to pray for success of the surgery now taking place in Singapore on the Iranian twins. They seemed so good humored and full of life despite the terrible predicament into which they were born.

#10 by jay on July 7, 2003 2:26am PT


WHAT A MORON

#8 by JAY

It is amazing how some jaundiced brains can thrust such benign writings into the caldrone of parochial hatred. I thoroughly enjoyed Monsoon Days and savored the choice of words, stopping often to appreciate the sublimity of monsoons and the language used to describe it.

#17 No kanch-ki-chooris in your sheesh-mahal then .... ?!

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In India, monsoons bring 3 phone problems: Branches (or entire trees) falling on the lines... and dampness creeping into the machine making it kaput...and lines getting crossed.

For the second one, in our area people generally keep a 100W bulb close to the machine...which seems to work...except during the daily power cut.

But why lines get crossed during the rains is beyond me!

RE #18 by rsaxena:
Yes and you the glass in windows kaanch?
yaar ek zaban (bhasha for you) tau theek bol lo.

RE #17 by hamidm2:
Look at by khamkhwa. (#6) and you will the find the answer.
Both kaanch and sheesha are used in the vernacular, sometimes interchangeably. You have to invest in a Qaeda (not kaeda or Al-Qaeda!) sometime. Or may be all those dead cells are taking their toll on you. tsk tsk.

RE Bina:
A delightful read. As khamkhwa pointed out you may have an older map or were too excited about your birthday and monsoon. Happy BD.

Regards,
Aasif

the continuing education of hamidm

(begum ...aapki begum...say ma`azrat kay saath)


sheesha: it is now also fancy bubble pipe (hookah)with flavoured tobacco

behkar: never heard of it...perhaps you mean ba`ghaar that would be taRka

aur kuch aur bhee kehna chahtay thay...laikin bhool ga`aye...

...t

re: hamidm


shisha = mirror
kaanch = glass

..one reflects your mug back, the other does not...

another indian conspiracy

........... how come i have never heard the word ``garamchamak``....... we always called it ``bijli``, like in ``bijli chamak rahee hai``............... is it like ``behkar`` ( tarka for most of us) or ``kaanch`` (shisha) ........... the other day mrs hamidm broke a glass and as the kids walked by she said, ``beta, dekhna, kaanch lag jai ga``............ i looked at her in amazement and life has never been the same since ..........where the heck did she learn that ....... kaanch, indeed!....................next thing you know i will be eating dal with behkar in a plate made out of kaanch when garamchamak strikes me!

.........maybe jay can shed some chamak on this - sounds like an indian conspiracy.............

is there anything...i mean anything written here (on chowk) that that the pesky interactor (especially the kind who only write interacts, not articles or essays or god forbid poems...nudge, nudge, wink, wink) can not turn into a slinging india pakistan hindu muslim bashing?...think i know the answer...poems...they avoid poetry with zeal and fervour unmatched;)

jay,

.......... give it up!.......... stop wasting your time ................ it is not good for you - find some other hobby before you drive yourself nuts.........

£ #12 by harimau on July 7, 2003 7:25am PT
£ Ref veeresh #8

£ [Can you imagine, EVERY cloud crossing over into Pakistan was first a visitor in India?
£ This is like aapro Clinton nee aapree Begum Elizabeth Sahiba.]

£ Do the clouds line up in front of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi for visas? Do £ they cross at approved checkpoints such as Wagah?

Not necessary - esp if they carry some ptoash, charcoal, maybe saltpetre, along with trinitro....and ofcourse if they originated in the Indus basin. After the water from there goes to the sea and then the clouds...you gte the drift....

Ref veeresh #8

[Can you imagine, EVERY cloud crossing over into Pakistan was first a visitor in India? This is like aapro Clinton nee aapree Begum Elizabeth Sahiba.]

Do the clouds line up in front of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi for visas? Do they cross at approved checkpoints such as Wagah?

Monsoon clouds know no borders ... or time ... imagine nearly two thousand years ago Kalidas`s lovesick exiled hero in ``Meghdoot`` asks the Monsoon clouds to take his message to his wife in his Himalayan hometown (with detailed flight plans!) ... and this on the first day of Asara, right about now ...

Favorite Monsoon songs anyone ?

Aaiye barishon ka mausam hai * Pankaj Udaas

Ab ke sawan * Shubha Mugdal

Barsat ki raat

Ghanan Ghanan * Lagaan

Ek Ladki Bhigi Bhagi si * Kishore Kumar

Mian Ki Malhaar * Tansen (only kidding)

only downside of arrival of monsoon is that it signals the beginning of the end of mango season. and btw, i am the only one who is puzzled by the fact that mangoes have not caught on with non-pakis?

``The rain in India has crossed the border effortlessly, the clouds already settled in and unpacking, like visitors announcing they are going to be here for a long stay. ``

There is one more that has spread seamlessly from kashmir to quetta, the jihadic killings. The products that scream out from the 200,000 madrassas are having difficulties in finding their ways to heaven, getting into kashmir is becoming increasingly difficlult, like the monsoon it has spread to other parts of pakistan, and they have settles like visitors unloading their strapped grenades into the crowded shia mosques. Yes they are here to stay, as you say, and more and more will be unloading the products of their education.

In this monsoon season you have more to complain about than a wet birthday. May be when the rain pours, may be it is time to reflect, a little different from your article on karachi, where you try to whitewash the blood stains in the streets. May be the sunshine after the down pur should let you see through the low clouds, to see the state of pakistan. What is remarkable about the quetta killigs is that the there killers re shot down by the security guards.
An islamic country where the shia mosques are to be protected by armed guards has little reason to be proud of, and stll little even to exist. When you look out for the next rain clouds in this monsoon, look out for Su30s with triclour markings, they are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This is another difference between East and West.

The West looks forward to dryness & Summers - for sunshine, travelling, ramance, bar-b-cues, vacations

The East looks forward to rains & winters - clouds, rain for crops, kali ghatta, rainbows, romance, sheer water, lower temperatures, ability to dress up well

At this age, 55 years after throwing the Brits out, you are still dependent on `orrible `industan for monsoon? What is this, oye vey, hud ho gaiee.

Arabian Gulf and Arabian Sea need to be re-configured. Also, Sawan needs to be re-nomenclatured.

There is no justice till then. Can you imagine, EVERY cloud crossing over into Pakistan was first a visitor in India? This is like aapro Clinton nee aapree Begum Elizabeth Sahiba.

...the rain is blessed indeed...but the humidity is not...and a very happy birthday, bina:)...

...err garamchamak...probably refers to the louder variety of the garaj chamak? and a minor geographical discrepancy creeps into the description when the monsson drifts east to pakistan...ain`t true no more...now it drifts west to reach pakistan. duniya salam is something new for me, hence, no comments.

Withnail #1:

thank you!...you saved me binoodinoo`s ire;)

and now that you remind us... a toast for health and peace...all else can be bought or ignored

lve,

t

Happy Birthday, Bina

True. Our civilisation limbo is launched full throttle as soon as the monsoon arrives. But the rains are a blessing anyway. By the way, isn`t the correct word `garaj` chamak?

All praise is for God Who gave us rain so that we may renew ourselves.

Beautiful article, Bina.

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