Urdu couplets are elixir for brain; learning the language helps prevent dementia - By Shailvee Sharda - The Times of India - Lucknow - INDIA

Urdu hai jiska naam hamin jaante hain DAAG

Saare Jahan main dhoom hamari zabaan ki hai

اردو ہے جسکا نام ہمیں جانتے ہیں داغ

سارے جہاں میں دھوم ہماری زبان کی ہے

उर्दू है जिसका नाम हमी जानते हेँ दाग

सारे जहां में धूम हमारी ज़बान  की है

(A couplet by famous poet Daag Dehlvi)

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Urdu-couplets-are-elixir-for-brain-Learning-The-Language-Helps-Prevent-Dementia/articleshow/46424531.cms

Lucknow

Urdu couplets are elixir for brain; learning the language helps prevent dementia

Shailvee Sharda, TNN | Mar 2, 2015, 01.34AM IST 

LUCKNOW: Reading an Urdu couplet is not only a delight for your soul but also an elixir for your brain. A recent study by the Center for Bio-Medical Researches (CBMR), Lucknow, suggests that reading Urdu passages helps in brain development.

The work, which has made it to the recent edition of international journal 'Neuroscience Letters', has shown that reading the language involves predominant involvement of the frontal brain which controls a number of cognitive functions like decision making, the ability to determine good from bad, emotional control, coping with stress, processing information and analysing. Learning Urdu also has a role in delaying the onset of dementia, besides helping children with learning disabilities.
 
Uttam Kumar, a faculty member in the department of neuroimaging at CBMR, who conducted the research on subjects from the city, said the conclusion was drawn on the basis of mapping the brain of subjects when they read Urdu text for a stipulated time. The mapping was done using functional magnetic resonance imaging technique, a world-class technology used to study structural and functional aspects of the brain.
 
Learning of a language creates a certain pattern in the brain which can be identified by linking different neurons involved. Joining all dots refers to mapping. Though the basic contour of this pattern for all languages is the same, the structure tends to differ at a micro level because of scripts and subsequent speech sounds (phonetics).

Languages are also differentiated on the basis of orthography or difference between grapheme (seeing written letters) and phoneme (encoding and translating the written into spoken letters) mapping.
 
"We used grapheme-phoneme mapping which divides languages into 'transparent' (easy to learn) or 'deep' (difficult to learn). For example: Hindi and German are transparent while English and French are deep. Urdu is the deepest language and therefore reading it involves more areas of the brain, which is good for mental health," said Kumar adding, "Urdu has two more advantages over others — visual complexity of letters and direction of writing."
 
The study found that reading Urdu involved dominant participation of the middle and superior regions of the frontal part of the brain. "Both these areas control majority of cognitive functions of the brain such as decision making, emotional control, coping with stress, analysing things and processing information," he said adding that its role in decision making was most important. "It governs the ability to determine the good from the bad along with consequences of action," he stated, citing the Journal of Cognitive Neurosciences.
 
The work examined effects of graphene-phoneme mapping over neural regions in bilingual people and suggested that Hindi and Urdu made a good combination. "This works very well because they are mutually comprehensible languages and have a shared vocabulary," Kumar said. Researchers at Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, have already shown that bilingualism delays the age of onset of Alzheimers and other dementia. It also found that the Urdu-Hindi combo was beneficial for children with learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia, as it improves functioning of the visual cortex.

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The Urduwallahs - By Supriya Nair - livemint.com - Mumbai

http://www.livemint.com/articles/2011/06/10212408/The-Urduwallahs.html

LIVEMINT.COM

• Culture

• Posted: Fri, Jun 10 2011. 9:24 PM IST

The Urduwallahs

Urdu newspapers, which were once crucial to Mumbai’s anti-imperial past, continue to see themselves as the voice of a people

By  Supriya Nair

When Hindustan Daily was first established in 1936, the government of British India, hoping to defuse anti-imperial passions, banned it outright. Unable to locate a safe printing press, its three young founders began producing their nationalist daily with a cyclostyling machine hidden in a moving taxi, driving around the city.

