U is for Urdu

I absolutely adore the Urdu language. I believe that there is no language that even comes close to being as poetic as Urdu is. When I was a kid, my mom was the proud owner of a lot of ghazal cassettes. It does seem a little surprising now because frankly speaking, her Urdu was and is quite hopeless. She didn't understand a word of it, but she listened to ghazals all the time because of how soothing and melodious they sounded.

I, on the other hand, was more into the lyrics of the ghazals that were constantly playing at home. Of course, back then, there was no Google and so there was no way to find out what the lyrics meant. I had a Muslim friend in school, but she used to get very stressed whenever I'd ask her something like, "So what's the difference between ikhtiyar, ibtida, intehaa, imtihaan, istakbal and inteqal?" The look on her face translated into, "Please stop. We don't talk like that. Nobody talks like that."

So I stopped asking her. I'd write down the lyrics and try and figure out the meaning based on the bigger picture. Then I'd encounter the same words in another ghazal, which helped to either prove or disprove my hypothesis about what the word meant. Over time, I had quite a solid grasp of the language, especially the poetic parts that featured in songs. When I travelled to Pakistan, my knowledge of Urdu came in very handy. I was accepted instantly everywhere I went, and even though it was a business trip, it truly was one of my most memorable travel experiences.

Even in Bollywood songs, I could feel a stronger inclination towards those that featured Urdu poetry. Of course, now you don't get a lot of those because baby doll is sone di, and uski desi look pe mar gaye gore gore chhokre. However, there are still some new songs which I do enjoy, and lately they've been mostly songs of Arijit Singh. I suppose he gets picked for such songs, because his voice quality really does justice to poetry. I was listening to his song 'Jiya' from 'Gunday' some time ago, and I made a discovery. I'd heard it a couple of times before and each time I'd thought these were the lyrics:

Ishq ka tu haraf 

Jiske chaaron taraf 

Meri baahon ke ghere ka 

Baney aashiyan

It roughly translates into this: You're the letter (letter as in letter of the alphabet) of love, around which my arms make a home.

But when I was listening to it this time, I realised it was not 'aashiyan' ('home'). It was 'haashiya' ('margin', as in the margin on a piece of paper). The beauty of using 'haraf' and 'haashiya' together without compromising the rhythm or melody, and the analogy of her as the 'haraf' and his arms as the 'haashiya' blew me away.

However, I didn't know whom I could share this very random joy with. Viv would just look at me blankly. After all, he's the one who thought the solution to the problem in the ghazal 'Dard jab teri ataa hai, toh gila kisse karein?' was 'water'. So I was compelled to blog about this, so that readers far and wide can read this, shake their heads and go, "Say what?"

Jokes aside, if you like Urdu poetry and Bollywood, you must-must-must listen to 'Jiya' for the amazing poetry of Irshad Kamil (he has a PhD in Urdu poetry omg) and the soulful voice of Arijit Singh.