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by
Jawed Naqvi
Dear Mr. Bal Thackeray,
I was in Mumbai for a day last
weekend and yet again enjoyed the few conversations
in Marathi that I overheard in shops and cafes,
always a
lively experience even though it's not my language
and I have very little knowledge of it.
Whenever I walk on the Marine
Drive, except for a few times in 1993 when the
air was filled with fanatical anger and grief,
I never fail to think of Johnny Walker in his
western attire wooing pretty Kum Kum, cavorting
in her nauvari, the still enticing nine-yard sari
of old Maharashtra, singing that foot-tapping
number from the movie CID. Ye hai Bombay meri
jaan neatly summed up the
bourgeois metropolis, but with its wondrous gift
of home and hearth to a ceaseless tide of immigrants
from across the country and beyond.
Of course, the song also took
potshots at Mumbai's seamier face and its deep
social inequities. Also, if you recall, sir, how
Sahir Ludhianavi effectively parodied Allama Iqbal's
song of maudlin nationalism - Saarey jahaan se
achha Hindostaa'n hamara - in a moving film from
the 1950s. Phir Subha Hogi was loosely based on
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment if I remember
right.
The forceful song mocked the
ideals of nationalism and internationalism alike
because the poor mostly felt used and isolated
in both the situations. Cheen o Arab hamara, Hindostaa'n
hamara, rehne ko ghar nahi hai, sara jehaa'n
hamara was picturised on the unforgettable Raj
Kapoor. Jitni bhi buildingei'n thee'n, setho'n
ne baat li hai'n, footpath Bambai ke hai'n aashiya'n
hamara, he sang from the heart. The rich, the
song lamented, had cornered the nice buildings,
but the footpaths of Mumbai were always there
for
us.
Did you notice, Mr. Thackeray,
how the Urdu lyricists (for that is what they
were though they are always supposed to have written
Hindi songs for Hindi movies, including the Persianised
dialogues of Mughal-i-Azam!) how they used the
common description for Mumbai and how both Bambai
and Bombay fitted so well with the metre and the
cadence of those songs? Remember also Saeed Mirza's
gripping tale on celluloid in the 1980s about
an old Maharashtrian Brahmin's struggle to get
his house back from Mumbai's real estate crooks
in Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho. Just listen to the song
Amchi hai Mumbai tumchi Mumbai, jiyo mazey se
karo naka ghai.
If Mumbai was left out from the
old Urdu/Hindi lyrics, Saeed set it right more
recently. So what went wrong? Why did you suddenly
draw an angry
line between Mumbai and its other two lovely names,
which were and still are just as soothing to the
ears for anyone having a sense of music? And if
you did have to insist on Mumbai because of some
higher expediency, why did you not go all the
way and change the name of the Bombay Stock Exchange
too? The impression we get is that you find yourself
weak and helpless before the powerful conglomerates
that run the stock exchange and perhaps this country.
But returning to culture, Saeed
Mirza should be credited for blending Marathi
with Urdu to grab the right flavour for his Joshi
story. But tarry a little, for there's a problem
in this. The Marathi language itself has a large
number of
modified Persian and Arabic words. This came about
because, for a significant period, Marathi came
under the influence of Arab traders and
Turko-Persian-speaking rulers.
Maharashtra's Brahmin and Maratha
rulers used words from these languages to good
effect. Marathi has thus borrowed words from Sanskrit,
Kannada, Tamil, Arabic, Persian, and even Portuguese.
As you know quite well, sir, you sit in your khurchee
(chair), which is derived from the Arabic kursi.
You address your jaahir sabha, a public meeting,
but the word zaahir meaning
obvious or public is of Arabic origin. You can
hardly have a conversation without using the word
fakta derived from Arabic faqat, meaning only.
The delightful stage song Dilruba madhur ha dilacha
addresses the sweetheart in chaste Persian.
I am addressing this letter to
you as your many followers regard you as a big
leader of Maharashtra who takes pride in Marathi
culture. In your pursuit of this culture, an intensely
beautiful cornucopia of language, music, theatre,
attire, wit and valour, you remind me of an analogy
with Islam, which Bernard Shaw described as the
world's best religion with the worst followers.
The Shiv Sena - abbreviated as SS, and you know
what that reminds us of - which you have created
in pursuit of an ostensibly lofty vision of Maharashtra
and its Marathi fragrance are mostly exemplary
in their ignorance of the subject matter at hand.
To prove your Maratha exclusivity,
you have turned your ire against practically everyone,
including fellow Maharashtrians. But the SS was
not really about Marathi culture or even Marathi
pride. It was set up by the Congress party at
the behest of its corporate patrons to break the
workers' strikes most of them being Maharashtrians
anyway. Remember that it was a fellow Maharashtrian
S.A. Dange who led the formidable Girni Kaamgar
Union of cotton mill workers. He became the head
of the powerful communist party and you allowed
yourself to be used as its rightwing opponent.
Where is any room in this for
a discourse on Marathi versus non-Marathi? Your
men targeted south Indians first and now they
are fuming at migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
On other occasions, they exude hatred of Muslims,
calling them landya whatever that means. Where
is the
Marathi culture in this?
Last week in Mumbai, sir, I went
looking for vintage natya sangeet recordings,
which I consider to be a robust form of north
Indian classical music. A Muslim owner of an old
shop, Rhythm House, helped me locate some really
golden
recordings of Pandit Snehal Bhatkar and Jayamala
Shiledar but missing in the repertoire were songs
of Karim Khan and Manje Khan, two north Indians
and
landyas, in your language. They came to your patch,
fell in love with it, learnt its language and
culture and sang its songs and founded two of
the main schools of music that Maharashtrian musicians
are still attached to - the Alladia Khan Gharana
of Jaipur Atrauli and Karim Khan's Kirana Gharana.
It's a difficult ask, but if
you can by any chance locate Karim Khan's Marathi
songs, since you are the sentinel of Marathi culture,
you should prescribe them as mandatory for your
Shiv Sainiks - Chandrika hi janu in Raag Devgandhar,
Ugich ka kanta in Anand Bhairavi and Prem sewa
sharan in Bhimpalasi. It would help them understand
that culture and languages evolve from the mingling
of people and don't flow from the barrel of the
gun or arson that your men are usually associated
with.
The writer is India correspondent
of Dawn, Pakistan's leading daily
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