MALAKHRO: A PUBLIC GAME OF SINDH

 Malakhro is considered the national game of Sindh. It is played in every part of Sindh. Player of this game is called Malh (ملھ). In this game mostly there are two groups; players of Malakhro become back naked and put up the rolls of their paintsسٿڻ)),then one player from each group comes on ground and plays this game with each other.

 During this game drums are beaten. Around this game people gather in large numbers and cheer loudly. In Sindh, Malakhro is considered public game. With this game people get enjoyment and entertainment. Malakhro is not only played in Sindh but it is also played in Russia, Japan and Afghanistan.Winner s of this game are awarded with honors. In beginning this game was only played on occasion of Eid Festival or any other important day. When common people took interest in this game,now it is played at the shrines of saints during their yearly Urs or even on the common days as well.

This game has much importance at common people. It is played with keen interest at villages of Sindh still.                  

SHEIKH AYAZ: THE GENIOUS POET OF SINDH

SHEIKH AYAZ: THE GENIOUS POET OF SINDH

The complete name of Sheikh Ayaz is Mubarak Ayaz. He was born at Shikarpur on 2^nd March 1932. His fathers name was Ghulam Hussain. He got early education at Shikarpur then he received the degree of B.A (Philosophy) from D.G College Karachi in 1945. He also got the degree of LLB in 1948 then he started advocacy in Karachi High court. He was also good advocate.

Sheikh Ayaz wrote poetry as well as stories and he translated Shah jo Risalo in Urdu. He also served as a Vice Chancellor of University of Sindh Jamshoro(1976-1979). There is no doubt that after Shah Abdul Latif he is considered to be a greatest poet of Sindhi language. His poetry encouraged Sindhi people for struggle to get their rights. He wrote his autobiography “KITHE TA BHANJBO THAK MUSAFIR” it is divided into four parts.

His poetry was sung by Sarmad Sindhi and Jeeje Zareena Balouch, Abida Parveen and al other important singers. There is message of “to do something” in his poetry.

                                                  Soor Thenda Nasoor Subhane

                                                  Socho Locho Hane Jo Hane

سور ٿيندا ناسور سڀاڻي

سوچو لوچو هاڻي جو هاڻي

In his poetry Sindhi Language is protected, he used the Language of common THARI people because they speak the original and pure language and use original words of Sindhi, he also stated their culture in his poetry. In his poetry the name of such trees are used which nowadays are difficult to find such as

                                              Kandean Na Singri,Babran Na Palro

                                             Chhangoo Na Chhelra Maroo Akelra

ڪنڊيءَ نه سڱري، ٻٻر نه پلڙو

سائو نه سلڙو، ڇانگون نه ڇيلڙا

مارو اڪيلڙا، مارو اڪيلڙا!

Nowadays KANDI is not found in most of Sindh. In early days KANDI was the favourite tree of Sindhi people they eat its fruit SINGREE. One can find so many names of such trees, games as well as food, which are not found in the most parts of Sindh nowadays.

                          So it is no doubt that the poetry of Sheikh Ayaz is the asset of Sindh. He died on 27 December 1997 in Karachi and he is buried in Bhit Shah beside his mentor mystic poet Shah Abdul Latif from whom he always borrowed the titles of his books and ideas to deal the themes.

Life in Karachi

Life in Karachi

Poem by Zulfiqar Behan

She, the pretty spouse,

That’s in bewilderment

At midnight

…is watching the way of her best half…

Worn out, befallen shattered…

Her kids time and again ask….

Why, is dad, not on time?

To kids,

And herself

Consoles…..

Just is to arrive at, your dad;

Go, and have your nap

At the moment!!!!!!!!!!!!

She becomes thoughtfulness….

Consultative with herself….

At the getting of evening,

The flocks of birds,

The masses of people,

Turn to their abodes,

But perhaps,

His labor went beyond

Let him get to,

Would quarrel with him a great deal,

Alas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How, the versifier may inform her?

that;

Your waiting is of no use………….

