Vikram made the novel point that the use of Urdu in Punjab was a way to bind an ethnically diverse province (Seraiki in the South).
Speaking Like a State Continue reading Urdu as an intra-provincial link language
https://www.facebook.com/NowThisOpinions/videos/vb.301565040380161/2139764439614338/?type=2&theater
Razib mentioned that different generations of immigrant-Americans had different experiences. When I hear the chap above and his Obamaesque accent (plus level of eloquence); it’s difficult to find the parallel in Britain.
The immigration and diaspora experience in Britain is more similar to the 1920’s Eastern and Southern European immigrants. To give a more precise analogy; post 1965 most Indian Americans immigrated as individuals or as families (except maybe the Patels) however in Britain it was almost communal immigration.
My friend’s father (who is a Sikh) moved to Britain in the 50’s/60’s from the Punjab. He was a civil servant in India and it was actually Enoch Powell who thought Indian civil servants could fill the labour gap in post-war Britain. He immigrated with less than 5 pounds (that was the limit they were allowed to bring) and his children are particularly British (half of them have white British spouses which is uncommon for that cohort, even now intermarriage is sub 10%). Even though he immigrated as a young man his friends had also moved and they had essentially formed a friendship cluster. So even though my friend grew up in a very white area she does remember that the family’s social grouping was still fairly Sikh (and competitive as all the parents had started with the same 5 pounds so the competition was on).
The British Asian experience is almost sui generis. For instance Asian-Americans usually denotes East Asians whereas British Asians immediately signified Desis (Orientals was apparently the term used for our more Far Eastern cousins).
As a final note Britain is an extraordinarily class-obsessed society and aesthetics is usually correlated with class. America, at least from this side of the Atlantic, seems a much more balanced society and the aesthetics of the immigrant populations are usually more pleasing. Americans are probably the best-groomed people in the world, on the whole (notwithstanding notable exceptions) and prosperity is linked to beauty.
Mr. Grewal cuts a very impressive profile both with his mannerisms and profile. He really reminds me of a Sikh Obama. Maybe he will run for President since he really does Brown Proud.
We’ve been watching the excellent Suno Chanda. It’s the story of a respectable Muhajir industrialist family in Karachi but features some ethnic characters as well (a Punjabi mother in law and a Pathan Uncle).
Even though I spent formative years in Islamabad the only ethnic language I was exposed to was Pushto, which was the domain of the labourers, house help and security guards. Punjabi was simply non-existent and Urdu & English were the dominant languages. So I haven’t heard much Punjabi and to be honest growing up all the Punjabi neighbours were the “Pakistanis” while the Sindhis, Pathans were the exotics.
So for the first time I’ve really been listening to the Punjabi language in sustained doses.
Udaari and Dastaan also had Punjabi speakers but in Dastan the Muslim Punjabis spoke chaste Urdu while it was the Sikh kidnappers who lapsed into comical Punjabi.
What is rather shocking to me is how Punjabi sounds like a rustic version of Hindustani. A sort of Braj Brasha for the East?
What makes Sindhi a teachable language but Punjabi a foul one?
Little did the opposing party know that this could be expected of any language spoken in Pakistan but Punjabi, for it is considered by our beau monde to be an illiterate version of Urdu owing to the likeness of the two languages. Speaking Punjabi in public is frowned upon and is not used by our nonpareil A-list to even communicate with servants. The current status of this 14-centuries-old language can be gauged by the simple inclination of Asif Ali Zardari to deliver at least some part of his speeches in Sindhi, but the smirks and guffaws that erupt in assemblages of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf when Imran Khan utters a single phrase in Punjabi.
Something has happened in the history of Punjabi whereby Hindustani speakers pushed Westward into the Lahore region (Amritsar is essentially a Lahori suburb). As an aside in the “Sacred Geography” of India; are there any Hindu holy sites in present-day Pakistan?
What is interesting is that all the “Lahnda” (Western) dialects of of Punjabi are in Pakistan and all the Eastern dialect (except for the prestigious and no doubt Hindustani influence Majhi) are in India. Continue reading Suno Punjab
Vidhi and I have gotten into this song since it’s so catchy. The artist is French and a quarter Malagasy. But she looks straight up “Caucasian” to the extent that she has to emphasize her exotic background (probably also to insulate herself against claims of cultural appropriation – the Twitter handle “Jain Music” belongs to her).
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is one of India’s best actors (it’s usually the case in Bollywood where the traditional Bollywood looks & acting ability are inversely correlated; Radhika Apte, Kangana Ranaut, Irfan Khan – Tabbu is probably an exception) and is such a strong reason as to why Sacred Games was the blockbuster as it was.