 

Today, western India’s oldest Urdu newspaper is published from a small, sunny office in an old building in Nagpada in south-central Mumbai by Sarfaraz Arzu, the son of one of the paper’s founding partners.

Mighty words: (from top) Editing in progress at Urdu Times Daily; the editorial staff at the newspaper; an Urdu Times reader. Photographs by Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint

 

 

It covers national and international news, as well as stories of specific interest to its almost entirely Muslim readership. So do Inquilaab, Urdu Times Daily and a small clutch of Urdu newspapers with Mumbai editions: Munsif, Siasat and Rashtriya Sahara.

Their newsrooms begin to stir late in the evening, whether they consist of six journalists (Hindustan Daily) or a staff of 110 (Urdu TimesDaily). The race for slick headlines, catchy photographs and provocative analysis begins at 8. The age of the newspaper calligraphers is over; news is scripted on computers and winged over to press. The copies begin to roll out by 2am. In operation, the Urdu newspaper is indistinguishable from its English counterpart.


And what of the spirit? Many non-English newspapers in urban India are deeply conscious of their status as communicators and interpreters to their readership. They amplify the voice of the people—but they also serve as a voice among their people.


“Urdu has a force, doesn’t it?” smiles Sami Bubere, veteran journalist and publisher of Urdu weekly Subh-e-Ummid. “The force of the words Inquilaab Zindabad (long live revolution), for example, you don’t get that in another language.”

Sarfaraz Arzu, the managing editor of Hindustan Daily

For “Urduwallahs”, as Bubere calls his confreres, the responsibility is felt with special keenness. In the decades since independence, it has been increasingly characterized as a Muslim language, subject to the same discriminations as the Muslim community.

But Hindi remains inextricably linked with its part-Persian forebear. The flowing calligraphy and poetic courtesies of its address mark Urdu out as a language of high culture for many people. But true to its origins in Mughal bazaars, it remains a vibrant, living, political—and politicized—argot; a key note in Mumbai’s Tower of Babel.


A note, Arzu says, which is too often unacknowledged. “Urdu is the language of people who are usually invisible except in movies and mushairas,” he says. “For a long time, nobody cared how people lived in Madanpura or Bhendi Bazaar. Urdu newspapers specialized in learning exactly what was going on in these communities.”


Mumbai’s Urdu papers are crucial channels for the government to reach Urdu-knowing Muslims; not just the 1.4 million people who live in the dense Muslim majority district that stretches from Byculla to Crawford Market and old neighbourhoods in suburban Mumbai, but also a growing immigrant population. To politicians and bureaucrats, they are a way to understand a potential vote bank’s needs, but also a way to speak directly to the community.


Perhaps this is why at a meeting with the city’s Urdu journalists and editors in May, Manikrao Thakre, the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president, was so quick to pledge support in the form of government advertising to the papers. Thakre echoed chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s own promises of incentives for Urdu readers and writers in April. These included a plan for land for a printing press in Navi Mumbai.


“Hogwash,” Arzu says candidly. He has been hearing promises like these for 35 years.
A little further up town, Mumbai’s biggest Urdu newspaper inhabits a shining office complex in Parel. Begun in 1938, Inquilaab is one of Urdu publishing’s banner names. Its parent company merged last year with Jagran Prakashan, which publishes India’s biggest Hindi newspaper, Dainik Jagran; over the next few months, new editions will be coming out all over north India. According to the newspaper, 60,000 Mumbaikars read Inquilaab daily.


Inquilaab’s editor, Shahid Latif, is also a veteran sceptic of the government’s promises. “There are some studies that say Urdu is Maharashtra’s second largest language,” he says. “But where is the representation?”


Hindustan Daily and Inquilaab, in spite of differences in scale, have much in common: origins in the independence movement, founders who saw that India and India’s Muslims needed to see futures concurrent with each other, and a political stance that is both staunchly nationalist as well as deeply critical of the state.


