Urdu is where words become art and heart, soft as silk and deep as soul. To call a spade a spade, when internationally celebrated Urdu poet Wasim Barelvi stated, “Usoolon pe aanch aaye to takrana zaroori hai / Jo zinda ho to zinda nazar aana zaruri hai!” (Protest is a must when principles are trampled / If you are living, show you aren’t compromised), the packed-to-capacity Modern School auditorium rose to its feet. True, Urdu is sweetness, politeness and grace woven into words, as said by Josh Malihabadi. Urdu speaks when hearts feel.
You indeed need a shayar like Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi or Wasim Barelvi to tell you how beautiful this world is to live in — or how bad it is. All those connoisseurs of Urdu who thought the language was on oxygen or in a coma were proved wrong after witnessing a fully packed Modern School hall and an equally strong throng relishing the mushaira outside the state-of-the-art auditorium on the school’s basketball courts.
The festive occasion was the immensely popular and historic 57th Shankar-Shad Mushaira by DCM and Shriram Industries (Daurala) under the aegis of the Shankar Lall Murli Dhar Memorial Society. The eminent poets included Wasim Barelvi, Javed Akhtar, Rajesh Reddy, Shabeena Adeeb, Sheen Kaaf Nizam, Charan Singh Bashar, Iqbal Ashhar, Saif Azmi, Azhar Iqbal, Hilal Fareed, Hina Haider Rizvi, Sunil Kumar Tang, among others. Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia of the Supreme Court, also an admirer of Urdu, stated that Urdu is not just a language, it is a beloved culture and a way of life. All these poets came up with superb couplets, with sounds of “mukarrar” (please repeat), “Subhan Allah”, “Lajawab” (wonderful), “Behtreen” (superb), besides ceaseless clapping and standing ovations from the audience. Sardar Charan Singh Bashar came up with a superb couplet on these burning times: “Yeh duniya nafraton ki aakhri stage par hai / Iska ilaj muhabbat ke siwa kuchh bhi nahin!” (The world is writ large with hatred / Love is its ultimate cure.)
Free of communalist lines, the popularity of Urdu can only be seen to be believed at such Urdu gatherings, whether Shankar-Shad, Jashn-e-Bahar or Rekhta. Across the borders, Urdu, a language of composite culture and interfaith bonding, has suffered on account of pretentious hatred breeding from political and religious repulsion among communities. Urdu also bled a lot as it was associated with Pakistan and terrorism. Madhav Shriram said, “The love of Urdu, a legacy inherited from my forefathers, reverberates in my mind, pulsates in my veins and throbs in my heart!” The historic mushaira his forefathers started during undivided India at Lyallpur (now Faisalabad), as Shankar-Shad Indo-Pak Mushaira, had a conglomeration of poets from India, Pakistan and other countries, including Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Faraz, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Josh Malihabadi, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Fehmida Riyaz, John Elia, So Yamane (Japan), Jan Marek (Czech Republic), etc. He mentioned how we live in a world that has totally forgotten the value of a pause. Madhav added, “Here, we provide a space where words carry the weight of existence and silence is sacred.”
Madhav reminisced, “Urdu is a language of love, where even pain sounds poetic. It doesn’t just communicate, it captivates. By gathering a pan-India brotherhood of poets, we unite the different threads of our national heritage.” Remembering what his father, Lala Bansidhar, and grandfather, Lala Muralidhar Shad, told him about Lala Shriram, who started the mushaira, Madhav added that it used to be a mela at his 22 Curzon Road house (now Antariksh Bhawan), where crowds were invited and many stayed with him for days. The house was like a dharamshala. He was unable to eat unless every seat at the table was occupied. This indiscriminate hospitality at times caused great strain to his family. But his principle was, “the more, the merrier!” It continues in the family.
Quite often on the lawn of his house, Lala Shriram conducted the nashists (sittings) of shayari as he patronized hundreds of Urdu and Persian poets. In keeping with his desire, the mushaira has been conducted regularly since 1944, with some breaks owing to Indo-Pak wars and other unavoidable circumstances. It is basically for the love of Urdu that he himself supervises every nitty-gritty of the historic mushaira. Besides, he spends every penny himself, without sponsors or business instincts.
Even in Pakistan, Dubai, Canada, the US or the UK, Western or Punjabi pop songs are as popular as mushairas. But mushairas score over their English or Punjabi counterparts in terms of crowd response. The reason is that for all NRIs, a mushaira symbolizes Indian culture in its pure form.
After 1947, Urdu was hit by a communalist mindset, with language-baiters thinking it belonged to Muslims and was responsible for Partition. This is entirely wrong — languages have no religion, region or community fixation. Opines Dr. Shams Equbal, celebrated Urdu scholar and director of the largest global government Urdu platform, NCPUL (National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language) and editor of Urdu Duniya Urdu monthly: “Urdu is not merely sher-o-shayari, ghazal, qawwali, masnawi and marsiah. It’s the epitome of our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (composite culture). Urdu is a language born out of our humane values of syncretic ethos accruing from the commonality of cultures.”
Historically, Urdu newspapers made a solid contribution to the national cause during the freedom struggle. Having realized Urdu's importance, national leaders responded well to slogans like ‘Inquilab zindabad’ by Subhash Chandra Bose, songs like ‘Sarfaroshi ki tamanna’ by Ram Prasad Bismil and ‘Sare jahan se achha’ by Iqbal. Urdu was basically India's lingua franca, a language of our amalgamated cultural heritage belonging to all Indians, irrespective of caste, creed or religion.
The good news for Urdu is that it is becoming popular amongst Gen Z, as the famous poet Jon Elia said: if you want to learn Urdu, you should love; or if you want to love, learn Urdu! Urdu’s most highly circulated daily Inquilab editor, Wadood Sajid, is glad that the language has become worldly-wise as it has embraced modernity by being digitized. Urdu newspapers are on a fast track, available at a tap on a mobile screen.
Another shot in the arm for Urdu is that Urdu Chairs have been established at IIT Ahmedabad, the universities of Cambridge and Oxford in the UK, besides in Germany, China, Egypt, Jordan and Malaysia. Urdu is the second most read and understood language in India, third in the USA, and fourth in Britain. Today, we find a growing urge amongst non-Urdu speaking groups to learn Urdu. They know, for instance, that the Mumbai film industry depends on Urdu. Apart from that, the popularity of ghazals, poetry and Urdu dramas is evergreen. Even in the two Houses of Parliament, the maximum number of couplets quoted are from poets like Ghalib, Iqbal, Firaq, Faiz, and Mir.
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*Former chancellor, commentator on social, educational and religious issues, and grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
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