Veteran actor-teacher introduces a basic Urdu course at Napa amid growing concern over the students’ weak Urdu diction and knowledge.
Rahat Kazmi may have been known for his effortless portrayal of characters in television dramas, such as Dhoop Kinare and Parchaiyan, but these days, his role as a teacher in real life is what poses a challenge to him. The problem is fairly simple but significant. The freshmen at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa), where Kazmi teaches, are unable to read and enunciate Urdu. This is why the veteran actor-turned-teacher has introduced a basic course in Urdu for students at Napa.
“How does one expect students who are not well-versed in their mother tongue and are unable to express themselves to communicate with the audiences?” says Kazmi, who serves as the head of the Napa Theatre department. Amid growing concern over the students’ weak Urdu diction and general lack of awareness about literature, Kazmi feels it became essential to initiate a course to polish the basics.
Students being taught the basics, Urdu grammar and pronunciation, and are also being introduced to the writings of literary legends such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz. “It is imperative for students to know about literary giants the likes of Faiz due to their invaluable contribution to Urdu literature,” comments Kazmi.
The veteran laments over the second-rate treatment of Urdu among Pakistanis. “I have taught at several institutes, including universities and schools. I have taught at A-level institutions, such as The Lyceum School, where I taught Literature in English and Urdu,” says Kazmi. “One thing I noticed there was that people treat Urdu like a servant’s language.”
He holds that a prime reason for the decline is the “government’s policy with regards to language.” He validates his argument by quoting research conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in 1961, which suggested that primary education should be offered in the vernacular language.
“Primary-level education should be in the vernacular language as children are in their formative years till the age of nine and, if they are not taught Urdu during that time, it becomes difficult for them to grasp the language later,” Kazmi explains. He fears that the problem is more deep-rooted than it appears and needs to be resolved on the grass-roots level.
Kazmi shares that even more disappointing than the decline in Urdu is how it has become a non-issue for people to the point that they don’t even talk about it. The widespread indifference towards perfecting the language has translated into artistic mediums, such as film, TV and the purest medium of performing arts — theatre. “The language being used in TV dramas these days is saddening and even worse is the language being used in some of the plays being performed in Pakistani theatre,” he states.
Apart from teaching a course in Urdu, Kazmi shares that Napa has introduced a course in basic English after noticing a similar trend in students’ grasp over the language. The actor is currently busy rehearsing for his upcoming play Aik Diary Jo Kho Gayi, which is an adaptation of Neil Simon’s play The Brighton Beach Memoirs. The play is scheduled to be performed on January 15.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 8th, 2015.
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COMMENTS (52)
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I think the root cause is today's world demand regarding language which is English and above all the course structure is forcefully implement on students specially in Intermediate where student have to write the importance and value of some poet or writer in exams in a limited time. And unfortunately those (I mean the authority) thinks prodigious move. I think this culture needs to be change.
@Zalmai: Fari/Dari are easier to learn than URDU.
Be that as it may, the reality today is that we all need to be super-efficient in functional ENGLISH
@ Vaqas
Urdu spoken in an Arabic accent! It reminds me of Jagdeep doing just that in an Indian movie from the late 80s. Hilarious and pretentious.
@Karan
Urdu is a nice language but Dari/Persian, which is the language of great poets like Rumi, Saadi, Firdousi, Hafiz and Omar Khayyam is divine.
Of course, Dari/Persian is hard to understand and learn for the average person in the subcontinent because it is not a hybrid language like Urdu whose grammar and language structure is essentially Hindi and that is why it appeals to you.
At last someone has thought about placing Urdu where it belongs, that is center stage . Thank you Rahat Kazmi for taking a stand for Urdu , only a person like you could have done it .I wish parents and teachers would take pride in speaking the language and teaching it.
@karan:
Make it COMPULSORY, and you will kill the learners' joy.
I love Urdu. Its the most subtle and beautiful language in the world. India should make it a compulsory language for students.
@Sheikh: Sheikh sahab touches on a very important point. Even though he has no idea that he has had. The point is that since the creation of Pakistan the Urdu speakers have been vilified as the usurper's of the local people's rights and properties. And thus this very loathing developed has caused the locals to sideline Urdu as a national language. And so the vacuum thus created was filled by English which has no current political affiliations yet in our country. Although the mullah brigade is trying its best to remove English and bring in their own version of arabic sounding Urdu as the new cool way of speaking.