Today, your best half

On a way of Karachi

Has been viciously murdered;

Inoffensively!

But;

Who, may, assure her of the tragedy….

Who, may, assure her of the tragedy….

Translated from Sindhi into English by Mubarak Ali Lashari

The Book Review of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”

Two Extremist Binarism

The Book Review of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”

By Mubarak Ali Lashari

The Book ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’; Written by Mohsin Hamid, Published By Oxford University Press, Pages 111, ISBN 0978-0-19-547517-3.

The novel consists of 12 chapters in all, dealing with the story of a Muslim antagonist from Lahore Pakistan, who is infatuated by the American citizen, girl friend Erica. It is Mohsin Hamid’s second navel after seven years of the first one ‘Moth Smoke’ in 2000. The novel is entwined with the first person narrative throughout and seemingly in essay type description with a long monologue of the character Changez. The story of the novel revolves around the concept of fundamentalism in behaviors of the West i.e. America. the antagonist considers it as the repulsive to be there after the Afghan attack of USA which is his immediate closer, geographically, socially, religiously and faith, which shocks him to know the American attitude as fundamentalist. In his own words: “I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was struck by its determination to look back. Living in New York was like living in a film about the Second World War;..”

This alienation continues to his thinking as other than American recalling the interference of American government of the Third World Asian countries like Vietnam, Korea, the straits of Taiwan, the Middle East, and now Afghanistan. His working at the American valuation firm, which is working for restoring ailing companies, Underwood Samson, he considers himself as one of the janissaries of the Ottoman Empire were captured Christian boys trained to fight against their own people, which they did with singular ferocity. This interesting class of warrior is described during a business lunch to Changez, the young hero of Mohsin Hamid's second novel, at a moment of crisis over his own identity. Born in Pakistan, educated at Princeton and currently the hottest new employee at a New York firm specialising in ruthless appraisals of ailing companies being targeted for takeover, Changez recognises himself in the description. "I was a modern-day janissary," he observes, "a servant of the American empire at a time when it was invading a country with a kinship to mine ..."

We further notice thin-blood cultural aspiration especially in the relationship between Changez and Erica. This privileged, patrician girl has a tragedy in her past: a childhood sweetheart named Chris, who died in his teens. Her growing intimacy with Changez, while interestingly free of the racial tensions that traditionally afflict such couples in literature, is nevertheless thwarted by her inability to forget Chris or allow Changez to take his place. In the turbulence following September 11, this preoccupation with her own past becomes a crippling obsession - "she was disappearing into a powerful nostalgia" - resulting in a breakdown, hospitalisation and probable suicide. It all feels a little sketchy, psychologically: simultaneously over the top and undersubstantiated. But after a while you realise you're not in the realm of psychology at all, but of allegory (and if you don't, a nudge or two from the narrator - "it seemed to me that America, too, was increasingly giving itself over to a dangerous nostalgia" - soon sets you straight). It dawns on you that Erica is America (Am-Erica) and that Chris's name has been chosen to represent the nation's fraught relationship with its moment of European discovery and conquest, while the narrator himself stands for the country's consequent inability to accept, uh, changez.

The book has good qualities to describe cultural tendencies as well as ideological attachment towards the home town, country as well counting its obsession with the physical attachment and loosing of Erica. The interpretative way of the novel is a long monologue which sometimes feels boring and unnatural and overemphasised. Yet to know the Western fundamentalist behavor towards the east the novel presents the good example to go through the details of mentalities and understanding.

Seditious speech? Arundhati Roy

This photo taken on September 8, 2009 shows Indian booker prize-winning author and anti-globalisation activist Arundhati Roy ahead of the "International Literature Festival Berlin 2009" in Berlin. -AFP Photo

Here is a transcript of Arundhati Roy’s speech at a seminar called “Azadi – the only way” in Delhi on October 21, 2010. On the basis of this text a Delhi magistrate’s court has ordered the police to file an FIR against her and several others for sedition and waging war against the state. The magistrate’s order came after the police statement to the court said that no case could be made out on the basis of the speeches made on the occasion.

