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.