Sir, That is sad indeed. Doesn't the social class structure has a lot to do with what is happening with Urdu? We are a sad society, we love to follow others and take pride in it. We belittled and now don't even bother to know our own heroes, history and literature. Here in North America urdu speakers struggle to pass on the language to their generations. Some buy special story books for their kids on their trips to Pakistan. Their efforts are honorable as compared to the treatment it suffers in its homeland.
We need to gain some self respect and may be that will change our behavior towards Urdu. So sick and tired of the plastic glamour our industry is wearing.
Many regards and hope you bless TV screens with your presence again, inshaAllah.. :)
-Uzma
yes as we are all angriz k gulam still and will remain in complex by speaking english individually while nation as whole is rated worst in world while china japan korea who give no lift to english is taking over the world as they as nation can atleast speak 2 each other united in one voice.
@Sal: There is no obsession for the language. It is the national language of our country and for the sake of the nation’s pride people should know how to, atleast, speak the language.
Are you from Utar Pardes or Bhar?
First we killed Punjabi to learn the language of our invading masters, then we killed Urdu to learn the language of our colonial masters. End result is that we've killed all form of literature in this country. Urdu literature is losing ground as our young generation wants to learn English, yet their English is not at par to produce quality literature.
@Sheikh---Be proud of your Sindhi heritage. Not Urdu but Dari (Afghan Persian) was the official language of the Mughal court. Persian lost its influence after the fall of Mughals. The new rulers from England discouraged people form learning the Persian language to keep the Muslims of the Sub-continent away form the influence of Iran. The British promoted Urdu and made it the official language of Punjab.
@JSM: Punjabi is also written in the modified Persian script called Shanahme or Shahmukhi. Bulleh Shah and other great writers used that script and educated Punjabis used that script long before Urdu came to be used as a language.
@someone: I agree with you. Why not simply adopt English as it is preferred by most educated Pakistanis. Poor natives are taught Urdu is necessary over their own native language which is considered a servant's tongue but then everyone who is more educated then thinks of Urdu as a servant's tongue. Can't ignore the irony here! Overseas most people think of Urdu as Hindi and the 2nd generation look down on both despite attempts to say it is sophisticated. Urdu was imposed on Pakistan anyways so we should just use the global language English.
My A-levels teacher in 2003. What a personality! #respect
Same can be said about speaking proper Punjabi as well. Proper classic Punjabi is a lost skill.
@ahmed41: Exactly that is my point sir- every language has a script associated with it. You cannot write Russian in Roman script. What script is used for writing Punjabi in Pakistan?
@someone: There is no obsession for the language. It is the national language of our country and for the sake of the nation's pride people should know how to, atleast, speak the language.
And what about 'punjabi'? Our own mother language?
We can't be creative in someone else's language.
Look at China, Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Germany for example. All have become leading industrialist countries and none of them pursued for English to become their mother language like we do.
People who attend conferences and hold meetings for the uplifting of Urdu among masses, after the sessions are over, sneak into corners and end up asking the translations of certain words & phrases from Urdu to English! One can never hope the masses to own it, whether they are from schools & colleges or from any academic venue, until it is embraced from the State and delved among people. Ask anyone how many research papers are published on the poetry of N.M. Rashid and Jaun Elia, even by the ones who stand for Urdu, the answer is more than disappointing. However, Rahat Sahab is an iconic figure. With people like him gloom becomes a useless emotion. Let's hope for the best.
I don't know why we are making such a fuss about Urdu, when its not even the mother tongue of majority of Pakistanis. Yes its the national language,but what percent of people speak it as their mother tongue? For,me,a Gilgiti,or for any pukhtoon or sindihi or Balochi, Urdu has always remained a second language. It doesn't matter whether the medium of instruction in schools is english or Urdu, people like me will always find it a second or even third language. We should not force Urdu down peoples throats when its just spoken by 7% of our population. If I am given a choice to learn in a language other than my mother tongue, be it urdu or english,I'll definitely choose english as it'll help me anywhere in the world. Ya'all should remember that KPK,Gilgit, and Balochistan are also part of Pakistan. If UNESCO recommendations are to be followed, then introduce Pushtu as medium of instruction in KP and Shina in Gilgit. Why Urdu?
Despite my love for Urdu and total agreement with Kazmi sb's view point, I would like propose that English should be made a "foster mother tounge" at least because our Govt. Official language and High Courts official language is English and it's not fair to when majority of our Urdu speaking public is kept away from these...h .. I would also like propose that English should be made a "foster mother tounge" at least because our Govt. Official language and High Courts official language is English and it's not fair to when majority of our Urdu speaking public is kept away from these...
