Urdu – The Language and Poetry
Zoya Zaidi
Urdu is a beautiful language; it is the language of poetry; in its lyricism, Urdu poetry is next only to Persian. Urdu is a Turkish word, which means 'foreign' or 'horde'. It is an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family that developed under Persian, Turkish and Arabic influence in South Asia during the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, and Jammu and Kashmir in India.
The forte of the language has been, and still is its literature. Likewise, poets Amir Khusro, Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz have had a give and take relationship with the language. Where they took the language as a bridge between their thoughts and their readers, they also gave the gems of their beautiful poetry to the language. Though not a very ancient language, Urdu is a language full of charm and elegance, a language that holds literature so courtly.
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History of Urdu Language- Evolution of Urdu in India
History of a language is the history of the place it is spoken in; the history of the culture it is embedded in; in fact a language is a whole culture in itself. The evolution of a language is affected by the various influences of cultures of invaders and infiltrator from neighboring countries and far off lands on the existing local culture of a place.
India due to its fertile land and abundance of natural resources has attracted people from the Northwest since the time immemorial. They have influenced the local culture and languages. Prakrits, or natural dialects evolved many thousand years ago under the impact of Sanskrit (in its ancient form) and the various spoken dialects, in this manner. Prakrit is considered the mother of Urdu, long before it acquired the name of Urdu. In fact it is supposed to be the common precursor of Hindi and Urdu; When more and more Sanskrit words were included into it, it became Hindi; while, when Persian, Arabic, and Turkish words were added to it, it developed into the present day Urdu…Thus these two languages grew apart and became separate languages, but originally had their common roots in the Prakrit.
By the tenth century AD, a large number of peoples had arrived from Iran and Arabia, and settled on the Western Coasts from Sindh down to Kerala, and a few had ventured into the interior of Rajputana and the Southern India. Smooth relations existed between people from these regions and Indians. After the advent of Islam traders and mystics started giving the Indian way of life a new social and philosophical flavour. Soon invaders like Mohammad Bin Qasim, Mehmood Ghaznavi, Mohammad Ghauri, and their subjects started mixing with locals; a new language started evolving as a result of amalgamation of local dialects and the languages of the invaders. This language was to become Urdu.
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Scholars have attempted to trace these influences into the history to find the time of conception of the embryo of the language now called Urdu, and known earlier by various names of Hindui, Rekhta etc. Saiyyad Suleman Nadvi traced it into old Sindh of the eighth century AD. Mahmoud Shirani emphasizes the role of Punjab played in the process from about 1000AD. But most significant is the evolution of the language in the upper South India, around the cities of Gulbarga and around Hydrabad (Golconda and Bijapur) in about the fourteenth century.
Influences of Portuguese, Arabic, French and Dutch have also contributed to growth of Urdu, especially along the Western Ghats around 16th-18th C, where traders had relations with Indians since ancient times and Christianity was trying to find its roots in India; Many words, though in distorted form, related to trading and trading goods like Rupayia, Pagaar, Neelam, Chaapa, mistary besides All-pin, Almirah, Baalti, Pistol, Tolia, Maze; to ammunitions like Kartoos, Carbine; and to eatables like Achaar, Annanas, Biscuit, Kajoo, Pappita, Gobhi and names of many dry fruits have been incorporated into Urdu, from these languages, especially into Hydrabadi version of Urdu prevalent in South India. Besides some words related to Christianity like Padri, Cross and Girja and those related to dresses like Saya, Qamiz and Kaaj etc. of Portuguese origin were also included into the language during this period.
Mirza Ghalib talks of Portuguese wine in his writings. Such towering figures like Saad Salman (Lahore, 11th C), Amir Khusro (born Badaun, 13th AD), Saint Gesu Daraz (Gulbarga, early 14th C), have contributed to the evolution of Urdu language through their literary works. Thus many languages and dialects of the Old India have influenced the evolution of Urdu. But, the standard Urdu, established since the 17thCentury AD is founded on dialects spoken in and around Delhi, called Khari (vertical) Boli in contrast to others termed Pari (horizontal) Boli, classified linguistically according to whether most of their words are in a /aw or ai /o etc.
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‘Neither you nor I’
“O, listen to the wonderment of Love,
Neither the Muse remained,
nor the passion remained,
Neither you remained,
nor I remained
What remained was one oblivion
of all else ....”
~ Siraj Aurangabadi Growth of Urdu Poetry
Literature in all the languages of the world finds its origin in poetry. Poesy is a life force, which finds its roots in literature long before prose; rhyming is a natural habit of people, and even children learn things in rhyme much more easily then in prose. Before the advent of writing, in the oral tradition, it was only the powerful magic of the poetry that could be retained in human mind, and the power of memory was also attuned to poetry better than prose; poetry was also more suited to public oration and recitation.