S.A.R GEELANI: Now I request Arundhati Roy to come and speak.

Arundhati Roy: If anybody has any shoes to throw, please throw them now ..

Some people in the audience:  we’re cultured…etc..etc

Arundhati Roy: Good, I’m glad. I’m glad to hear that. Though being cultured is not necessarily a good thing. But anyway..

[interruption from some people in the audience (inaudible in the video)]

S.A.R GEELANI: Please, will you talk afterwards. Now prove that you are cultured.

Arundhati Roy: About a week or 10 days ago, I was in Ranchi where there was a Peoples’ Tribunal against Operation Green Hunt— which is the Indian state’s war against the poorest people in this country—and at that tribunal, just as I was leaving, a TV journalist stuck a mic in my face and very aggressively said “Madam, is Kashmir an integral part of India or not? Is Kashmir an integral part of India or not?” about five times. So I said, look Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. However aggressively and however often you want to ask me that. Even the Indian government has accepted, in the UN that it’s not an integral part of India. So why are we trying to change that narrative now.  See in 1947, we were told that India became a sovereign nation and a sovereign democracy, but if you look at what the Indian state did from midnight of 1947 onwards, that colonised country, that country that became a country because of the imagination of its coloniser— the British drew the map of India in 1899— so that country became a colonising power the moment it became independent, and the Indian state has militarily intervened in Manipur, in Nagaland, in Mizoram.. (Someone’s phone rings here).. in Mizoram, in Kashmir, in Telangana, during the Naxalbari uprising, in Punjab, in Hyderabad, in Goa, in Junagarh. So often the Indian government, the Indian state, the Indian elite, they accuse the Naxalites of believing in protracted war, but actually you see a State—the Indian State—that has waged protracted war against its own people or what it calls its own people relentlessly since 1947, and when you look at who are those people that it has waged war against— the Nagas, the Mizos, the Manipuris, people in Assam, Hyderabad, Kashmir, Punjab—it’s always a minority, the Muslims, the Tribals, the Christians, the Dalits, the Adivasis, endless war by an upper caste Hindu state, this is what is the modern history of our country. Now, in 2007, at the time of the uprising in Kashmir against that whole acquisition of land for the Amarnath Yatra, I was in Srinagar and I was walking down the road and I met a young journalist, I think he was from Times of India, and he said to me—he couldn’t believe that he saw some Indian person—walking alone on the road— and he said, “can I have a quote?”, so I said, “Yes, do you have a pen? Because I don’t want to be misquoted” and I said, “write down—India needs azaadi from Kashmir just as much as Kashmir needs azaadi from India”, and when I said India, I did not mean the Indian state, I meant the Indian people because I think that the occupation of Kashmir. Today there are 700,000 security personnel manning that valley of 12 million people— it is the most militarised zone in the world— and for us, the people of India, to tolerate that occupation is like allowing a kind of moral corrosion to drip into our blood stream. So for me it’s an intolerable situation to try and pretend that it isn’t happening even if the media blanks it out, all of us know…..or maybe all of us don’t know….but any of us who’ve visited Kashmir know— that Kashmiris cannot inhale and exhale without their breath going through the barrel of an AK-47. So, so many things have been done there, every time there’s an election and people come out to vote, the Indian government goes and says—“Why do you want a referendum? There was a vote and the people have voted for India.” Now, I actually think that we need to deepen our thinking a little bit because I too am very proud of this meeting today, I think it’s a historic meeting in some ways, it’s a historic meeting taking place in the capital of this very hollow superpower, a superpower where 830 million people live on less than 20 rupees a day. Now, sometimes it’s very difficult to know from what place one stands on as formally a citizen of India, what can one say, what is one allowed to say, because when India was fighting for independence from British colonisation— every argument that people now use to problematize the problems of azaadi in Kashmir were certainly used against Indians. Crudely put, “the natives are not ready for freedom, the natives are not ready for democracy”, but every kind of complication was also true, I mean the great debates between Ambedkar and Gandhi and Nehru – they were also real debates and over these last 60 years whatever the Indian State has done, people in this country have argued and debated and deepened the meaning of freedom. We have also lost a lot of ground because we’ve come to a stage today where India a country that once called itself Non-Aligned , that once held its head up in pride has today totally lain down prostrate on the floor at the feet of the USA.  