Advent - Day 4

My last Christmas in Rochester, Minnesota. I have vague memories of that time. My legs were in plasters, still healing from the surgery I had to have following a fall from our two-story apartment building. A fall that changed my life forever. It was 1969.

Most of that time I try to trace back from old photographs. My father took more photographs of us when we were in Rochester than anywhere else. There was one with my siblings and I, dressed in our winter jackets and boots (except for me and my casts). He put me in the front seat of the car, my legs dangling against the gray leather, while my siblings stood or crouched beside me. We were surrounded by piles of snow.

But what I really remember about that Christmas was the card we received from Pakistan. On the front was a black silhouette of a woman holding on to a ghaRa (a clay pot) on her head. It was also the first time I saw the nastaliq script we use in writing the Urdu language. It was either Nanaji or my mother's youngest brother who sent that card.

It looked like scribbles to me, curvy designs. Not words. This was not the first time I had come across Urdu but it was the first time I recall it seeing written. At that point, Pakistan and our connection to it was not that big in my world. I had no idea that we would be returning "home" in just a few months.

Forty-two years later, I can read, write and speak Urdu, though I still have considerable difficulty with the literary, journalistic style.

For those of you unfamiliar with the language, this may be a good place to begin. At least you can see what the script and the alphabet look like. Yes, it is a bit like Persian and Arabic with differences.

Today's window, the gift of Urdu. My calendar is looking like a hodge-podge is it not?!

Conjugation(s)

I was just thinking of those heady days (!) when it was time for Urdu grammar class and we were conjugating verbs. We used to draw these rectangular boxes and form columns, which was a pain in the ass because mine were always so sloppy. The columns were never even for those who demanded perfection.

If memory serves me correctly we called the conjugation box a gardaan. An Urdu expert is welcome to correct me on that. I was never good at Urdu grammar or composition. Letters had to be addressed and written a certain way. I was a rebel. I did not want to write formal letters. I wanted to write the way I talked. Christopher Hitchens used to tell his writing classes that anybody who could talk could also write. Well, I did not talk so pretty in Urdu, or English for that matter.

So the verb for to be in Urdu is hona (the h is not silent. the o like the o in bone)

meiN hooN - I am

tum ho - You are

vo hai - he/she/it is

hum haiN - we are

aap haiN - you (pl.) are

vo haiN - they are

At least that is how the verb is conjugated here. But perhaps they do not want to confuse you right away. I don't know if this site tells you that the plural you -- aap -- is not just used in the plural. We use it as the formal you, like usted in Spanish. For example, it would be highly rude and improper for us to address our elders as tum, or tu, ever (unless they do not give a fuck about such proprieties, and the elders in my family have always done so.).

I always have found it interesting and amusing that we address god as tu, tum, tumhara. Like in the Lord's Prayer. Ay hamare baap, tu jo aasmaan par hai, tera naam pak maana jaye, teri badshahat aaye . . .

but we address our elders as aap.

If god does not care about tu ya aap, why the hell do we? I know, silly question.

note: I capitalize the N, at the end, to differentiate the urdu letter noon (n) from the noon guna where the N is not pronounced. It is differentiated in our script as the noon without the dot.

End of Urdu lesson for today. :-)