I have a mixed feelings on Shahid Kapoor as an actor but I guess this movie will be alot like Akshay Kumar’s film, Toilet. Bollywood’s increasingly important tradition of social film-making (Padman, Aamir Khan’s films) is welcome. I guess it’s also a way for aging actors to regain moral legitimacy and cultural relevance..
I’m a fan of Varun Dhawan, he seems to have completely eclipsed Sid Malhotra. However I see his acting style to be somewhat typecast as the spoilt Punjabi kid with comic overtones; he belongs in a joint family. Again I welcome any film that has a made in India message.
Finally if there are any Indian readers who are looking for good Pakistan dramas, I would recommend Suno Chanda. It’s a light-hearted fare about the Pakistani family and the attendant complications. Much as India is transforming; Pakistan takes pains to preserve the idealised Hindu-Arab cultural mix that is our wonderful Mughal-Muslim Republic.
Happy Independence Day to India. Jai Hind and I will share Vidhi’s important tweet-thought on it:
I am pleased that our President @rashtrapatibhvn has not forgotten to address the cause of women in his independence day speech. He said – "the expansion of freedom in our country in many senses amounts to the expansion of freedom for women in our country" #IndianIndependence pic.twitter.com/I3Y25JSOiX
— Vidhi Lalchand (@VRLalchand) August 14, 2018
Otherwise I was reading this article How the Tricolour and Lion Emblem Really Came to Be and then looked at another article, Growing Up in a Muslim Family That Didn’t Fit Any Stereotypes, by the same author, Laila Tyabji. She’s a proper Nehruvian (like Maulana Azad) but this passage struck me:
The khandaan she came from comprised the huge, extended clan of Futehallys, Hydaris, Alis, Latifs, Fyzees and Tyabjis â convolutedly inter-related in the best multiple Muslim tradition, all part of the same vast Suleimani Bohra tribe from North Yemen. Liberal, emancipated, proudly Indian â rather unconventional, given the times. Even in the late 19th century, all the women were educated and at least bilingual. Love marriages were the norm, often to similarly brought up cousins. Despite the khandaanâs standing and wealth, they were not in demand as daughters-in-laws. Perhaps, because their outlook and upbringing were so different from more conventional Muslim families.
Though different branches of the family prided themselves on their distinctive characteristics, (the hawk-nosed Alis versus the pakoda-nosed Tyabjiâs) they agreed utterly on the really important issues. Opting for secular, multi-cultural India, for instance, rather than the monotheistic claustrophobia of Pakistan. My motherâs branch of the family included âbird manâ Salim Ali and the Hamid Alis â he, one of the early Indian civil servants, she, (Sharifa), a redoubtable social worker; both central figures in UP cultural and intellectual circles.
The author is distantly related to actress Aditi Rao Hydari. The status of Indian Muslims is fantastic since they simultaneously occupy the under class and upper class; I can’t think of a similar social-religious class anywhere else in the world.
People often compared my motherâs fine-boned delicate looks to a Mughal miniature. But she was also brave, resolute and principled. Married to a charismatic forceful personality 11 years her senior, she held her own and became his moral compass, the moving centre of our home. When my parentsâ house was attacked and ransacked during the Partition, she sent us children away, but herself refused to leave my father, going off every day to work in the refugee camps at Red Fort.
Our ancestors had arrived in India three centuries ago, landing in Cambay from Yemen in search of religious freedom. The women never wore burkhas, though they covered their heads with lace or embroidery edged chiffon.
My great-grandfather Badruddin Tyabji the first, who later became the first Indian chief justice of the Bombay high court and third president of the Indian National Conference, and his brothers, sent all their children to either the UK or Europe to study, including their daughters. There are lovely pictures of them in hats, voluminous Edwardian skirts and leg of mutton sleeves in London, not a burkha or hijab in sight! Returning to India, they readily gave up their elaborate ornamented satin lehenga ordnis for khadi sarees at Gandhiâs call, joining the freedom movement, taking up social and political activism.
Also I have noticed that most “pro-Indian” Muslims have always been the ones that were most sure of their foreignness. It’s a bit like Parsi Privilege the Parsis will crow about being Indian because in a very fundamental way they are not Indian. In the same way it’s always been the convert classes that are the most keen on Muslim identifiers to mark them off from their origins.
I can imagine in an alternative reality if the Indian Muslim population was merely made up of the “foreign class”, which would have been a few million at best, they would have been as treasured and fawned up as the Parsis.