Mumbai’s history took shape in an age when the newspaper was a critical tool in projects of social reform and nationalism. Urdu, the lingua franca of its film industry, was a lifeline. The industry’s poets and scriptwriters all wrote for city newspapers as well. The scriptwriter Javed Siddiqui (who wrote, among other things, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge) even ran his own newspaper, Urdu Reporter, for some years.


Many Urdu publications in Mumbai began as outlets for their founders’ views. Khilafat, published from Khilafat House in Byculla until 1960, was the brainchild of the brothers Maulana Muhammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali, who led the famous pan-Islamic movement of that very name.
The year 1960 also saw the first edition of Urdu Times Daily, Mumbai’s most widely read Urdu paper after Inquilaab. Begun by a ship man, Taj Mohammed Nazir Ahmed, the paper aimed to build a community institution.


“He sunk the family wealth into this paper,” says Imtiyaz Ahmed, the founder’s grandson and Urdu TimesDaily’s managing editor. “But he brought some of the finest Urdu journalists and editors here.”


Its offices, in the heart of Madanpura, weathered several storms, including the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1993-94; a turning point in inter-religious relations in the city. Ahmed remembers his newspaper as a rallying point at the time, balancing its reportage of injustice with an effort to preserve the peace.


“(A competing newspaper’s) press was in a Hindu-dominated area, and they were locked out for three days, unable to publish,” Ahmed remembers. “We even broke that story out of a sense of justice.”


The riots fundamentally changed Mumbai for Muslims. Newspapers, dogged, began to look ahead.
“I realized it was a watershed moment,” Arzu remembers. “Because that was the time the community began looking within.”


“At that time, Urdu newspapers began to emphasize that education was to be the top-most priority—that the next generation should not repeat what had happened to generations before. “Because of that, I think Bombay is a changed city,” Arzu says. “I don’t find any young child not going to school.”


Latif concurs. “Muslims realized that a lack of education robbed them of identity, equality, opportunity,” he says. “Today, there’s increased enrolment in girls’ schools, professional courses, higher education—the results are showing across the board.”


This directly contradicts a certain narrative about the decline of India’s Urdu readership. Ahmed worries his language will be dead “by 2030—10 years before Gujarati, maybe 20 or 30 before Marathi”. But Latif frankly calls the idea of decline a “myth”. And other editors are heartened by the increased numbers of Urdu speakers graduating from high school, and non-Muslim companies, including Jagran Prakashan, entering the market for Urdu readers.


For them, Urdu is an inspiration. “We have a special mission here,” Latif says. “We don’t just report the news. We are here to serve a community.”


A bond to its people does not express itself so freely in every language. To the Urdu community, the fight to bring “identity, equality and opportunity” to Muslims is still on. The spirit is preserved in a famous sher by satirist Allama Akbar Allahabadi: “Kheechon na kamaan ko, na talwar nikaalo/Jo top mukaabil ho, toh akhbaar nikaalo.” (Don’t draw the bow, bring out a sword; When faced with the gun, bring out a newspaper).


It is a verse many of Mumbai’s readers know well. It has appeared, for the last 50 years, on the masthead of Bal Thackeray’s Marathi weekly Marmik.

supriya.n@livemint.com

http://www.twocircles.net/2011jan01/urdu_can_bring_india_pak_together_former_jang_editor.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Twocirclesnet-IndianMuslim+%28TwoCircles.net+-+Indian+Muslim+News%29

Urdu can bring India, Pak together: former Jang editor

Submitted by admin3 on 1 January 2011 - 10:20pm

• Indian Muslim
• Muslim World News

By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,

New Delhi: Urdu is common to both India and Pakistan and has the potential to bridge the valley of distrust existing between the two countries, said Mahmood Shaam, former group editor of Jang media group who is currently associated with ARY media group, at a function in Jamia Millia Islamia here this evening.

from L to R, Akhtarul Wasey, Mahmood Shaam, justice M.S.A. Siddiqui and Kuldip Nayar
Explaining the point further, Mr. Shaam said that Urdu still holds fascination for people of India and Pakistan and can play key role in bringing them on one platform for peace. Mr. Shaam, who was in the capital to attend the ceremonies held to mark one year of Aman Ki Asha, a joint campaign for peace by Times of India and Pakistan’s Jang group.

