I invite all those forces of communal divide who call Urdu a Muslim language and cover Dogri and Hindi with a saffron shawl. Please come and meet my muse for today’s column, venerable Aftab Begum. She will tell you about the actual high moral values and ethos of the Dograland, and our own Jammu, just a few decades ago. Let me relate the tale and introduce the lady.
I was sitting in the office of a popular and well established lawyer of Jammu and Kashmir, waiting for him to be free from the clients he was attending. This lawyer friend has at least seven juniors to assist him as also to learn from him hands on. I enjoyed listening to the conversations amongst the lawyers ( mostly young ) and the clients ( a few from rural backgrounds ).
Awaiting your turn in a lawyer’s chamber may be more boring than the waiting room scenario of a dentist, but it is certainly not as scary. Suddenly, it dawned upon me that I was listening to conversations, which were being made mostly in Dogri, a few dialogues in Punjabi thrown in between ! This awareness about the language made my listening even sharper, and also changed my mood, making it cheerful and indulgent. I started enjoying the waiting period. No longer I felt bored.
After a while my lawyer friend’s mother returned from the market and called me inside the home, which is right next to the office. I was meeting her after long years. I found her in high spirits. Running well into her eighties, the lady is full of beans. Her power of observation remains undented, as also her power of expression.
She chooses her words wisely and with precision, as does her daughter. The ladies of the house converse in chaste Dogri taking you back to the middle of the last century Jammu, when the Dogri language was the real lingua franca for the Dograland. For all religious groups and sub-groups.
Over a large serving of the salted pink tea ( desi chai ) with large dollops of milk cream liberally thrown in, we got speaking over various issues concerning the Jammuites. After a long time I felt comfortable conversing in Dogri with a senior who loves the language, and speaks it endearingly.
She explained to me how different versions of Dogri are spoken in our Dogra region. She illustrated the variations in the tonal quality of Dogri sopken in, for example, Jammu, Udhampur, Sialkot, Bhaderwah and Reasi. She thinks Dogri spoken in urban areas of Jammu is a fine, polite and honorific version of the language. Well, I won’t tell you about the areas where, according to her, rather a rude version of the language is spoken, although she exemplified it well !
This lady is so sharp, she illustrates even variations in the spoken Punjabi of Sialkot, Lahore and Jullundhar. The differences in the tonal quality of the language come so emphatically clean from her lips, and mesmerize you !
Every now and then, she punctuates her conversations in chaste Urdu, quoting from Allama Iqbal, Nasir Kazmi , Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir and our own Maikash Kashmiri. In between, she even explains the context of the couplets quoted by her ! She is a darling, indeed. I would indulge here to quote just two of the several couplets she regaled us with. I have attempted rough translations intended for those who are not conversant with Urdu poetry :
Nasir Kazmi
mujhe ye Dar hai tiri aarzu na mit jaaye
bahut dinon se tabiat miri udaas nah?n
(I fear I may lose my longing for you
For so long, I have not been sad )
Allama Iqbal
dhondta phirta hoon, aey Iqbal, apny aap ko
aap hi goya musafir, aap hi manzil hoon main
( Iqbal keeps searching for himself in such a way /
As if he himself is a traveller and the destination too he is ! )
We ate kalaris her daughter had prepared. Real thick kalaris with real pungent flavour. These were the finest to feel and look at. These were also the most delicious kalaris I have eaten in Jammu in a long time. These were “imported” from the hills of Udhampur, she informed me.
We discussed the qualities of genuinely good kalari cheese. She told me that real kalaris are never eaten fresh; these should be preferably dried in the sun for nearly a week. This process grows some kind of fungus in the cheese that gives out a pungent smell and somewhat sour taste.
I told her about my fondness for this delicacy. I informed her that I wrote about the kalari culture of Jammu region in my column Jammu Jottings, published in Daily Excelsior, dated 16 July 2023. I apprised her several readers have called up after reading that column. They told me they were educated about the qualities of good kalaris and would find it easy to look for the real good kalaris, now onwards. She was pleased to learn about my writings. “Bring your column to me and read it out. I don’t read English newspapers”, she told me.
