Man
is memory, and memory is sound. The first sound that resonates in
my heart is the Urdu word "Shireen", meaning sweet; the
name of my mother, who was by birth a Shia Muslim and remained one
till the end of her days.
Shadowing that sweet memory is a bitter one. My mother couldn't
marry my Hindu father because my father couldn't go against the
wishes of his staunch Brahmin family in post-Partition India. She
concealed her Muslim identity in the predominantly Hindu area of
Mumbai's Shivaji Park where we lived because, in spite of the Nehruvian
vision of India as a plural and diverse nation, the rising Hindu
fundamentalist movement looked upon the minority Muslim community
as the enemy within. So, to arm herself from a possible Hindu backlash,
she tried her best to fit in by submerging her true identity. "Do
not call me by my Muslim name," she would caution us in private.
"I do not want the world to know about my Muslim identity."
Suspect loyalties
Those were the days when Urdu was looked upon as the language of
those who partitioned India. The Indian Muslim's loyalty was always
suspect; he had to regularly re-affirm his Indianness and patriotism
to quell the nationalist anxieties of the majority, whose Partition-inflicted
wounds had not healed.
Is it any wonder then that this Shia woman who was 'living in sin'
with a Brahmin filmmaker gave all her children Hindu names, hurled
us into Christian Schools run by Italian priests where we learned
good English and absurd nursery rhymes and brought us up as Hindus?
At the same time, this same Shia woman who masqueraded as a Hindu,
ushered me into the magical world of the Hindu mythology of Shiva,
Ganesh and Parvati, Ram, Sita and Hanuman, as well as the great
epic of the Mahabharata. "You are the son of a nagar Brahmin…
you belong to the Bhargav gotra" she would say. And in the
next breath, in chaste Urdu, give me a Kalma while telling me to
chant "Ya Ali Maddad" if confronted with an adversary
! What a paradox !
A memory bubble bursts... The year is 1958. I am barely nine years
old. The atmosphere in our house is sombre. One of the finest flowers
of Indian renaissance, Maulana Azad, is dead. My mother is listening
to a live relay of his funeral procession on the All India Radio
Urdu service. Suddenly my father, who is equally upset by the death
of this great nationalist, storms into the house. On hearing the
Urdu relay, he angrily says, "Put this Radio Pakistan off!
I want to hear this news in Hindi, not in Urdu!" My mother
meekly does so, but I can see that she is deeply hurt.
Personal is political
They say the personal is the political. This incident explains the
tremendous odds that lay in the path of Urdu, just as the first
decade of Independent India was coming to an end. My father, who
was a secular Brahmin, taught me a lesson through that action. That
'tolerance' implies superiority... where the majority community,
very condescendingly, 'puts up' with the very existence of the minority.
But it is always 'thus far and no further…' an implied limit
on their so-called tolerance.
My mother's language was dying, and there was nothing that I could
do as a child to keep it alive! As the years deepened, the only
place I heard Urdu being spoken was on the sets of my father's films.
My father used to make enchanting Muslim fantasy movies like The
Thief of Baghdad or Sinbad the Sailor. Or during secret visits with
my mother to the Majlis during Moharram, where the blood-soaked
history of Karbala was enacted with passion. Or, in the dark comfort
of the cinema hall, watching Mughal-e-Azam or Chaudvin Ka Chand...
and at the home of my actress aunt Poornima who, unlike my mother,
was a successful actress. Poornima Aunty felt no need to hide her
Muslim identity. And I loved her for being brave and audaciously
speaking Urdu.
By the time I became a teenager, I realised that Urdu was the language
of the 'other'; and it also dawned on me that, in spite of all her
attempts, my Muslim mother continued to remain an outsider in her
own homeland. She would shoot down my rebellious attempts to unveil
her real identity by saying, "It's their country, and we have
to get along with them." But I could never seem to see it her
way.
Emotional syntax
I felt Urdu and Islam were a part of my heritage and, as the years
went by, I felt this burning surge within me to express who I really
was. I couldn't be myself by denying a part of me. My consciousness
resonated with the chants of Hassan Hussain during Moharram; the
bells of Mangal Murti Mauriya during the Ganesh Utsav, and the memories
of Ave Maria of my Christian school. The only language that could
give expression to a paradox like me was Urdu. And though I do not
have an arsenal of words in my vocabulary, the emotional syntax
of Urdu is my inner melody.
After the 93rd Amendment to the Constitution of India, the right
of Urdu speakers to obtain education in their mother tongue has
to be recognised as a fundamental right. Therefore to promote the
teaching and learning of Urdu at the primary and secondary levels
of education is the responsibility of the State. I feel that all
Urdu lovers must compel the state to act with a sense of urgency
and make this fundamental right a reality.
I wonder when it will dawn on our nation that Urdu is the language
of India. I wonder what will it take for those who oppose Urdu to
see that this fight to preserve Urdu is a fight for India!
Courtesy:
The Hindu
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