Despite my love for Urdu. .. I would like propose that English should be made a "foster mother tounge" at least because our Govt. Official language and High Courts official language is English and it's not fair to when majority of our Urdu speaking public is kept away from these...
In the Gulf countries, Urdu/Hindi is the binding language between the peoples of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and even Sri Lanka.
This is our own language and also the notional language there should not be any debate on this issue and the people of Pakistan must learn to read and write in its true form it is the only language that its own script no other language has its script accept Sindhi. "HUM LOG TERAY MERAY KAY CHAKKAR MAIN REH KAR SUB KUCH GWAN BHAITAN GAY"
What happen when some other national ask what language you speaks i speak pusto he speaks punjabi and we cannot speak urdu means cannot communicate among our self and i strongly believe that what is happening right now in Pakistan.
@Raheem: Every language has a script. What is the script of Punjabi in Pakistan?
Urdu, English, pathological inferiority complexes and fake identities are the cultural relics of imperialist, decadent and despotic invaders.
The social, political and cultural chaos in Pakistan is an indication of a schizophrenic society which has never seriously worked with its very dark and suppressed past. Soon we are about to have gallows all over in Pakistan.........in full operation!
If Urdu is a servant´s language then what is with my Punjabi language? It has become a crime to speak Punjabi in Lahore, because we have been persuaded (from the Urdu speakers) that it is a language of illiterates!
The argument has been blown out of proportion. What he is simply is that one of the reason why the quality of the theater play is going down is because the actors are unable to express in a way which their role demands. I guess no one would argue that the Urdu is probably the most understood language across all communities in Pakistan.
One can see that Express Tribune has an URDU section. Can the newspaper management of Express Tribune give us some rough figures of how large this URDU readership is, please.
I do look at it,sometimes.
As an Indian whose mother tongue is URDU , one is perplexed with the state of affairs of that language in Pakistan.
When Pakistan adopted URDU as its national language, the death-knell of Urdu occurred in Bharat. It has become the language of our homes. ( Full-Stop)
Unless a language is associated with " rozi-rooti " it has no future in the eyes of the masses.
The cultural values of Urdu is another matter.
As a side question : " What has happened to the study and learning of Persian in Pakistani schools ? Is that also a lost cultural link ? "
Urdu is not our language. It belongs to India. Our national languages are Punjabi Sindhi Balochistan and Pashto. Get a life Kazmi sahib. Urdu is exploiting other language for sixty years.
The following quote by Rahat Kazmi is incorrect,“How does one expect students who are not well-versed in their mother tongue and are unable to express themselves to communicate with the audiences?”. Urdu is not the mother of any state/region in Pakistan, except for the population that migrated from India in 1947. The best way for anyone to communicate and learn should be in their mother tongue which is Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto and Panjabi.
Urdu is not compatible with modern life style. Just one example. Majority of kids, young persons and educated people spend most of their time on computers, smart phones, play stations and other modern gadgets. All these gadgets have nothing to do with Urdu. Any language which is not compatible with modern life style will die sooner or later. Yes, its poetry is beautiful which helps in love affairs, for all other purposes, its useless.
@Hasan: Language is an enabler but not a catalyst or reason for success. Indians are succeeding not because a mere 5 percent of them can speak English rather for the hard work and foresight! What's really blasphemous is you casually blowing off 1.2 billion Chinese! Ahh the ways of the...
I am proud of my Sindhi heritage and I don't want to subjugate myself to Urdu. As the previous commentator says it was the language of the ruling elite in the Mughal courts. Italians even though he is part of the European Union still speak their language. Pakistan is a mulit-ethnic, mulit-language country why should I be forced to be monocultural and adopt the Urdu language.
Urdu is a beautiful language we need to invest in it to promote it, conduct national level speach contest of students of school from across the nation, impose a ban on showing ppl who speak Urdu as from lower society on dramas and out news channel raise their standard to do se basics to give it some way and fuel it again so we ll find love and desire for our language which unites us and which is understood by almost everybody from North to South which we need it most.
How many people commenting here use written Urdu in their professional lives? Quite a few of you must be office workers. How many Urdu documents pass by your desk? How many English documents?