She is a true believer who meticulously offers namaz as prescribed. She goes to temples as well when “I am in the company of my Hindu friends “. She has plenty of them – long standing relationships that run well into five decades plus. She retired some 25 years ago from her job in the education department of the Jammu and Kashmir government. But, her relationship with her friends from those days continues unabated. Her principal of yore, a hindu lady, remains her close friend even after a lapse of around three decades.
“I generally buy clothes and grocery items from my fixed vendors. I have purchased all my clothes from the same shop for the past about 40 years. The shopkeeper is not a Muslim as one may expect. He is a practising Hindu. I have lived in this city for nearly six decades. There never was a divide between the communities that we come across today. The entire city lived like a large family irrespective of the religion they practised.
” Our groceries come from a shop owned by a Jain. This is a relationship of mutual respect and trust. Religion plays no part. Islam is my personal matter. I keep it close to my heart. It does not influence my human interactions “, she is crystal clear about all issues of her life, be they worldly or otherwise.
She is just a matriculate of good old times and has been a teacher and a housewife all her life. Her husband was a simple employee with a business house. She lost him some years ago. ” A simple truthful man with no materialistic aspirations, he was satisfied with whatever we had. No complaints”, she said paying rich tribute to her other half.
My unplanned meeting with her lasted for about two hours and time just flew by.
Remembering her times in the city, she laments : ” things had to change with the times, no doubt. But, unfortunately, times have changed for the worse. The usual bonhomie among the people is sadly missing. Communities have been divided by the communal forces from all sides and grouos. Lines have been drawn to demarcate Hindus and Muslims, especially “. I understand her pain. But, then, I am also a dreamy optimist. I would much like to wish away the apparent dark black clouds of doom.
Dear readers, we need understand one thing clear : religion must be kept as a personal belonging ; like your innermost feelings and bank account passwords, it is not for public display. Others have no business to peep in at your heart or the list of your passwords, and you don’t go around the town telling people about them. That will solve all religious animosity we see around us, to a great extent.
Second, language has no connection to your religion. You are reading this column in English and that does not make you a Christian. Many staunch Muslims speak spotless Hindi and still remain Muslims. The world has known many scholars of Urdu who are, otherwise, staunch Christians. Need I quote the example of Max Mueller, the German scholar whose love for Sanskrit is so well known to all of us.
Entire Lahore and a major part of Punjab in Pakistan speaks Punjabi as their mother tongue. They all are Muslims and their national language remains Urdu. Bangladeshis speak Bengali, not Urdu, though they follow Islam. And, Urdu newspapers survive in India because the majority of the buyers and readers are Hindus ; Islam has no role to play.
Friends, last week I spent this inspiring evening in the company of respected Aftab Begum, the sprightly mother of advocates Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed and Sheikh Zulfiqar Ali Ahmed. Dear Shakeel speaks brilliant Dogri, which I call Dogri 2.0. His mother still speaks Dogri 1.0 !!
As of now, Jammu is a better place to live as far as religious hardliners are concerned. But, nevertheless, the cracks are palpable. I may be dismayed, but I don’t entertain despair. We all must think with rationale and work for peace, amity, brotherhood, the qualities Jammu has always been known for. Remember, there is a whole bright world waiting for us beyond the line that attempts to divides us.
I quote Jnanpith Award winner Ali Sardar Jafri from the music album Sarhad that I produced in 1998 :
main is sarhad pe kab se muntazir hoon subh-e-farda ka
( stationed at the line of divide,
I await the dawn of tomorrow…..)
I am confident, the much covered subh–e-farda ( dawn of tomorrow ) shall be bright enough to wipe out all gloom from our lives and paint them with cheer, joy and enthusiasm.
Ab is ke baad subh hai, aur subh-e-nau Majaz
Hum par hai khatm shaam-e-ghareeban-e-Lucknow
( Hereafter is the dawn, dawn of a new morrow, O Majaz !
We are the last bastions of despair )
So, be it. Aameen. Tathastu.
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