Though prose seems to be the natural form of communication, if we think a little deeply, we come to the conclusion that man first feels and then only thinks, therefore poetry, which comes from the heart is actually a more natural form of expression, while prose is better suited to the expression of flow of thoughts of cerebral nature, to philosophy, and to formal writing. The Goddess of Urdu, before its inception was so rich in its thought, imaginative and emotional content that when the time came for it to emerge as a language, it just burst forth like Minerva, from the tresses of the Jupiter of Urdu poetry and philosophy in poetic and not in prose form. So, Urdu started as a language in poetic rather than prose form.
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‘Fire under my feet’
English Translation
"Even in captivity,
I have fire under my feet,
ablaze
Every loop of my fetters melts,
like a hair in front of a flame."
English transliteration (in Roman script):
"Bas ke hoon Ghalib Aseeri main bhi Atish Zer-e- Pa, /
Moo-e-Atish, dida hai halqua meri Zanjeer ka." Urdu poetry started to develop in Indian subcontinent in the thirteenth century AD, the famous Urdu poet, Amir Khusro, made a great contribution to its evolution. A disciple of the Sufi saint Nizam Uddin Aulia-he was a one of the wandering Dervishes. To spread their message far and wide, the dervishes used the instrument of music and sang their verses in the language of the people, often using the colloquial language to gain popularity. Persian being the official or the established language of verse at that time was not followed (understood) by the sundry masses; therefore in order to gain popularity Khusro started mixing Persian verse with colloquial lines of verses.
One of his early poems were an amalgam of Persian and local Colloquy, like Brij Bhasha and Bhojpuri language: One line of pure Persian was often followed by a line of pure Brij Bhasha, for example the following couplet from the famous Sufi Ghazal goes like this:
“Z-e-hal-e miskin makun taghaaful, varaaye naina banaaye batiyaan
Ke taab-e- hijraan n’daaram e jaan, na leho kaahe lagaaye chatiyaan?”
(Look! What your aversion of eyes, excuses and negligence has done to me!
Why don’t you embrace me, my love, and relieve me off the agony of separation?”)
The last line is in pure colloquy, while the first three are in pure Persian. Or, this other couplet of the same poem:
“Shabaan-e- hijraan daraaz chun zulf o roz –e–vaslat, chun umar kohtaah
Sakhi, piya ko jo main na dekhoon, to kaise katoon andheri ratiyan’
(The nights of separation are long as the dark tresses of my beloved,
While the day of rendezvous is as short as the life itself, /
How can I, O’ Sakhi (female friend), spend the dark and desolate night without seeing my beloved.)
Here again the first line is pure Persian the second pure Colloquy. Amir Khusro was greatly revered in the court of Ghayas Uddin Balban. Khusro can be called the father of Urdu language.
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Slowly and gradually over time Urdu evolved as the language of the people, and took up the name of Hindustani, later to be called Urdu. In and around Areas of Hydrabad (Golconda and Bijapur), Qutab Shahi Badshahs like Quli Qutab Shah (who was himself a poet) contributed to development of Urdu Poetry, using words of Dakhani (Southern version of Urdu), in Urdu poetry, giving it a rich flavour peculiar to the accent and pronunciation of Urdu in Hydrabadi version of the language. Wali Dakhani, took Urdu to its literary heights in his poetry and can be called the Chaucer of Urdu. . If Amir khusaro’s period spelled the Dawn of Urdu then Sun of Urdu had fully risen in Dakkan, (Golcunda and Bijapur). After Wali Dakhani, the focus of Urdu shifted to North, namely the areas in and around Delhi.
In the courts of the great Mughals, who adopted India as their country, Urdu was the spoken language of the palaces, the kings, queens and princesses and royal princes. It was also called Urdu-e-Maullah, meaning there by chaste Urdu. Mughals being great warriors also campaigned excessively; in the process they recruited soldiers from different communities, including Arabs, Persians, Turks, Pathans, Bilochis, Rajputs, Jats, Marathas and Brahamins. These communities lived in close contact with each other and communicated in different dialects, which slowly and gradually took up the archaic form of present day Urdu. It is also referred to as Lashkari Zaban (Language of the Army or Horde).
Urdu enveloped in itself a whole culture of that era. It’s lilting sweet sound was pleasing to the senses like honey pouring into the ears. Even the prose had a rhythm akin to poetry. There was a tradition of ‘Sheri Mehfils’ (poetic soirées) in the king courts, who was a great patron of the Urdu language and its poets. The poets used to get a yearly stipend from the king’s treasury. No wonder Urdu reached its zenith in the great Mughal period.
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Urdu poetry developed its various forms like Ghazal, Rubayee (Quatrain) Musnavi, Qaseeda and Marsiya also during this period. Abul Fazal Faizi and Abdul Rahim Khankhana were accomplished poets in Akbar’s court, who wrote poetry in Persian as well as in Urdu, and enriched their poems with Hindi and Sanskrit words. During this period Urdu was greatly enriched by Persian words, as most of the official work was done in Persian and the courtiers had to learn the Persian language. In fact, in Akbar’s time one of his ministers (Nau Ratans- Nine Jewels), Raja Todarmal, made learning of Persian mandatory by the court officials, later making knowledge of Persian a prerequisite for those seeking official jobs, or jobs in the king’s courts. So much so that Urdu adopted the Persian Script and Grammar.
