The Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Infrastructure, Land Transport and Shipping, the Honorable Dr. R. Beebeejaun, The Lord mayor Mr. Sheik Mukhtar Hossenbocus, The Chairman of the ICC, Dr. Farad Aumeer, the Chairman of the SPU, Mr. Farouq Rujul, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: Assalamo alai kum

“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,

or we know where we can find information about it.”

This is a quotation from Samual Johnson, who is the most quoted English writers. Of course, when he wrote these words, he wasn’t making a reference to the Internet as a source of information. In those days, when people were travelling long distances in quest for knowledge or for information,  Imagine what they would have thought  if they could see us searching data throughout the world for research on a particular subject at the touch of a computer key.

But I find Samuel Johnson’s words very relevant to what we are talking about here today.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am pleased to be here today to announce the launching of the new website of the SPU, www.anjumanurdu.org, which has been developed to enable information to be accessed easily by all.

The Internet is a great source of information. Locally, more than two hundred thousand of all ages regularly log on to the Internet from either their office, Cyber Café or from home. The Internet has already made a big difference for many of these people.

The launch of the website today is more than a mere embracement of ICT.  To us, who understand that information equals to knowledge and that knowledge equals to power, the realisation and the launch of this new website embody the SPU’s resolute quest to ensuring that multi-facet range of Urdu Lovers has easy access to quality information about Urdu, thus, empowering them to exercise their rights to acquire knowledge.

I am therefore indeed filled with joy this afternoon because of the potential this achievement has in assisting the SPU to communicate better, and to serve Urdu Readers more effectively.

It has become fashionable in our day, to be able to refer people to one’s website and thus indicate that our organisation is part of the technologically advanced.  But an ICT product, such as a website, is not an end in itself but a means to an end.  The crucial question then becomes whether one’s website really serves its purpose?

Ladies and Gentlemen:

This new web site we are launching today provides another option for accessing information pertaining to the development and progress made in Mauritius in the field of Urdu Language, i.e. Urdu Literature, Urdu Poetry, Urdu Short Stories, Urdu Drama etc., More importantly, the Mauritian Urdu Literature. It will sound like unbelievable, but there are many Urdu Lovers, who have in store several creative writings, which have never been published and most tragically, many have been lost into oblivion. This website is a golden opportunity offered to them to make known their realization. I seize this opportunity to make an appeal to them to contact us for the publication of their works. I’m pleased to inform you all here present that their valuable publications can be made available to all surfers over the world – not only to a particular subscriber.

Finally, a few word on the Web Designer. A dynamic youth full of vigour, young student from the University of Mauritius and bestowed with great deal of talent, Mr. Ashesh, Ramjeeawon. He has proved to be gifted with great amount of endurance. I seize this opportunity to extend our heartfelt thanks for the great job done and more so for the patience, he has shown all the way through.

Thank you.

The Vice President of the Republic of Mauritius, Mr. Raouf Bundhun and the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Infrastructure, Dr. Rashid Beebeejaun, the Minister of land and Housing, Mr. Asraff Dulull, The High Commissioner of Pakistan Syed Hassan Javed and other distinguished personalities were present for this function.

The President of the society, Mr. Farouq Rujul, during his speech: “Amidst the multi dimensional transformation the world is at present experiencing, we, all are beckoned to determine the identity, interest of the beautiful language Urdu and role it has to play within our Republic of Mauritius and within a broader environment.

The obstacles that have been central to the propagation of the language in the past have to be critically reviewed and reassessed and the spectrum of the present and future challenges have to be embraced with realistic optimism and confidence.  The process whereby this can be realized has to be meticulously crafted and implemented in order to enhance and optimize the role of Urdu in our present day society.

In this regard, some sincere Urdu Lovers have been deliberating for several years to determine and design the best approach to initiate the process of promoting the Urdu Language. To this end, was launched the ’Society of the Promotion of Urdu’ (SPU).”