So we are a slave nation today, our economy is completely—however much the Sensex may be growing, the fact is the reason that the Indian police, the paramilitary and soon perhaps the army will be deployed in the whole of central India is because it’s an extractive colonial economy that’s being foisted on us. But the reason that I said what we need to do is to deepen this conversation is because it’s also very easy for us to continue to pat ourselves on the backs as great fighters for resistance for anything whether it’s the Maoists in the forests or whether it’s the stone pelters on the streets— but actually we must understand that we are up against something very serious and I’m afraid that the bows and arrows of the Adivasis and the stones in the hands of the young people are absolutely essential but they are not the only thing that’s going to win us freedom, and for that we need to be tactical, we need to question ourselves, we need to make alliances, serious alliances…. Because… I often say that in 1986 when capitalism won its jihad against soviet communism in the mountains of Afghanistan, the whole world changed and India realigned itself in the unipolar world and in that realignment it did two things, it opened  two locks , one was the lock of the Babri Masjid and one was the lock of the Indian markets and it ushered in two kinds of totalitarianism- Hindu fascism, Hindutva fascism and economic totalitarianism and both these manufactured their own kinds of terrorism. So you have Islamist “terrorists” and the Maoist “terrorists”— and this process has made 80 per cent of this country live on 20 rupees a day but it has divided us all up and we spend all our time fighting with each other when in fact there should be deep solidarity. There should be deep solidarity between the struggles in Manipur, the struggles in Nagaland, the struggle in Kashmir, the struggle in central India and in all the poor, squatters, the vendors , all the slum dwellers and so on. But what is it that should link these struggles? It’s the idea of Justice because there can be struggles which are not struggles for justice, there are peoples movements like the VHP is a peoples movement—but it’s a struggle for fascism, it’s a struggle for injustice, we don’t align ourselves with that. So every movement, every person on the street, every slogan is not a slogan for justice. So when I was in Kashmir on the streets during the Amarnath Yatra time, and even today— I haven’t been to Kashmir recently— but I’ve seen and my heart is filled with appreciation for the struggle that people are waging, the fight that young people are fighting and I don’t want them to be let down. I don’t want them to be let down even by their own leaders because I want to believe that this fight is a fight for justice. Not a fight in which you pick and choose your justices—“we want justice but it’s ok if the other chap is squashed”. That’s not right. So I remember when I wrote in 2007, I said the one thing that broke my heart on the streets of Srinagar, was when I heard people say “Nanga Bhooka Hindustan, jaan se pyaara Pakistan”. I said “No. Because the Nanga Bhooka Hindustan is with you. And if you’re fighting for a just society then you must align yourselves with the powerless”, the Indian people here today are people who have spent their lives opposing the Indian state. I have, as many of you may know, been associated for a long time with the struggle in the Narmada valley against big dams and I always say that I think so much about these two valleys – the Kashmir valley and the Narmada valley. In the Narmada valley, they speak of repression, but perhaps the people don’t really know what repression is because they’ve not experienced the kind of repression that there is in the Kashmir valley. But they have a very, very, very sophisticated understanding of the economic structures of the world of imperialism and of the earth and what it does and how those big dams create an inequality that you cannot get away from. And in the Kashmir valley you have such a sophisticated understanding of repression, 60 years of repression of secret operations, of spying, of intelligence operations, of death, of killing. But have you insulated yourself from that other understanding, of what the world is today? What these economic structures are? What kind of Kashmir are you going to fight for? Because we are with you in that fight, we are with you. But we want, we hope that it’ll be a fight for justice. We know today that this word ‘secularism’ that the Indian state flings at us is a hollow word because you can’t kill 68,000 Kashmiri Muslims and then call yourself a secular state. You cannot allow the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and call yourself a secular state and yet you can’t then turn around and say that “we are allowed to treat our minorities badly “—so what kind of justice are you fighting for? I hope that the young people will deepen their idea of Azaadi, it is something that the State and your enemies that you’re fighting uses to divide you. That’s true.

