Jawed Naqvi Delhi
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 as 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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