On that auspicious occasion, the book ‘Rehbaran’ was also launched jointly by the Vice President of the Republic of Mauritius and the Deputy Prime Minister.  The book is a collection of biographies of the ‘lives and achievements’ of eleven of those pioneers of Urdu in Mauritius, who have left no stone unturned to preserve the cultural heritage of the wonderful language of Urdu, viz Yusuf HEERAH, Munshi Abdul Hai AHMADI, Hosman Amode MOHUNG, A. Wahab FOONDUN, Nookman BHATOO, Ayoob PEERALLY, Elias NOORMAMODE, Rahim PARAOUTY, Shaukat Ali EMAMDEEN, Syed Ghulam Mohammad RAHMATULLAH and Amode HANZAREE. Furthermore, a ‘Lifetime achievement shield’ was awarded posthumously to the family of those pioneers.

The Deputy Prime Minister has put emphasis on the importance of preserving one’s culture and added that the present government is doing its maximum to help all socio-cultural societies equally; but unluckily there are many gossips that are going on outside making people to believe that the government is doing favour to a particular community, after the government has taken back the plots of land in the Ebene area from socio cultural groups.  In fact, he added, the construction in these areas would cost a lot and the government is attempting every endeavour to find other suitable places for same.

Click HERE to view the URDU version.

We warmly welcome you to this website. First, allow us to say a few words on the purpose and organisation of these pages through which the Society for the Promotion of Urdu (SPU) seeks to inform you of the various aspects of the Urdu in Mauritius.

We have designed this website with the aim of keeping our browsers abreast of the most recent developments on Urdu Language on the local front and by providing the most up-to-date information, news and reports. In addition, it seeks to convey a broad view of the key role of this wonderful language can play in the context of the emergence of the Knowledge Hub in Mauritius.

The SPU website contains information on the Urdu, its development and the biographies of those Pioneers of Urdu who have striven hard to keep the Urdu Language alive in Mauritius.

We very much hope that these pages will help you find the information you need and will provide answers to most of your questions about Urdu in Mauritius.

Finally, please spare a little bit of your time to sign our guestbook.

The Editorial Board

Click here to view the URDU version.

The book starts with:

” Those who were boasting on their faith and duty

When shown to them the mirror, they got angry”,

and it has to be read honouring this plea.

At a time when every one is faced with the most ever personal crisis of this centuries i.e. STRESS.  ‘Aaina’ should make useful and relevant reading for Urdu Lovers.  There may be lessons to draw from the author’s memories and reflections, which are replete with information and anecdotes of his experiences acquired over the years, conveying a scene of  “déjà vu” or  “déjà lu.” The memoirs are based on personal knowledge and observations of one who joined the realm of Urdu with an article written in the launching magazine of The National Urdu Institute in 1971.  Having joined the educational sector as Primary Urdu Teacher to reach the level of Assistant Supervisor, he had that unique opportunity to be a player / witness to the events in the education sector from the inside, like looking to the storm through the eye of the storm itself.  This explains the so many chapters related to education and learning / teaching process.

It seems to be authentic memoirs packed with information-factual-with a tinge of mysterious happenings here and there that sustains the interest of the reader. The most brilliant aspect of the memoirs is the wide spectrum covering the various topics starting from the National Flag, passing on the Speed Breaker, near the Zebra Crossing, directly to the Classroom situation, through the Studio of our National Radio and to land finally in Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage. However the description reveals the various aspects of the human nature also. This makes the narration appealing and instructive as well

‘Aaina’ according to Haniff Canhye, who wrote the introduction of the book, “ is full of information about the trivial and petty things of daily life.”

‘Aaina’ had been written with a touch of humour and at times with a degree of sarcasm, in a successfully amusing way just to show the foolishness of some established customs and mores,  of our society.