[Some people in the audience: “Do you know what happened to the pundits?(not very audible)..etc  ..etc..]

Arundhati Roy: I know the story of the Kashmiri pundits. I also know that the story that these Panun Kashmir pundits put out is false. However, this does not mean that injustice was not done.

[People in audience: interrupting and inaudible, all taking at the same time…  “do you know how many Hindus were killed?”… commotion.. no one can hear anyone].

Arundhati Roy: I think…ok let me continue.. [part of the crowd arguing loudly]..

S.A.R GEELANI: I request everyone to please sit.

Arundhati Roy: Alright, I want to say that, I think this disturbance is based on a misunderstanding, because I was beginning to talk about justice and in that conversation about justice, I was just about to say that what happened with the Kashmiri pundits is a tragedy, so I don’t know why you all started shouting. I think it’s a tragedy because when we stand here and talk about justice, it is justice for everybody, and those of us who stand here and talk about their being a place for everybody whether there’s a minority whether it’s an ethnic minority or a religious minority  or minority in terms of caste, we don’t believe in majoritarianism so that’s why I was talking about the fact that everybody in Kashmir should have a very deep discussion about what kind of society you’re fighting for because Kashmir is a very diverse community and that discussion does not have to come from critics or people who are against azaadi trying to divide this struggle , it has to come from within you so it is not the place of people outside to say “they don’t know what they mean by azaadi, do they mean Gilgit and Baltistan, what about Jammu? What about Laddakh?” These are debates that people within the state of J&K are quite capable of having by themselves and I think they understand that. So, to just try and derail things by shouting at people is completely pointless because I think that people, the pundits in Kashmir, all the time I’ve spent in Kashmir, have only heard people say they are welcome back and I know people who live there, who believe that too, so all I want to say is that when we are having these political debates, I feel I have watched and have been listening to and following the recent uprising in Kashmir, the fact that unarmed people, young people armed with stones, women, even children are out on the streets facing down this massive army with guns is something that nobody in the world cannot help but salute. However it is up to the people who are leading this struggle, it is up to the people who are thinking to take it further, because you cannot just leave it there— because the Indian state, you know what its greatest art is— it’s not killing people – that’s its second greatest art, the first greatest art is to wait, to wait and wait and wait and hope that everybody’s energies will just go down. Crisis management, sometimes it’s an election, sometimes it’s something else, but the point is that people have to look at more than a direct confrontation on the streets. You have to ask yourselves why—the people of Nagaland must ask themselves why there’s a Naga battalion committing the most unbelievable atrocities in Chhatisgarh. After spending so much time in Kashmir watching the CRPF and the BSF and the Rashtriya Rifles lock down that valley, the firat time I went to Chhattisgarh, on the way I saw Kashmiri BSF, Kashmiri CRPF on the way to kill people in Chhatisgarh. You’ve got to ask yourself— there’s more to resistance than throwing stones— these things can’t be allowed to happen— “how is the state using people?” The colonial state whether it was the British State in India or whether it’s the Indian State in Kashmir or Nagaland or in Chattisgarh, they are in the business of creating elites to manage their occupations, so you have to know your enemy and you have to be able to respond in ways where you’re tactical, where you’re intelligent, where you’re political— internationally, locally and in every other way— you have to make your alliances, because otherwise you’ll be like fish swimming furiously around a fish tank bombing the walls and getting tired in the end because those walls are very very strong. So I’ll just leave with this: Think about justice and don’t pick and choose your injustices, don’t say that “I want justice but it’s ok if the next guy doesn’t have it, or the next woman doesn’t have it”. Because justice is the keystone to integrity and integrity is the key stone to real resistance.