In Pakistan Urdu has got much more access among the common masses than English, so much so that “you have social media like Facebook, Twitter and blogs in Urdu which is million dollars industry,” he further added.

Mahmood Shaam addressing the gathering
Talking about the idea of peace among the people of India and Pakistan, Mr. Shaam said: “It is the idea of peace which is dominant on the psyche of people of the two countries, and not the idea of war.”

While Mr. Shaam highlighted the growing influence of Urdu in Pakistan over modern technology, the pain at the absence of any mechanism for the propagation of the language by both the government and industry, was very much apparent on his face.

A view of audiance
“Corporate media earns millions through Urdu media but it doesn’t spend even a single penny for the propagation of the language,” said Mr. Shaam who is also a famous Urdu poet.

On this occasion Kuldip Nayyar, veteran journalist and leading advocate for Indo-Pak peace process, said that “howsoever fights and wars India and Pakistan have, but at the end of the day, they have to be friends.” Mr. Nayyar started lighting candles at the Wagah border 17 years back with just 20 people but he proudly claimed that 2 lakh people were part of this peace initiative in 2010.

Mr. Nayyar, who often gets to hear terms like “agent of Pakistan” or “on Pakistan’s pay-roll”, recalled the question during his college days, which he had asked M. A. Jinnah about future Indo-Pak relationship.

“India and Pakistan will be the best of friends, because remember my friend, that blood is thicker than water,” this was how Mr. Jinnah had replied me,” recalled Mr. Nayyar.

On this occasion, M.S.A. Siddiqui, Chairman of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions said that India and Pakistan may fight hundred times but at the end of the day there should be some scope for peace and harmony.

He concluded by reciting two lines of the famous Indian poet, Bashir Badr: Dushmani Jam Kar Karo Magar Ye Gunjayish Rahe Jab Kabhi Hum Dost Ho Jayen To Sharminda Na Hon
The function was organized by Urdu Academy, Delhi and was presided by its vice-president, Prof Akhtarul Wasey.

The Thackerays' primitive charisma By Aakar Patel - LIVEMINT, Mumbai

AAKAR PATEL, A GUJARATI, HAS COME OUT WITH A VERY INFORMATIVE AND INCISIVE ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICS OF SHIV SENA AND ITS REAL IMPACT ON THE CITY OF MUMBAI AND THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA. IT BRINGS OUT THE ROLE DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES HAVE CHALKED OUT IN THIS MOST COSMOPOLITAN OF ALL INDIAN CITIES. IT FURTHER POINTS TOWARDS THE NEW AREAS OF DEVELOPMENTS THAT HAS BEEN NEGLECTED BY SOME COMMUNITIES AT THEIR OWN LOSSES.

http://www.livemint.com/2010/02/19213129/The-Thackerays8217-primitiv.html

• Posted: Fri, Feb 19 2010. 9:37 PM IST

• Culture

The Thackerays’ primitive charisma

The Senas have nothing constructive to offer Marathis. So what’s their appeal? The Mumbai Marathi, better at renaming things than building something himself, is disinherited from his city, and the Thackerays give him an illusory sense of power

By AAKAR PATEL

Politicians respond to constituencies. Their positions are deliberate.
What is the Thackerays’ constituency? Mumbai’s Marathis, whom the Thackerays speak for.

The cast: (clockwise from top left) Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray (AFP) and his estranged nephew Raj (Rajnish Kakade / Hindustan Times), founder of MNS, together control 42% of Mumbai’s votes (Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint); and north Indian taxi drivers have had to bear the brunt of their hate campaigns. Hemant Padalkar / Hindustan Times.

Congress does not represent Marathis in Mumbai, and they have surrendered this space politically to the Thackerays. This can be seen in their organizational structure (www.mumbairegionalcongress.org).
Neither the Mumbai regional Congress committee’s president Kripashankar Singh nor its treasurer Amarjit Singh is Marathi.