The two characters viz. Altaf Nadeen Qaisar and Abdul Rahman Raheemi present throughout the whole book, sometimes pessimist and at times optimist depending on their mood, remind us strangely of the famous Birbal in the court of the Moghul Emperor and of Mulla  Nashruddeen

From “Muft Khowr” (The Inconsiderate), the first one act play produced by him, at the Preliminaries in the first Urdu Drama Festival held in the year 1974, to ‘Rishta’ the first ever Urdu full length play staged in Mauritius on the occasion of the 2dn Word Urdu conference, last year, Farouq Rujul has had no spare time in the propagation of Urdu language and Urdu culture, in the capacity of freelance at the Mauritius College of the Air, as Member of the Urdu Panel at the NCCRD and  now  as the President  of the Urdu Drama Committee.   He has proved himself to be a good short story writer and has written abundant one act plays and has won numerous prizes in this regard.

This book is apt to all level of readers, starting from the lower secondary students to the much more die hard readers.  Scattered with verses of poetry makes perusal more interesting and the circumstances are related such that one can hardly avoid laughter.

In conclusion, I compliment the author for his noble and laudable efforts.  A must-read for any Urdu Lover who wants to read for pleasure and for fun.

A Reader

The Society for the Promotion of Urdu (SPU) is an autonomous body. Set up to promote, develop and propagate Urdu language, the SPU started its operation in on 3^rd June 2006

OBJECTIVES

The main objectives for which the SPU has been established are:

• To promote, develop and propagate Urdu language.

• To take action for making available in Urdu language the knowledge of scientific and technological development as well as knowledge of ideas evolved in the modern context.

• To undertake other projects for the promotion of Urdu language as may be deemed fit by the SPU.

FUNCTIONS

• To undertake the production of literature in the Urdu language, including books on science and other branches of modern knowledge, the children’s literature textbooks, reference works, encyclopedia, dictionaries, etc.

• To collect and evolve technical terms relating to various disciplines of knowledge in order to enrich the Urdu language.

• To undertake and provide for publication of journals and periodicals in furtherance of its objects.

• To promote and help in development of computerization with a view to develop the Urdu language to meet the advanced technological requirements of the age.

• To formulate/implement schemes and projects for the teaching of the Urdu language through the mediums of English and Hindi and other Modern Indian Languages including, teaching through the correspondence courses.

• To liaise with the Governments and other agencies in matters relating to promotion and development of the Urdu language.

• To provide financial assistance and guidance to Non-Government Organizations for propagation of the Urdu language.

• To co-ordinate the activities of the state Urdu academies.

• To obtain or accept subscriptions, donations, grants, gifts, devices and bequests from any person, corporation or institution in furtherance of the objectives of society.

• To undertake such other activities as may be conducive to the aforesaid objects of the society.

‘Urdu’ is a Turkish word, which means ‘foreign’ or ‘horde’. This just shows that the language represents its origin being an amalgamation of foreigners with the natives of South Asia. It was formulated by the interaction of foreign army, merchants and immigrants to India. Language is one of the means of symbolic communication. But it does not stop at this. It is the heart and soul of the community, which speaks a particular language. Often language need not be associated with religion and caste. There is no monopoly of a particular language by a particular community. However, in practice Urdu has been associated with Muslims in Mauritius and elsewhere in the world.

Today, it is the national language of Pakistan and is spoken largely in the sub-continent and in the neighbouring country of India. In fact, the grammar of Urdu is quite similar to that of Hindi. The strong suit of the language has been and still is its literature that has some masterpieces. Likewise, poets like Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz have had a give and take relation with the language. Where they took the language as a bridge between their thoughts and their readers, they also gave the gems of their beautiful poetry to the language.

Urdu involves numerous elements of Arabic as well as Persian. It also derives some matter from Sanskrit, a crude language of Hindi. Though not a very old language, Urdu is a language full of charm and elegance, a language that holds literature so courtly. Here Urdu is closely related to our history. In fact Urdu in our island is as old as the arrival from India of our ancestors, mostly indentured labourers, to work the land. At that time, most of the interactions, ceremonies and religious talks were done in Urdu language.  Even today when this language has almost lost its importance in the country, in certain quarters, the Imam of Mosques, with a slight poetic and aesthetic sense prefer to express in Urdu only as this language adds the charm to their preaching. The unfavourable fact is however, that today as the society is losing its cultural charms, it is also unmindful towards its historical language.