Thank you.

 (Taken from www.dawn.com)

Poem by Shaikh Ayaz

Poem by Shaikh Ayaz

The damsel fills the jar with water in hot
Such beauty of desert dazzles a lot
Let us see that lad, for that
The bride becomes so happy and great
Twistingly the peacock flew in the air 
The pea hen ran joyously to stare
She embraced her beloved with arms around
Damsel was scared, when lightening occurred
Expired be ‘Ayaz’ for the beloved
What to do, if she is at distance 

Translated by Hisam Memon

مهان شاعر شيخ اياز جو غزل انگريزي ترجمي سان 

تتيءَ ۾ گهڙو ڪا ڀري ٿي پئي
ٿري سُونهن چمڪا ڪري ٿي پئي
اهو ڪانڌ ڪهڙو، انهيءَ کي ڏسون
سهاڳڻ ته ٻهه ٻهه ٻري ٿي پئي
اُٺي جي هوا ۾ کنيا مور پَر
ڊُڪي ڊيل هر هر ٺري ٿي پئي
ڪرايون ڳچيءَ ۾ وجهي ڪانڌَ کي
ڏسي وڄ وينگس ڏري ٿي پئي
سکيءَ کي ڏجي ساهه گهوري اياز
مگر ڇا ڪجي جو پري ٿي پئي

”ڪي جو ٻيجل تان ورتل آهي __حسام ميمڻ

How Can You Write Down the Truth!

How Can You Write Down the Truth!

Poem by Zulfiqar Behan

If you keep on loving your being;

How can you write down the truth!

If you keep on boasting up;

How can you write down the truth!

There, where thinking be casted out,

And beauty be kept in the penal complex;

On the soil of nervousness,

How can you find out the pathway!

There, where are traps at every bit;

Envy is its brother and jealousy its father;

So cold its laughters and so hot its tears,

Tell me, how you can witness, then!

There are dribbles in the nib of your pen;

Nothing to you? if someone dies in cold!

You would pierce gluttony in the coffer of creation;

Then, how would you utter rightly!

Kids, beauty, fragrance and love;

What is more in the world than those;

If you discard all above;

How would live out in the world suppose!

Peoples glance at you earnestly;

Bring the memorandum of the truth early!

If you didn’t wake up right now;

Where in the history would you hide and how!

If you keep on loving your being;

How can you write down the truth!

If you keep on boasting up;

How can you write down the truth!

Translated from Sindhi Into English by Mubarak Ali Lashari

Call of Languages in Danger!

Call of Languages in Danger!

Language is a unique fabrication of human evolution and history. With it, human being came to be aware of its thinking quality and communication with each other. Through the language the human has magnificent power of understanding environment and nature. There can be calculated many qualities of human being which he/she/ got because of language learning but we here are to address some issues languages which are on the danger list.

There is a Navajo nation in Latin America. That nation is spread in four states of American south-western part; the language of that nation is dying. It was seen that most of the speakers of that language are middle-aged or elderly. Although many Navajo youngsters are admitted in schools and are getting education but language in the schools is English, or they are given education in English. Furthermore, in their states, sign boards, market goods and even their own newspapers are all in English, instead of their native language. The linguists are of the opinion that in coming hundred years no Navajo speaker would be there.

Navajo is not the single language in that list. According to an estimation half of the world’s 6800 languages are likely to disappear within two generations. In that way one language dies in every ten days. This kind of incident never happened before in the history of the universe that the linguistic diversity has shriveled so rapidly. An evolutionary Biologist at the University of Reading says that there are three or four languages dominating the world. ‘It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss is difficult to know.’