In poetry also the same form, meter and rhythm as Persian is used in Urdu. It was during this period that Urdu greatly developed as language, becoming sophisticated in expression and rich in thought. This is the period of great stalwarts of poetry like Mir Taqi Mir and Sauda, who polished Urdu poetry to a great extent by using local language phrases and Persian expressions in their poetry. Ghazal and Qasida both the forms of poetry reached perfection at the hands of these two. By Shahjahan’s time Urdu had reached its literary nadir.
By the end of Mughal empire Urdu was already the official Language of most of Northern States (1832 AD), like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir. It was during this period and the great uprising of 1857 that such Stalwart like Ghalib, Momin and Zauq existed, and the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was a very fine and sensitive poet himself. By this time Urdu had become very refined and Persian’ised, with exclusion of all crude local expressions, and Hindi words from it. Expression of thought and content became modern, whose best example is found in Ghalib’s writings.
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‘The Night of Anguish’
“Kahoon kis se main ke kya hai, Shab-e-Gham boori bala hai!
Moojhe kiya bura tha marna agar ek bar hota?”
“Night of Anguish, O’ what a devil it can be!
Would I mind dying, if only once it were to be?”
~ Mirza Ghalib After the Mughals, the patronage of Urdu waned and poets started dispersing from Delhi to other towns like Lucknow and Rampur. Now, Lucknow became the nucleus of Urdu language and poetry became so popular that there were weekly, even daily poetic soirées organized everywhere. Mir Anees and Mirza Dabir were the great Marsia poets of the Lucknow school.
Modern trends in Urdu find their inception in the nineteenth century, when vanguard poets and prose writers like Maulana Hali, Sir Saiyyad Ahmad Khan and Mohaumad Husain Azad made a very important and significant contribution to not only poetry but took prose writing to new literary heights. Maulana Altaf Husain Hali is responsible for starting a revolutionary trend in Urdu poetry, laying great emphasis on simpler language and popularising literary form of Nazm, as opposed to the conventional Ghazal, which because of its fixed rhyming pattern and meter was making the Urdu poetry very conformist and formalistic in nature. Most significant poets after this period were Iqbal and Hasrat Mohani. Iqbal greatly influenced the philosophical thought in Urdu poetry, which was influenced in turn by western literary thought, because of his wide exposure to western literature and learning.
Even English language enriched Urdu vocabulary. Some of the essential words adopted from English were actually non-existent in Urdu earlier, and still exist as a necessary part of the language. English is a dynamic language, and it greatly influenced the prose and poetry of Urdu during the Raj period, especially in areas around Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra and Orissa, where it also influenced the languages of these states. It was under the influence of English that scientific, literary and philosophic works were translated into Urdu widely, making Urdu a language which was by now a well established language in prose as well and suited to become the medium of instruction, when all official and pedagogic work was possible in Urdu language.
Urdu Today
Urdu remained the official and widely spoken popular language (still is) of Northern India till the independence. After India gained independence, Hindi was declared the official language of India, and Urdu that of Pakistan. In a spate of National fervour of newly found independence and strained relations with the neighbouring Pakistan, Urdu in India was removed from the school syllabi, in most of the states. Thus began the decline of one of the most beautiful languages, peculiar to India alone, in the very land of its origin.
If not for Pakistan (even there spoken Urdu has fast become Panjabi’ised) Urdu would have died a premature death long ago. In fact in a short span of fifty odd years since Independence, Urdu has become virtually redundant in India, a sad example of death of a language at the hands of politics. Feeble attempts are being made to revive the language, but in the fast developing age of corporate world, where money is the God and Guru of the masses, Urdu stands a very poor chance in India.
I choose to write poetry in my language- Urdu-because I love it; But sadly enough my own two brothers cannot read or enjoy it, because we, the children of post-independent-India, went to schools where either Hindi was taught or as a hang-over of our Colonial past, English was the medium of instruction and the first language. Translation of poetry from one language to another always loses the flavour of the original. Urdu is no exception. Nevertheless I sometimes do the exercise of translating my own poetry into English from Urdu, and vice versa. My writing in Urdu is also my way of contributing to the revival of this beautiful Mother tongue of mine.
Here is a poetic translation of one of my favourite poems of the famous Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz (which I often hum to myself on lonesome night).
 Sadiquainn- Faiz's Tanhaee. Calligraphy by and © property of Dr. Zoya Zaidi |
“Tanhaee”, as envisioned by Sadeqain, the famous artist and calligraphist of Pakistan.
Insomnia
(Poetic translation of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’ poem: “Tanhaee”)
Is there someone?
No! There is no one! O weary heart!
Must be a wayfarer, elsewhere bound…
Night has departed,
Stardust’s beginning to dispel its haze,
Sleepy lamps stagger, ready to pale
Roads are tired of endless wait
Sands unfamiliar settle, footprints fade…
Quench your candles
Put away your wine glass & carafe,
Lock up your insomniac doors
No one!
No one, is going to come here anymore…
Author: Zoya Zaidi
Aligarh (UP), India
Copyright©: Zoya Zaidi
