When Vivek koul ji admitted me to “Kaigg Naffari aka chotta adda” on ‘Facebook’, some time ago, I did not know what it really meant. I had even a tough time pronouncing the name of the forum for myself. I first thought that it was a German or Spanish phrase and that it must have some English equivalent. My daughter Anu (Anupama Handoo) later told me that it was Kashmiri and she pronounced it, as I would like to write as “kaeky nafri --- chhota ----. This time I knew how to react; but did not do so. The reason was simple. I am no authority on languages and their scripts. Everybody is free to write in a manner best suited to him/her. It is more so, in respect of Kashmiri language. It does not have a ‘husband’ script, although it has so many ‘boy-friend’ scripts. Much water has flown through the word-banks of ‘Facebook’ since the said induction. It is still flowing and has a fair share of ‘Kashmiri’ whirlpools. When I try to figure out a Kashmiri sentence, which a particular person has written in Roman or Devnagri script, I also wonder what others make out, when I write Kashmiri in these scripts. Long back, when I was in College, I had a yearning to learn Sharda script, so that I could read ancient Kashmiri books and manuscripts. I requested my grandfather to teach me the same. However, my father thought that I was going in a wrong direction. Physics and Sharda Script would not go hand in hand with each other. Therefore, he discouraged me to the extent he could and asked me to focus on my studies instead. Nevertheless, I had this literary ‘ebola’ in my blood and Kashmiri was not only my mother tongue, it was my father tongue as well. My father, Pt. Ram Chand Handoo ‘Raaz’ was a very good poet of Kashmiri language in his own right. He was a contemporary of the likes of Dina Nath ‘Nadim’, Abdul Ahad ‘Azad’ and Lassa Koul ‘Shayik’. He, however, used to write in the ‘Arabic’ like script, in which Kashmiri was written in pre-Independence era (1930s-40s). I would not learn it, because it was rendered archaic by the ‘Persian’ script, recently re-tailored to accommodate additional Kashmiri vowels. Fortunately for me, I had a classmate in my Secondary school days, by the name of Anees-ur-Rahman. He was son of famous poet, Late Amin Kamil. I visited his house a few times and was introduced by him to his illustrious father as well. Kamil Sa’ab gave me some books written by him and others. Amongst those books was a Kashmiri Primer written by him. This would eventually teach me how to read and write in this newfound ‘Persian’ script in which Kashmiri was written in 1960’s and onwards. (It is written in the same script even now in Kashmir.) So my journey of writing in Kashmiri continued without a hitch. Eventually, in the early years of my job in the Audit office, on being persuaded by some enthusiasts of Hindi language, I began to write in Hindi as well. I did not have any command on that language although I passed the Hindi ‘Pragya’ examination of ‘Rajbhasha Vikas Parishad’, as a candidate from the said office. I do not know that language even now, as far as its literature is concerned. My colleagues and the members of a small group of writers acknowledged my poems and other write-ups in Hindi in the same fashion, as we click on the ‘like’ button on ‘Facebook’. Nevertheless, for getting intellectual satisfaction, I continued to write poems in my mother tongue as well. I scarcely found outlets for them, though. Radio Kashmir Srinagar and Doordarshan Srinagar being the only available outlets, significant for reaching to public. It was 1990 and the fateful years thereafter, which found me lamenting for a proper script, which I would choose to write in my mother tongue. I had shifted to National Capital Region of Delhi (NCR) and Kashmiris there have a mouthpiece, in the shape of a journal called ‘Kashur Samachar’. There are some more. All of those write ‘Kashmiri’ in yet another script. It is a script devised with a few additional symbols added to Devnagri, which Kashmiri Pandits in and around Delhi have deployed, in order to be in touch with their cultural roots. Of course, I would not like Kashmiris back home, to question their effort, for two reasons. Firstly, all of them are more comfortable with ‘Devnagri’ script than the ‘Persian’ one, for the purpose of writing and reading. Secondly, a similar thing was done in medieval ‘Muslim’ periods to wean away Kashmiri from Sharda script, which culminated in adoption of the above-said ‘modified’ Persion script. I would not also like to raise a finger to the ‘Bhashabhattas’ for not having been successful in popularising the Sharda script. There were no takers and everybody amongst us knows that. We also know the reasons for that, but very wisely choose to be silent about that. I now understand my father better, who did not like me to learn that script, although it was more than available to me. All said and done, I still needed to adjust myself to the changed scenario. My handicap became more visible when Santosh Thathoo ji invited me to recite a (devotional) poem at the Annual function of Bhagwan Gopi Nath Ji Ashram New Delhi. That poem would eventually be published in their journal as well. As I was not in town on that occasion, so I sent my Kashmiri poem ‘Nov Shivala’ to her for recital by anybody on my behalf. The poem was promptly returned to me, as nobody there could read the ‘Persian’ script, in which it was written. I had a tough time learning to transcribe the poem in the ‘Devnagri’ script, for recital and publishing. All these years I have remained confused and tossed between these ‘Persian’ and ‘Devnagri’ scripts designed for the ‘widowed’ Kashmiri language. However, that is not all to this sad story. Enter the International breed of Kashmiris, trying to belong to one another through Facebook, Twitter and all other stuff provided by Internet. With a keypad in ‘Roman’ alphabet staring into their faces beneath their dangling fingers, they try to give yet another script to their mother tongue. This new script – the ‘Roman’ script - hardly does any justice to a language containing vowels and consonants, which do not get justice even from ‘Persian’ and ‘Devnagri’ scripts equipped with much more alphabets. So, Kashmiris have been changing the script of their language from Sharda to Arabic, to Persian, to Devnagri and now to Roman. Even Bengalis of West Bengal and (erstwhile) East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) did not do such a thing to their mother tongue. Even Arabs from Iraq to Egypt have only one script to their language; not to speak of whole Europe and America swearing by the ‘Roman’ script for scores of their languages. We (Kashmiris) type a word and God knows how it sounds to the reader. I wonder if we, international migrants, do not deserve a ‘script’, a ‘font’ and a ‘Unicode’ to express ourselves in our mother tongue. I mean, who writes these days? Almost everybody types. Moreover, almost everybody types in Unicode, in whatever language of India (or elsewhere) one writes. Keyboard in ‘Roman’ alphabet is what all of us have, unless one is a professional typist of Hindi or any other regional language. Now here is my request to anybody and everybody out there; be that an Individual Software Technocrat, an Institution or an Entrepreneur. Please do something for us poor Kashmiris. Please develop a Unicode font that does justice to our script-orphaned language; lest shortly we all will be compelled to address each other in languages (read scripts) alien to everyone’s dialect. Please let not our ‘Kashmiri’ sound German, Spanish, Latin or French to a fellow Kashmiri at the other end of our communication(s). We will not like a day to dawn, when we all be sadly chanting, of course in bizarre dialects: “zuban-e-yaar-e-man turki va man turki namedanam” (the language of my beloved friend is Turkish and Turkish, I do not understand).
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 11:28:06 +0000