Seclusion rears linguistic diversity:  as a result, the world is infused with languages spoken by only a few people. There are only 250 languages out of 6,800 languages, which have more than 1 million speakers, and at least 3,000 languages have less than 2,500 speakers. There is not only the issue of the languages that have fewer speakers to disappear but Navajo is the language that has 150,000 speakers yet it is on top in languages in danger. What makes languages in danger is not only the matter of number of speakers but also the oldness of the languages. It is believed that if the language is spoken by the children, it is relatively safe. According to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Centre, in Fairbanks, languages that are spoken by only elderly people are in great danger.

Then there rises a question that why do people reject the language of their parents and land? It is because of crisis f confidence in the small communities, when living alongside larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler, of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture,’ he says. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old traditions.’

Change does not come always voluntarily. Quite frequently, the governments remain involved in killing off the minority or smaller languages banning its use in offices, schools and trade centre and keeps on discouraging such languages on the cost of promoting national languages, often languages spoken by dominant peoples. Its main example can be seen in former US policy of adopting English in Indian reservation schools at the place of Navajo, thus that language in this way was put to death. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics department at the University of Chicago, argues that deadliest weapon is not government policy, economic globalization. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures,’ he says. ‘They can not refuse to speak English.’ But the question is that can languages be saved or are worth saving? In that context, it can be said that with the vanishing of those languages there is loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on the comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language is no more, it is lost to science.

Language it also intimately bound with culture. Consequently, the loss of one is loss of other too. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something,’ Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world,’ says Pagel. There is clear-cut evidence that learning a language physiologically brings change in brain. ‘Your brain and mine are different from the brain of someone who speaks French, for instance,’ Pagel says and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

Although the linguists have carried out efforts but many languages will disappear over the next century. But there is the hope in the growing interest of linguists and people that may prevent to prove the prediction untrue. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language,’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism,’ he says. There is an example of enlivening the Maori language by starting classes in children that rekindled interest in it and stopped the erosion of this language. There is another such approach in Hawaii, which produced 8,000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in past few years. In California, ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Those who came as volunteer ‘apprentices’ pair up with one of the last living speakers of a Native American tongue to learn a traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. In this direction, they after spending 300 hours of training with them become able to transmit the language to the next generation sufficiently fluent. But Mufwene is of the opinion that preventing a language from dying is not same as giving it new life by using it in every day life. ‘Preserving a language is more like preserving fruits in a jar,’ he says.

However in the way of preserving the language comes back from its death. So, there are examples of written languages which survived and then revived by the new generations. For that, written form of any language is essential. So, the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems writing where none existed before.

In this context, there are several languages in Asia, which are to perish out soon. According to a study one fifth of the 30 languages in province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will die out in next couple of years, says Mohammad Ali Khan, ‘because there are only several hundred persons left speaking these language.’ In this category, the languages such as part of Indo-Iranian languages include Iranian: Northwestern Ormure, Southeastern Pashto, Pamir, Wakhi, Yidgha, Peraian, Sarikoli, Hindko, Badeshi etc. whereas in Indo Arian languages include: Kanneri, Katawert, Pahari, Rajhstani, Gojri, Urdu, Kalasha, Khowar and others include.  These figures were revealed in Gamdhara- Hindko board conference. It was told that languages such as Yidgha of Chitral are recently declared endangered language by UNESCO because their speakers are less than 2000. Ushojo is another endangered language that is surprisingly spoken by less than 200 people. Thus, in the moot there was great call for saving the languages which are said to be the in the last breaths.

 

Truth is Above All!

Truth is Above All!

Poem by Shaikh Ayaz

If you may come (Take birth)

After my departure

Would listen my couplets from Keenjhar to Karoonjhar

Commemorate me

Until that Sindhri (my homeland) would be in red costume, lock, stock and barrel;

In it you would see my ingenuity, like effervesces;

And may you construe that;

Talent isn’t the greatest

But

The truth is above all!

And

Truth that creates detonation; so

The detonation of that truth is above all….!!