Of Mumbai Congress’ 18 vice-presidents, 12 are not Marathi. Of its 19 general secretaries, 13 are not Marathi. Of its 13 secretaries, eight are not Marathi. Of its seven executive members, none is Marathi.
Of Congress’s seven members of Parliament from Mumbai, six are not Marathi.


Of its 17 MLAs, 12 are not Marathi. Of its two housing board chairmen, neither is Marathi.
This surrender hasn’t come because Congress does not want Marathi votes, but because it cannot get them. Congress is inclusive by nature and cannot offer Mumbai’s Marathi what the Thackerays can, which is anger and resentment.


When Raj Thackeray left his uncle and launched his party it was inclusive, because he initially read the Mumbai Marathi wrongly. His flag makes space for the green of Muslims and the blue of Dalits. Marathis didn’t find that inclusiveness appealing and his party struggled. But after his calibrated violence against migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, in which people were killed by his boys, Raj demonstrated his nastiness and Marathis gave him their approval and their vote. Between Raj (24%) and Uddhav (18%), the Thackerays control 42% of Mumbai’s vote, which corresponds to the city’s Marathi population. In the last election, not one opposition seat in the island city of South Mumbai went to Shiv Sena. They all went to Raj after his violence, and that is the reason why Uddhav is currently acting the way he is. The more unhinged the message, the more appealing it is to the Marathi.


Elected to power in 1995, Shiv Sena renamed Bombay. This began the series which has gifted us Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The Indian’s renaming of his cities is thought to be a positive assertion of identity, but it is actually negritude. Shiv Sena’s renaming did not stop there. It renamed Victoria Terminus (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) and Prince of Wales Museum (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangharalaya). Why is the Marathi angry with the British, who gave him his fine city?
The answer is that he isn’t. Those things were renamed because the British are gone and cannot defend themselves. Their property was available for the Marathi to stamp his ownership upon.

So the question is: Why does Mumbai’s Marathi want to assert himself? The answer is that he is disinherited from his city.


Of the 30 companies in Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex, the number of those owned by Marathis is zero. Of the 50 on the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty, the number owned by Marathis is zero. The Marathi is quite good at renaming things others built, but at building them himself he’s less able.
Three-fourths of India’s capital transactions happen in Mumbai but the participation of Marathis in this activity is irrelevant. There is a reason for this. If we observe Marathi society we notice the total absence of mercantile castes. Into this space the British imported the multi-religious trading community of Surat—Vohra, Khoja, Luhana, Memon, Jain, Parsi and Vaniya. They control the economy of Mumbai and its capital markets, and occupy the city’s best real estate.


Lower down, space opened up for others with enterprise, like the Bhaiyya, Bihari and Sikh taxi drivers of Mumbai. They are actually very good at their trade, hard-working and honest. Against them, the Marathi displays his valour and, like all Indians, he can be quite brave in a mob.

Face value: (clockwise from top left) Members of a fan club gather outside a multiplex screening of My Name is Khan (Shirish Shete / PTI); the film’s lead actor Shah Rukh Khan returns to the city after the world premiere of the movie (Punit Paranjpe / Reuters); Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray at an exhibition of cartoons by his father (Santosh Hirlekar / PTI); and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi rides a suburban train on 5 February. Hemant Padalkar / Hindustan Times.

The second big industry in Mumbai is media, especially Bollywood. Bollywood is dominated on the trade side by Punjabis and Sindhis, on the talent side by Punjabis and Urdu-speakers. The participation of Marathis is not of consequence. In some ways it is negative.


If we think about it, popular entertainment can only be produced on the cusp of immorality. Bollywood liberalizes India through its content which slowly pushes that cusp outward. Bollywood is based in Mumbai because it is India’s most liberal city. But the Marathi peasants who now control the state respond to their constituency in the village, which is illiterate and moral. As home minister, R.R. Patil banned this city’s unique dance bars where young women entertained men. Such acts pull the cusp inward.
The Marathi isn’t bothered about My Name is Khan being released, and by itself the matter is irrelevant, but he’s impressed by Thackeray’s ability to make Shah Rukh Khan grovel and to disrupt Bollywood’s business. It reassures him that Marathis control Mumbai.


