'URDU WAS LIKE MUSIC TO MY EARS'
Actor Shabana Azmi reminisces about her growing up years and her love for the Urdu language
Culture cannot be kept under lock and key, believes actor Shabana Azmi. The veteran actor, was in town to speak at Jashn-e-Rekhta, the annual three-day festival celebrating Urdu’s cultural heritage and history. In a tête-à-tête with HT City, she waxes eloquent about her love for Urdu, goes back to fond memories of growing up in a culturally-rich atmosphere, and stresses on the importance of going back to one’s roots.
Azmi, who comes from a family of poets and artists, shares that she feels blessed to have grown up in an atmosphere full of cultural influences. “In my growing years, it was almost by a process of osmosis, that I inherited a love for acting and theatre from my mother [Shaukat Kaifi], and from my father [Kaifi Azmi]. We were fortunate that we had literary giants Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Firaq Gorakhpuri, and Begum Akhtar as guests. I’d be very fascinated when I would see these evenings from behind the curtains. My father always encouraged me to sit with them, but provided that this didn’t become an excuse for me to bunk school the next day. At that time, I couldn’t even understand the language, but it was like music filling my ears.”
About her role in attempts to revive the Urdu language, she says, “Urdu celebrates our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (a cultural phenomenon in North India, that celebrates cultural and linguistic syncretism between the Hindu and Muslim communities). Urdu is actually Hindustani with a couple of different words. I find it heartening that there are so many young people who not only come to the festival, but are actually learning the alphabet. There is a definite interest in the language. And the computer has made things much easier.”
“In a country like India, we should give an impetus to all our regional languages, whether it’s Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, or Marathi. We will have to give our languages real support, so that learning them and becoming true to them becomes an asset rather than a liability,” she adds.
The actor urges people to go back to their roots, as that gives one strength and depth. “In today’s day, expression, and language are getting compressed, messages no longer respect spellings, grammar, and all that is easily accepted as cool. It’s taking away our roots completely. I think first you need to be very deeply rooted. Only then can you spiral upwards and spread your branches. But if you have weak roots, in the spreading of the branches, you will uproot the tree. Humari joh tehzeeb hai, zabaan hain, woh humare andar jar pakedegi, tabhi jaake, hum phir international zabaan bhi bol sakenge.”
We were fortunate that we had literary giants Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Firaq Gorakhpuri, and Begum Akhtar as guests
We will have to give our languages real support, so that learning them and becoming true to them becomes an asset rather than a liability SHABANA AZMI, ACTOR