The fact is that due to the fear of being called ‘underdeveloped or misfit’ of the society, much of our youth have neglected the learning of this poetic language; instead they have been encouraged to learn the global communication tool of English, science, Information Technology and other commercial subjects. Trying to compete with the world, the Urdu Lovers have had to take up English and French as their primary languages, and in the process the importance of Urdu is lost. But still many feel that the charm of expressing the thoughts in Urdu is not matched in any other form of language.

Consequently, over the years when the people worked towards progress they had no other choice but to adopt English and other science subjects.  Thus, Urdu has gone into the background. However, with the creation of the National Urdu Institute and the contribution of some local teachers, the language has established itself never to be overlooked. So far as the government of Mauritius is concerned, it has been giving due recognition and encouragement to the growth and popularity of all Asian languages viz. Hindi, Urdu Tamil, Telegu, Modern Chinese and Arabic language. Now, with the increasing number of students for Urdu exams for secondary schools students, Urdu is read in form of those novels that make the exemplary literature and the aesthetic poetry, in Madrassas, schools and private tuitions.

In some ways, Urdu is the one language that has the force of social and cultural integration. When Mushairas are held, a sizeable number of audiences consist of elite Muslims. Both Salman Alvi’s Ghazals and Talat Azize’s Ghazals were appreciated mostly by non-Muslims, during their last visit here. There was oneness among all people, irrespective of religious background, in the auditorium.

Though not a very old language, yet a splendid and marvelous form of poetry, prose and consisting exemplary literature from the unparallel contribution of Altaf Hussain Hali, Hasrat Mohani, etc., Urdu language has travelled a long way, in a very short period of time.

Moreover, Allama Iqbal, who was a great philosopher and a poet of Urdu language and who earned fame from his Persian and Urdu-language poetry, has written in the classical style for public recitation, such as: Sare Jahan se acha, Lab pe aati he dua, Yarab yehi dua he…

The history of Urdu can be traced back to 16th century when it developed as a vernacular dialect from the interaction between local Indian Sanskrit-derived Prakrits and the languages that were spoken in the courts of the rulers of the Subcontinent. The language of the courts was Persian at the time. From the time of the Delhi Empire to the Mughal Empire and its succeeding states, Urdu soon became the popular language, distinguished linguistically from local languages by its large and extensive Arabic-Persian vocabulary (40%) superimposed on a base of grammar, usages and vocabulary that it shares in common with Hindi.

There are many views regarding the origin of Urdu. Urdu may have originated anywhere in India: the Deccan, in the Punjab, in Maharashtra, in Bengal, in Sindh or in the neighborhood of Delhi. These hypotheses are backed by Urdu literature having been found in these areas as far back as the period of the Delhi Empire. It is often said that Urdu originated in or around Delhi over a period of a few centuries.

Urdu is written in a derivative of the Persian alphabet which is itself derivative of the Arabic alphabet. It is written from right to left. Urdu is similar in appearance and letters to Arabic, Persian, and Pashto. Urdu differs from Arabic in the sense that it uses the more complex and sinuous Nastaliq script whereas Arabic tends to follow the more modern Naskh.

The Urdu alphabet consists of 37 characters though some linguists agree on 44 to include the characters that are used for varying sound pronunciation. Urdu follows Arabic numeral system though it is not in everyday use. Rather, Roman numerals are used in ordinary communication. Urdu nouns fall into two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. There is also a singular or a plural noun form. A host of words are used to show respect and politeness. These words are generally used with people who are older in age or with whom you are not acquainted. For example the English pronoun ‘you’ can be translated into three words in Urdu: the singular ‘Tu’ (informal, extremely intimate, or derogatory) or the plural forms ‘Tum’ (informal) and ‘Aap’ (formal and respectful).