Shiv Sena’s issues are always those where they can demonstrate to Marathis their ability to block events—we won’t allow Australian players, we won’t allow Valentine’s Day, we won’t let Pakistanis come in and so on. Shiv Sena has nothing constructive to offer Marathis, nor is it expected: Someone else will do all that.



All these events blocked eventually come to pass anyway, because the control is cosmetic, and it wilts when the state decides to apply rule of law. But that moment of theatre—when the media exhibits anguish—produces the spotlight that nourishes the Thackerays. This is the pattern to Shiv Sena’s actions.


It might appear that these actions are irrational, but the Thackerays’ method is cold and reasoned to squeeze out advantage. Witness the discipline of Raj. He works his strategy with great care. On national television he speaks Marathi no matter what language he is questioned in. The Marathi loves this because it reflects his defiance.


There is a second reason why the Thackerays are compelled to make a nuisance of themselves every so often. Unlike other parties, Shiv Sena has a physical presence in neighbourhoods. These offices, run by local toughs, are self-funded, meaning that they approach businesses and residents for “donations”. This activity can be smooth only so long as Shiv Sena radiates menace. The party is not effective if it isn’t feared, and the grass roots reminds the leadership of this.


The Marathi pattern of resentment we have observed is visible elsewhere in time.


India’s nationalist debate a century ago was dominated by the Marathis: Tilak, Gokhale, Agarkar and Ranade. All four were Chitpavan Brahmins, whose members are fair-skinned and unique for their light eyes (like cricketer Ajit Agarkar and model Aditi Govitrikar).


Going against the current noise about Marathi in schools, Chitpavans actually demanded to be educated in English. By 1911—100 years ago—Chitpavans were 63% literate and 19% literate in English. This gave them the edge over other Indians.
All four were on the most influential body in western India of the time, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha. But English education had not exorcized the native instinct. There they unleashed their pettiness on each other. Agarkar and Tilak fought over leadership. Tilak was forced out in 1890 after quarrels over social status and money. Gokhale took his place but was opposed by Tilak who said the job required 2 hours of work daily and so it couldn’t be done by a college principal. Ranade was attacked in Tilak’s newspapers and Gokhale quit in 1895 because he couldn’t work with Tilak’s friends. A jealous Tilak sabotaged the Congress session held in Pune the same year.


When the Gujaratis—Jinnah and Gandhi—entered Congress, they immediately eclipsed the Marathis, because they had the trader’s instinct towards compromise. The Marathi Brahmin’s energy was then channelled into resentment, this time against Muslims.
RSS, founded in 1925, is actually a deeply Marathi organization. Hindutva author Savarkar, RSS founder Hedgewar, the great Golwalkar, his successor Deoras and current sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat are all Marathi Brahmins.


Marathi resentment cuts down its own heroes. The first was Shivaji. Marathi Brahmins refused to crown him though he controlled dozens of forts in the Konkan. This was because he was a peasant from the cultivator caste and not a Kshatriya. He had to invent an ancestry, perform penance and bring in a Brahmin from Kashi before he could crown himself in 1674, with the title Chhatrapati, meaning leader of Kshatriyas.



The second was Ambedkar. A first-rate mind, he is seen by Marathis for his caste. The term “Ambedkarite” refers purely to the Dalit movement. Educated in America unlike Jinnah and Gandhi, he absorbed the pragmatism of John Dewey at Columbia. Ambedkar was methodical, unemotional and persuasive in all that he wrote. Europeans would classify him as an Aristotelian, against the Platonism of Gandhi. When the merchants of Mumbai voted for the city to join Gujarat during the reorganization of states, Ambedkar wrote a response that skewered their claims with finality. He did this without being parochial. He was above his caste, above his community.


Mumbai’s Marathis should be proud to own Ambedkar’s message of a universal civilization, but they cleave to the primitive charisma of the Thackerays instead.


Aakar Patel’s book on the changing world of Indian servants will be published by Random House India in 2011.


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