I fail to understand Pakistani obsession with Urdu. Why Pakistanis are obsessed with an Indian language? None of the Pakistani provinces, including that of then East Pakistan, speak Urdu. It was a language promoted by the ruling elite of 1947, who migrated from Delhi/ UP to new Pakistan,who used to speak Urdu and they forced Urdu on other people who used to speak Punjabi, Sindhi, pashto, Bengali or baloch. This is a gross humiliation for the native Pakistanis who were proud of their own local languages.Moreover, Urdu is not used in area of science and technology then why is it being forced on Pakistanis?
I totally agree. We, the youth, is very detatched from our own language and when we read literature and poetry, we do not understand much. To me, that is sadening. The generation of our grandparents were well versed in Urdu, Persian and Arabic.
A nation suffering from inferiority complex cannot progress. Chines, Germans, Japanese etc..did not adopt English and yet they are world powers. I totally agree with this great actor. The eilte in our country feel ashamed to talk in Urdu and even their English is bad, trying to mimic the British accent, makes you laugh.
And Urdu was once the language of the elites - spoken only in the Mughal courts - and they probably looked down on the other languages. This is just how it goes, I feel. Maybe it is because of our location - we just happen to lay at a cross-roads. Maybe we should just embrace our mish-mash nature instead of this constant confusion over who we are, what we are etc etc. Why not just accept that we are a fusion of many cultures. This could be, should be, a source of pride, rather than constant bickering.
The demise of the urdu language is due to the false standards we as Pakistani's have set for ourselves. Schools thrive on marketing their all "English" curriculum and semi-literate teachers who may profess having english speaking skills, even though the quality of those skills can be questionable. The result is that the English taught and learnt remains below par. Print and TV media, which once used to have high editorial standards, have also faltered.
Nations around the globe are proud of their national language and maintain their identity.
Our national language is an identity, we must preserve it, otherwise we will dissolve into the global melting pot.
Urdu is such a unique and beautiful language. Its a travesty to see how our people have abandoned their own mother-tongue. That said, the real culprits are not the young generation but their parents who have forgotten how to instill cultural values into their children's upbringing.
The veteran laments over the second-rate treatment of Urdu among Pakistanis. “I have taught at several institutes, including universities and schools. I have taught at A-level institutions, such as The Lyceum School, where I taught Literature in English and Urdu,” says Kazmi. “One thing I noticed there was that people treat Urdu like a servant’s language.” <--- I did my O levels and A-levels, and I find his observation flawed. Students spoke English because they didn't KNOW Urdu that well in comparison. It was not an issue of degrading a language. Period
Urdu is a national language and its importance can't be ignored.
Every one no matter who lives where can speak Urdu whether right or with wrong pronounciation but the fact is that Urdu language is the only language which is widely read and understood in the sub-continent.
It's is a different story that non-Urdu speaking people do not know where to use masculine or famenine, singular or plural, past or present tense when these people talk in Urdu.
One Memon guy was talking to an Urdu speaking person.
The question was whether the Banks are closed tomorrow or not?
The Memon guy replied: "Bank Kal Band Thi".
This shows that in addition to masculine or famenine, singular or plural, non-Urdu speaking people do not also understand present tense or past tense while they talk in Urdu language.
I differ the caption of this particular news items that "Urdu is treated as servant's language.
I am of the opinion that Urdu is a language which was spoken by the Kings prior to Pakistan-India partition and still any one who speak Urdu language throughly think himself that he is King in his own minset.
It goes back to the education. You can't have local language medium schools, urdu medium schools and english medium schools. It'll never work. The kids from the english medium schools can never and will never relate to their fellow countrymen from other educational backgrounds.
I know this is stirring the pot here but is there value for local languages? We say China all we want but Indians have succeeded in the world today in part because all of them are educated in English and are proficient in English. Perhaps we just gave up the Urdu experiment altogether (blasphemous I know) and just switched over to all English medium schools. Urdu can be the second language.
It's a global world, it's 2015, it's not 1865 or 1947. The English ruled us and now their language rules the world.
There must be some reason why Chinese stuck with their own language and considering their economic and scientific progression it appears they are not doing much bad. When and undergrad student at the leading university of Pakistan finds it hard to pronounce and write "Zalzla" in Urdu then there must be something wrong with the education system.
Totally agree with him. Similar point has been articulated by none other then Zia Mohiuddin. I think a lot of indifference toward Pakistan from the new generation of our elite class gets reflected in our treatment of Urdu. There is clearly a lack pride and Pakistaniat in our elite which then trickles down to the masses. When there is no one talking about our Pakistaniat, the vacant space is then exploited by religious extremists. Who then start talking about our religions, sects, thinking.