LAHORE: Eminent poet, lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar, one of the most-awaited guests of this edition of the Faiz Festival, on Saturday shared his thoughts at length on language, its functions and, of course, poetry in a session held at Hall I of the Alhamra Art Centre here on Saturday.

The objective of writing poetry is to communicate with the people and everything else comes after it, that’s why a good piece of poetry should be successful in communicating what the poet wants to say, Javed said in the session called Jadunama.

When asked why it was necessary to learn the mother language, he said the question should rather be what is language. “Usually, we consider script as a language but is it really the case? For example, Punjabi is written in Persian script, Gurumukhi and Devanagari, a script of Sanskrit, but it remains Punjabi (in all scripts). English, French, German and many European languages have Latin script but are they all one language? No, they are different languages. So the script does not determine a language.”

He said the vocabulary also could not determine the language as it was defined by its syntax and grammar.

Indian poet, screenwriter discusses language and poetry

Speaking more on the subject further, Javed called the purity of language nothing more than a myth. “Language keeps getting richer by borrowing words from other languages.”

He pointed out that the Oxford Dictionary would add at least 25 new words to the English language annually. “In our case, the so-called custodians of language keep removing words from our language, calling them foreign.” This way, language would keep shrinking.

He gave an example of a passage of Urdu, pointing out words of various languages, including Arabic, Italian, Punjabi, Gujarati, Persian, Turkish, Tamil, English, Japanese and Sanskrit. “A language is not formed overnight and it’s a slow long process.”

Javed said cutting off from one’s language meant cutting off from the people and culture. He expressed concerns that “the children now are learning English at the cost of their mother tongue, which should not happen”. While learning English, one should know one’s native language, whatever it is, he stressed.

Javed said when Sheikh Abdul Qadir translated the Quran into Urdu in 1798, Fatwas were issued against him for translating the holy book into a ‘Kafirana’ language. “Urdu was called a language of hell but in the next 60, 70 years they put a cap on it and a beard on its face.”

He said he was proud that Urdu was his mother language as opposed to all big languages of the world whose poetry started in temples and churches, Urdu had been secular since its inception as it was anti-fundamentalism, anti-religious thought, anti-superstition and at least agnostic if not atheist.

Urdu’s original name was Hindvi and when everything was divided (during partition), Urdu being a language could not be divided, so it was pushed here (to Pakistan).

Javed Akhtar said the act of reading and keeping books was intimate as compared to other means of communication in the era of videos and audios.

To the question of lack of depth of performing arts and arts, he agreed that speed of communication came at the cost of depth. He lamented the fact that in South Asia everything had turned too materialistic that started with his generation as the generation of his parents did not pay much heed to materialistic gains which also translated into the craze for learning English language at the cost of mother language. “The mother languages, including Urdu, have been left with the poorest of the poor,” he declared.

Jadunama is his biography; however, it was not talked about during the session.

The session was moderated by Adeel Hashmi.

PUNJABI: Punjabi writer Nain Sukh says Punjabi language has been victimised through a process and we are facing what started during the British Raj.

“When the British introduced syllabi in the schools, a decision was made to divide languages on the basis of religion. Gurmukhi’s syllabus was made according to Sikh religion, Devanagri’s syllabus was derived from Hindi while the syllabus for Muslims had Persian and Arabic influences. When this decision was being made, we did not see any resistance from the Punjabis.”

The Punjabi taught in schools was in Gurmukhi and not in Shahmukhi, he said during a session called, Kidray Nah Paindyaan Dassaan. Nain Sukh lamented that there was no movement for Punjabi language among the Punjabis like the ones in Bengali and Tamil in India. “Punjabis conveniently accepted Urdu as their language.”

Prof Zubair said, “Punjabis don’t own their language. We start our history from Muhammad Bin Qasim, which is not our history. Our history starts with Harappa. And the Punjabi language is 1,000 years old.” He said the first English poet Chaucer came two centuries after Baba Farid. Suppression against Punjabi started during the British Raj as before it though Persian was the court language but Punjabi was resisting against the courts. He gave examples of resistance in Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah’s poetry.

“After 1947, we did not adopt Punjabi. Even today, you can’t speak Punjabi in the Punjab Assembly. The state structure has no space for Punjabi,” he lamented.

Veteran journalist Husain Naqi also spoke in the session, moderated by Sughra Sadaf.

SEHYR MIRZA: A discussion was held on the book, The Other in the Mirror: Stories from India and Pakistan, edited by Sehyr Mirza.

Speaking about her book, Sehyr said a lot of literature written about the Partition focused on the violence that happened when India was partitioned but we needed to move forward from that.

This was the idea behind collecting these stories from India and Pakistan, she added.

These stories are not set in Partition but its ongoing process or the lasting effect. “On both sides of the border, the dominant narrative is that of chaos, murder, rape and hatred,” she said and added that the stories she had heard from her Nani revolved her lot of her friends on the other side of the border and they used to live peacefully. From her stories and other stories she did not see the other side as the enemy. “We don’t share stories of compassion but of horror,” she said and added that her book was aimed at giving hope.

Indian writer, actor and artiste Danish Hussain also spoke and narrated a real story which was full of compassion in the generation after the Partition.

The session was moderated by Salima Hashmi.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2023