Translated from Sindhi into English by Mubarak Ali Lashari

Misplaced People

Misplaced People

Poem by Saeed Memon

At hours of darkness

Dogs bark

In the streets.

There is a sound of

Guard’s whistle;

And people

Disposing their bodies in the houses

Where have they gone….!?

Translated from Sindhi into English by Mubarak Ali Lashari

Across the Border

Across the  Border

Poem by Mushtaq Gabol

Across the border;

When the wind wafted; the troops gasped unworriedly!

Whilst went the fragrance,

They received it warmly!

To the flock of doves

Considering them as the token of peace

Allowed to fly freely!

Across the border,

Olive trees were grown!

One day my toddler;

Like wind, like fragrance, like doves

Went across the border.

What happened then?

Why do you inquire it from me?

Ask from the troops

And appeal them to return my toddler’s dead body, at least!

Translated from Sindhi into English by Mubarak Ali Lashari

Museum of Reminiscence

Museum of Reminiscence

Poems by Hamza Hassan Sheikh

Book Reviewed by Mubarak Ali Lashari

“Museum of Reminiscence” is the second collection of his, Hamza Hassan Sheik; a young man from Pakistan, romantic and delicate English poems. It was published by Naqshgar Publication Rawalpindi, in 2009. It is with beautiful title, like Greek goddess of love and beauty holding flower in her hand, and having hard cover. The book consists of 112 pages, its price is 120, mostly having the poems scattered on the pages and having a few pages of comments by different viewer and readers of his first compilation of English poems “Some Moments of Love” with title.

The preface of the book is written by author/poet himself. In his preface he seems overflowed with the emotions and thoughts. From the preface his (poet’s) poetic emanation of sensitive feelings and delicacy forcefully come on top from where his poetic sensitivity and depth can be judged. He does not seem amateur poet or writer neither seems to write for fame or some vested interests. It is all his poetic overflowing of thoughts, which at the time youth, is natural giving out of romance.

Speaking thematically, the poems are very intimately related to the doctrine of romanticism, in other words, it can said much of subjective treatment. Although there is no sign of keeping the doctrine in front of him at the time of composing poems neither there is any appreciation of the doctrine, perceptibly. Even the objective occurrences are seen in the subjective reactions and rejoinders, like in the following lines;

The cool breeze has frozen

Everything

The humans are shivering

With cold.

Yet I am burning

In flames of memories

Past is flashing before my eyes.

In the above lines it can be seen that the shivering cold has nothing with his passions and there is warmth of passion or burning past in which he is still burning. Instead of such examples there are much objective and realistic poems as well. Such as the poem ‘Cut Kite’ is dealt realistically and pragmatically. In such poems poet has little say to mould mode of idea and its treatment. I this context, the young poet treats the past and reminiscence marvelously sometimes. The poem on which book is titled is really very fantastically dealt. The poem is about the past and failure romance but from it the positive and optimistic conclusion was drawn that is the major quality of his treatment. It is apt to have a good read of the poem ‘Museum of Reminiscence’ here;

I loved a statuesque

Who dominated over my senses

In bedazzling sunlight

And in glooms of the night.

In whose remembrance

I became moon-struck

But that triumphant

Turned into goddess

The goddess of atrocity.

Who choked my feelings

And assassinated my passion.

But I have decked one more

Unforgettable statue

In museum of reminiscence.

In this poem the poet is not nostalgic but romantic and having refuge in inner satisfaction. Objectively, it is uncanny and holds the truth of bitterness or suffering but the poet dealt it with positive subjectivity. Hamza deals poetry very adroitly and has real passion of poetic portrayal of the imagination and thoughts. He comes from lower strata of the society and meets both hands troublingly. Yet he harnesses the fervor of creative literature and contributes in the genre with lofty poems and ideals. His book is full of such scholastic and romantic ideals in poetic creation, which ultimately is bound to appeal the readers and their soft thirst of love and romance. It is also worth of giving gift to the beloved in the weather of rain or drought; can also be preserved in the shelves of romantic creative literature.