The Wonder That Is Urdu

Language is a Developmental, social, and cultural phenomenon. When Urdu started its literary journey, writing also treasured it and today we are proud of the great collection of Urdu books. Urdu lovers have also done a remarkable job in writing books on various topics and in conveying the standard writings to the Urdu circles by giving them solid ink. This book although written in English, is one such masterpiece by Krishna S. Dhir. However, it clearly reflects the love of the writer for the Urdu language and its literature. The beginning of this book is an excellent illustration of how the various apabhransha of South Asia interacted with Perso-Arabic and European languages, to give rise to various languages, including Urdu, and how they grew up through the time of the Mughals and the British. How all the major religions of the world originated in the Asian continent and the observation of Sufis are highlighted in the second chapter of this book. The role of social and economic institutions and traditions in the evolution of Urdu has been shed light upon. Krishna S. Dhir has painstakingly elaborated upon the protest literature and extensively quoted Mir, Ghalib, Daagh Dehlvi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Faiz Ahmad, Ahmad Fraz, and other poets to prove how Urdu poetry has been used to protest against the siege, raids, imprisonment, imperialism, and colonization, and to express love and peace. Finally, the writer explores how Urdu is deployed by the diaspora that uses it.

About the Author

Krishna S. Dhir was born in Ballyugunge, Calcutta. His father, an official of the Indian Railways and Tata Iron & Steel Company, the Late Hari Das Dhir, was born in Jalandhar of Abu Al-Asar Hafeez Jalandhari. His mother, Sushila Devi Kochhar, was from Kasur of Syed Abdullah Shah Qadri, Bulleh Shah, and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. When he was born, philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was the Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University. His maternal grandfather, the Late Advocate Harbhagwan Das Kochhar of Kasur, admired the writings of the educator-philosopher and named him after the great philosopher. He also served as Dean at Berry College and at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. He was elected a Fellow of the Operational Research Society (FORS) in the UK in 2004 and the president of the Decision Sciences Institute for 2011-2012 by its worldwide membership. 

Man's collective consciousness spans eternity. It has taken centuries to overcome the templates of expression. Crossing the linguistic level for expression is nothing short of a miracle. The journey of language is a very meaningful journey from reality to authority. The signals from the authorized source are the seal of reality. The destination of conjecture is the destination of experience from observation, which leads from complexity to case. From thought to expression and from expression to writing, the response continues. Identifying emotions, feelings, and objects requires time to choose words and accept them.

Language is a developmental, social, and cultural phenomenon. The journey from speech to expression spans centuries. That is the precise reason why there is complexity and diversity. Language is an organic reality which is why it appears in new contexts. Each word has multiple contexts in semantic possibilities. Each word appears with different concepts, but both simple and abstract forms are possible. When each word takes some time after its creation, its semantic boundaries are determined and its vocabulary is provided. When Urdu started its literary journey, writing also treasured it and today we are proud of the great collection of Urdu books.

Urdu lovers have done a remarkable job in writing books on various topics and in conveying standard writings to the Urdu circles by giving them solid ink. THE WONDER THAT IS URDU although written in English, is one such masterpiece by Krishna S Dhir. However, it clearly reflects the love of the writer for the Urdu language and its literature. The beginning of this book is an excellent illustration of how the various apabhransha of South Asia interacted with Perso-Arabic and European languages, to give rise to various languages, including Urdu, and how they grew up through the time of the Mughals and British. How all the major religions of the world originated in the Asian continent and the observation of Sufis is highlighted in the second chapter of this book. The role of social and economic institutions and traditions in the evolution of the Urdu language has been shed light upon. Krishna S Dhir has painstakingly elaborated upon the protest literature and extensively quoted Mir, Ghalib, Dagh Dehlvi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, and other poets to prove how Urdu poetry has been used to protest against siege, raids, imprisonment, imperialism, and colonization, and to express love and peace. Finally, the writer explores how the Urdu language is deployed by the diaspora that uses it.

Sample Pages