My cute cousin (born and brought up in the US) primarily uses English as a medium of communication. On a recent visit to Hindi speaking relatives, she mentioned politely - "Aap ka chaman bahut accha hai". This had me in splits for quite some time. Technically, of course, she is absolutely right - literally translated, it means that your garden is very pretty. But having spent a substantial part of life in the hostel of an engineering college, I usually associate the word chaman with either 'ujda chaman' or 'chaman charlie' or the not-to-be-mentioned-on-a-family-blog 'chaman ch****a'.
There are quite a few Urdu words that are quite poetic and beautiful in their meaning (or even saying). 'Junoon' is one of my favourites. The English version (viz. passion) somehow just does not capture the madness or the obsession of junoon. Another quaint phrase is 'nosh farmayein' (try /sample it). One of the abiding memories I have of Ustad Bismillah Khan (on an interview on TV) was his use of 'Ama miyan', which somehow captured a lot of warmth and grace in it.
BTW - I did not know till some nifty searches on wikipedia that Urdu itself has its roots in the Turkish word 'Ordu', which means army encampment. The language started in the encampments off the Red Fort in Delhi c.1500 AD and was called Zabaan-e-Ordu (the language of the Urdu bazaar), soon to be shortened to just Urdu. Strange that something so poetic and charming has its origins in the violence of the military!
2 comments:
Other names -
Rekhta
Hindawi
variant-
Dakhni
i love the language - and as u say, the essence of words like 'junoon' or 'nosh farmayein' or others doesnt quite get captured in their english or even other language equivalents.
Post a Comment