Today I went to some Muslim muhalla to meet some people. A bit of background is necessary. I am a bengali and know only three languages: Bengali, Urdu/Hindi and English. The people in the region I went to are mostly poor and uneducated.
The visit was pleasant. I talked with some people about this world and the next. No, that was wrong. I mostly listned. Anyway, before going there, I was worried that here people may not understand me at all; I don’t know the local language, Kannada! It has happened in the past. Hired drivers do not understand me, the shopkeepers do not understand me; it’s too much pain.
There was no problem at all because all of them spoke and understood Urdu.
Many of them speak far better than I do.
So here is the situation: you go to a muslim-dominated area, you will hardly face any problem, most of them understand Urdu. Most of the Muslims who come here also know Urdu. When you go to a non-Muslim dominated (poor) area, you have immense difficulty in communicating.
I think this is a good thing that almost all Muslims speak Urdu. Non-Muslims should also learn it(hindi should be enough) so that we have no problem in communicating.
I will end with a quote of one of the persons I met: “Urdu ki paidaish hui Lakhnau mein, usne jawani bitayi Hyderabad mein, aur burhi hui Bangalore mein” (Rough Translation: Urdu was born in Lucknow, spent it’s youth in Hyderabad and she is spending her old age at Bangalore).
“Hey Yogesh. I am Gujarati Brahmin and I can say you are totally wrong. The words ‘hindu’, ‘hindi’ and ‘hind’ have their origin from the Persians who arrived in the subcontinent. The origin is from the Sindhu river (which is called the Indus river in English) which the Persians had trouble pronouncing. Sindh is the first Indic region the Persians encountered on their way to India. So they named the locals after the Sindhu river except the Persians CANNOT pronounce ’s’ well, so ‘Sindu’ became ‘hindhu’ which in turn is the origin of the word ‘hindi’ ‘hind’ and ‘hindu’. Even today Persians have difficulty pronouncing ’s’. They say ‘train estation’ or ‘estadium’.”
Milind is right…this analysis is completely incorrect.
Hind is not a mispronunciation of Sind, nor are these originally Persian terms, and are actually borrowed from Arabic. The Arabs, when the first came to the Subcontinent 1300 years ago, roughly divided into two geographical areas – al-Sind (which referred to the Indus River valley) and al-Hind (the lands east of al-Sind). Both terms were later incorporated into Persian, and native South Asian languages.
As for your statement about Persians not being able to pronounce the letter “S,” that is also completely false (the Persian alphabet has 3 letters that make an “s” sound, and another for “sh”). Persian, and languages derived from it (like Urdu), do not allow consonant clusters at the beginning of any word (the exception is “ch” “kh” or “sh” as sounds are produced by single letters, and therefore are technically not treated as consonant clusters). Therefore, words beginning with “ST” or “SK” are difficult to pronounce, and a vowel sound is attached to the beginning of the word (which is why Urdu and Persian speakers will say “estation” instead of “station”). Sind does not begin with a consonant cluster, so the point is moot. In fact, the term is still used in modern Persian to refer to the Indus River.
Manas , u will be surprised to know the southern Urdu is like a multi cuisine dish which has flavors of Persian Urdu, Kannada inputs , and also some bits of Sanskrit so there is always a Dravidian look by the north Indian on the south Indian Urdu.
Dear friends,
I am a Hindu.I have never hurt a muslim in word or deed in my life with the possible exception of an extremely brief interaction lasting for about 2 minutes.I was travelling Ist class with my mother,grandmother and sister some twenty years back.A muslim railway official came and sat along with us.Raising my voice slightly but in an agitated way i asked why he could not sit somewhere else.(That he was muslim,and i was travelling with ladies must have weighed in my subconscious and i was a teenager).He immediately got up and left in a dignified way.I came to know that railway officials can travel in any seat not alloted.
This blog i have vented my hatred against paki,saudi and bangla islam transferred to indian muslims.There is no doubt that some indian muslims have complicity in bomb blasts.
Much of my frustration is because i am not a success in life.Ofcourse,i am responsible for my success/failure.Being a hindu brahmana i believe in the law of karma.By and large,devout hindus will not blame others for their faults.It would be too much to expect pakis or banglas or saudis to have any sort of introspection.
I have been a fan of Rafi Saheb for years.Today i was listening to the old melodies.Being a south indian,i cannot understand many urdu words.But there are beautiful sanskrit words used in these hindustani songs.These film songs seem so beautiful.Maybe the actresses are beautiful,maybe Dev Anand is so handsome,may be i am a sort of a failure in life,these seem dreams.
Many of these songs were written in urdu by muslims.When i listen to these songs,i think IMs are humans like me.Urdu language must have other facets.Though the script derived from Arabic gives me nightmares of impending terror,atleast in my thoughts.
Is it true that muslims like songs picturised only on muslim actors like dileep kumar,the khans singing with ‘hindu’ actresses.They appreciate Rafi saheb but not kishore kumar or hindus.
Why is that you do not feature posts on hindi films of past?Is it because you find it superficial or not islamic enough or not representative of muslim life