Finally:
As I was leaving for the colloquium on Muslim women, my goddaughter Urvashi asked where I was going. When I told her, she said, âWhy do we have to give people labels and divide them up into communities? I think itâs so unnecessary.â She has a point. Hopefully, as typecasting stops, the relevance of labeling us by communities too will become a thing of the past.
Urvashi sounds like a Hindu name and this idea of why can’t we simply be one community sounds like majoritarianism. It’s a bit like the civil code; drowning the minorities into the national framework. I have no real thoughts but simply notice the patterns.. Laila Tyabji sounds like an interesting chick and reminds me of that upper-class girl who chooses the unorthodox route but gains respectability with age.
https://www.facebook.com/MTVDecoded/videos/219325512085012/
I was going to write on Pakistan at 71 but sex is always an interesting topic. This part struck me as I was listening to the video:
More specifically the Map of Asia used:
The video basically blames white people/power for over-fetishising Asian women and de-masculinising Asian men. Franchesca makes a good point about “sexual prejudice” towards the end of the video.
At 1:15 she goes to the shirtless Asian chap and tells him that she finds him hot However what she doesn’t include is that the chances are that he won’t find her attractive simply because of her race.
So alot of Asian male dissatisfaction is really about gaining purchase in the “white” dating market rather than the wider market.. I do believe the trials & tribulations of Black Women though are more serious since they suffer on a broader scale.
Ahead of a meeting with India’s prime minister, Trump mispronounced Nepal as “nipple” and laughingly referred to Bhutan as “button”, sources told Politico. He reportedly didn’t realise what Nepal and Bhutan were. One person familiar with the meeting said:Â
He didnât know what those were. He thought it was all part of India. He was like, âWhat is this stuff in between and these other countries
Trump ‘needs reminders about how time zones work’, according to White House aides
President Trump is single-handedly hastening the end of a unipolar world. The deft Obama-era diplomacy where the former President reached out to recalcitrant nations (Iran, Cuba) is swiftly coming to an end.
The world is shaping along the lines of a Hindutva-Zionist wet dream. The Anglospheric nations (Britain firmly at the centre because of Brexit) along with India & Israel. What prompts this vision of a Eurasian entity is the sudden collapse of Turkey by a single Trump Tweet.
I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will now be 20% and Steel 50%. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2018
This isn’t to say that Turkey didn’t have pre-existing political and economic issues but when the US is trying to twist the knife; well nations have very long memories. The US has antagonistic relationships with Iran, Russia and China; to add Pakistan and Turkey to the mix is to essentially recreate the Ghost of the Gunpowder Empires.
I was looking for Macaulay’s essay on Land Empires and came across this:
Of these 6 Empires; 5 will be firmly in an anti-Western anti-American camp. The other Great Powers are the EU, India, Israel (an important minor power) and Japan (and the Koreas).
Happy 71st birthday to the Mughal-Muslim Republic that is Pakistan. I would consider it to be the inheritor of the Land Empire of the Mughals whereas I see the modern Indian Republic to be more of an Indian Ocean Entity connected to the rest of the Anglosphere and more attuned to the time of the Mauryas. The level of animosity towards the Mughals in modern day India is reaching such histrionic levels that histories as well as geographies must now be partitioned.
Pakistan’s geopolitical importance can never be overstated and it will be interesting how India will be managing an intense relationship with Iran/Russia and a growing friendship with the US. For the US to lose Turkey is simply a strategic blunder because the latter is probably the most important Islamic country and the Turks are a generation ahead of the rest of the Muslim world. If in the medieval era the three great Islamic Imperiums (the Ottomans, Safavids & Mughals) had formed a stable alliance there probably would have been able to beat back any outsider power..
Let us see now how King Khan will navigate an increasingly interesting yet turbulent world.
Manish Malhotra has come out with a new “Indo-Persian” collection called “Zween.” I had never heard of the word before but apparently it’s Arabic and means beautiful.
I thought I would share some pictures from an actual “Indo-Persian” culture since I can’t find Iran in the above pictures; just Bollywood wearing a few floral motifs..
Manish should have simply titled his exhibition; “back to Pakistan” or something such rather than unnecessarily exotify it with “Zween” and Indo-Persian. Like any good Delhite Punjabi he feels the tug of that hypnotic rich Mughlai high culture that has miraculously endured in Karachi..
However unfortunately Pakistan has failed as a country and is rightfully perceived as a basket-case. On the hand the rise and rise of India continues..
https://www.facebook.com/India.usembassy/videos/1844235619025792/
