The lost alfaaz of India

The title of Dr Rizwan Ahmadrsquos documentary Will Urdu Survive in India is also a pertinent question asked and often felt by lovers of the language Despite a beautiful repertoire of memorable prose poems dialogues and lyrics the language is in despair and reduced to just being linked to the Muslim community in India Wersquoll leave that prejudice for another day but Ahmad who is a linguist by training and an associate professor of linguistics at Qatar University has been researching Urdu and its social cultural and political aspects for the last 25 yearsAhmadrsquos research is well reflected in the documentary He highlights interesting facets like how the pronunciation of the glottal q in lsquoqilarsquo or lsquobekaraarrsquo has changed significantly over the years References to past and present prime ministersrsquo speeches and comparisons of old and new songs are used in the filmA few weeks before this Independence Day Ahmad decided to take his research to the common people and began to look for audio and video material ldquoPrasar Bharati and Doordarshan Archive were very useful and after listening to a number of speeches of the prime ministers I felt I had enough materialrdquo says Ahmad who thinks the survival of Urdu in India is a huge challenge because the political establishment since the Independence of India has been quite hostile to it ldquoUttar Pradesh is a great example of it where teaching of Urdu in schools has been discontinued Urdu medium schools with an exception of a few have been shut down In Bihar recentlyappointed Urdu teachers are not allowed to teach Urdu they are asked to teach other subjects A lesson needs to be learned from parts of Maharashtra where Urdu teaching is betterrdquo says AhmadStills from Ahmadrsquos documentaryMost government institutions established to promote Urdu including Urdu Academies and the National Council for the Promotion of Urdu language have done little in this regard observes Ahmad ldquoAll they do is hold mushaeras and publish poetry books But the point is who will read and understand poetry if there is no institution to teach the language Urdu can only survive if there are grassroots level schools where it is taughtDr Rizwan AhmadThey can use the money to build and promote language teaching institutions and we must ask governments to deliver on this Private institutions need to come forward as well and as stakeholders parents should demand private English medium schools attended by their children to provide the teaching of UrdurdquoWill Urdu Survive in India YouTubeBeing invincibleAuthor and life coach Neelam Kumar found the air suddenly heavy with grief dread and helplessness as the pandemic hit ldquoAs a life coach I was concerned by the number of people who were calling me up for sessions because of emotional turmoil The lockdown experience was making them feel either too lsquocrowdedrsquo or too lsquoisolatedrsquo 24x7rdquo she tells us Kumar herself had seen death at close quarters having battled cancer and meningitis ldquoI felt strongly that I must do my bit I knew I had to write words to uplift their flagging spirits and show them reallife examples of people who had fought the worst adversities and wonrdquo The result was the book I am Invincible Thirteen True Tales of Courage Grit and Survival Fingerprint Publishing She spoke to 12 individuals among whom were a gang rape survivor a double amputee and a person who had undergone a heartkidney transplantNeelam KumarEncouraged by the overwhelming response to the book Kumar recently started The Invincible Talks online to showcase reallife examples of people who fought did not give up and lived to build lives better than their preadversity ones While all the accounts in the book and the series are moving the one story that is closest to Kumarrsquos heart is that of Jang Jaswalrsquos ldquoJang is an adorable robust Punjabi who laughs all the timerdquo she says ldquoAfter suffering 10 heart attacks a heart as well as a kidney transplant he lives life kingsize by travelling the world solo joyously My Invincible Talks video with him was a historic one I brought together people across time zones and continents in an emotionally charged sessionrdquoThe Invincible Talks by Neelam Kumar YouTubeGirls just donrsquot careSexual wellness is a market skewed towards menmdashwith products made for them and by them And Sachee Malhotra was not okay with it So to make sexual wellness a priority and part of a womanrsquos selfcare routine she started That Sassy Thing in December 2020 The aim was simplemdashallnatural dermatologicallytested safe premium products that are not just bold and unapologetic but normalise conversations related to a womanrsquos bodyMalhotra says ldquoWe need more women taking ownership of their bodies and their pleasure and also the products that go inside them My aim with That Sassy Thing is to help women feel comfortable in their skin Our organic bold Instagram community is built on visuals that feature diverse bodies with body hair owing to my own experiences with polycystic ovary syndrome and hirsutismrdquoSachee MalhotraShe adds that our relationship with our body hair is mostly shaped by pop culture and patriarchy And so with Bush a plantbased blend of hemp oil and calming essential oils like chamomile clary sage and lavender theyrsquore giving women the agency to care for their intimate areas Owing to its light texture it also doubles up as the perfect oil to calm dry bumpy and inflamed skin post waxing shaving or trimming hair Other cool products include sexual lube for women and period cramp care rollonthatsassythingcomTelugu treasuryTelugu Ghanata a page on Instagram has been curating Telugu history culture traditions texts and temples through the use of academic sources archival records and museum collections They started the page last year with a post on 15th century Telugu poet Tirumalamma one of the first female literary geniuses of the Telugu people who wrote a work called the Subhadra Kalyanam presenting the marriage of Arjuna and Subhadra from the MahabharataThey have gone on to publish thoughtfully curated posts on subjects ranging from the bright Cheriyal paintings of Telangana used by wandering bands to perform stories from the Puranas and the connections between Buddhism and trade in Andhra to Atukuri Molla the first Telugu woman to have written a version of the Valmiki Ramayana Sri Vaishnava saint and Carnatic music composer Annamayyarsquos questioning of casteism finds space as does the Harikatha combining music dance and narration to relay themes from works like the Ramayanatelugughanata InstagramCurated by Prutha Bhosle and Kasturi Gadge