The language of the Deccan

Subah ki dhoop mein agar saaya lamba nazar aya, tum apney kad ke baarey mein ghalatfehmi mey mat rehna (If in the morning sun you see that your shadow is long, don’t get deluded about your height): Ghouse ‘Khamakha’ or ‘Khamakha’ Hyderabadi.

When people hear of Dakhani, they tend to associate it with the unique dialect spoken in Hyderabad, often understood by outsiders and locals as a form of hybridised Urdu. There are other associations with Dakhani too – ribald humour and wry social commentary; an idiom so earthy and direct that it might border on insult to more sensitive ears; philosophical reflections on human nature, as in the verse above.
Gautam Pemmaraju’s ambitious documentary A Tongue Untied: The Story of Dakhani explores the cultural history of the language. The production began as a grant from the Indian Foundation for the Arts in 2012 to document the tradition of humour and modern satire in performance poetry. The filmmaker soon found that mere documentation would be inadequate.

“This began as a very conventional art history project, but it has expanded slightly,” Pemmaraju said. “Very soon, the mandate expanded into not just looking at humour and satire through poetry, but at the elephant in the room, which was, ‘What is Dakhani?’ That became something I needed to tackle in order to explain everything else.”

Dakhani is far more than a dialect, he said. It is a language that developed in northern India alongside Urdu. When it moved to the Deccan plateau, it gradually developed a literary culture that lasted 350 years, from the 14th century when the language first seems to have appeared, to the early 18th, when Aurangzeb finally gained control of the Deccan.

People across the Deccan speak forms of Dakhani with regional infusions even today, from its northern reaches in Aurangabad, to Marathwada and Telangana, down southwards to the northern parts of Karnataka. There are a few Dakhani speakers in Tamil Nadu and north Kerala and in Hyderabad, there is even an entire news channel in Dakhani.

The film will be a culmination of conversations that began nearly seven years ago. Pemmaraju began his research by meeting poets and organisers of mushairas, or forums where poets congregate to perform their art.

Everyone Pemmaraju met had different ideas of and associations with the language, many of which were stereotypes. Pemmaraju decided to bring some academic rigour to his study. He also met scholars and experts such as historians and philologists who worked with language and history to pin down what Dakhani really was and what were its origins.

“The film in that sense is an aggregation of poets and artistry on one side, and an aggregation of scholarly opinions on the other side,” he said. “What I have been attempting to do is to put these into a narrative that makes sense and gives viewers a broad picture of the language and the colour of the language.”
With 60 interviews, 70 hours of filmed footage and 40 hours of archival footage, Pemmaraju has had a difficult task cutting the film down to a viewer-friendly length. The final film will be driven by around five experts in the language as well as by poets and artists. Parts of the film are devoted simply to hearing how people in different regions speak the language today.

“What is striking immediately is the diversity of Dakhani,” Pemmaraju said. “It’s a large region, and there are many forms of the language.” There were also many interlocutors, who had a lot to say because of their deep sense of ownership and pride in the language, he added.
While Dakhani is broadly thought of as a language of Muslims, its presence across the plateau also means that there is a rich body of material available in the Devanagari script, for instance, which has not been studied well. Dakhani is also heavily influenced by Marathi, and many Persian words that appear in Dakhani seem to have travelled there via Marathi.

One of Maharashtra’s famous poet saints, Amrutray of Paithan, even wrote a Sudamacharitra, or the story of Sudama, friend of Hindu god Krishna, in Dakhani at some point during the 18th century.
Mushairas have been a crucial part of the culture of Hyderabad and areas around it for decades now. From the 1970s and ’80s, the Hyderabadi diaspora began to organise mushairas where they stayed as well, leading to such gatherings in places as disparate as Chicago and countries in the Middle East.
Zinda Dilan-e-Hyderabad, an organisation formed in the mid-1960s to promote literary activities, particularly those pertaining to humour and satire, organised the first modern mushaira at that time. The organisation’s last mushaira was in 2010, but there are other groups who still conduct them.
Senior poets and scholars all agree that the quality of poetry is declining, Pemmaraju said. The texture of poetry has also changed greatly in recent times, he added. Early poetry tended to have pithy statements about poverty and the immediate circumstances of people. There was also a fair amount of sharp satire directed at religious figures, political leaders and even at poets themselves. Now, poetry is far more political.
Take one, by Sardar Asar, a couplet in a ghazal that says:
Bam key nazdeek jaako dekha mai,
Zafrani hai, hara thodeech hai
I went near a bomb to look at it
It was hardly green – it was saffron.
“Of course there is a milieu of social conservatism and its Muslim social culture which informs all this, but you can very clearly see the poetry has shifted from pithy folk wisdom to this direct commentary on politics,”

Pemmaraju pointed out.
That said, Dakhani is ultimately a cultural history of southern India, particularly of the “Islamic encounter” south of the Narmada that is pre-Mughal. “I don’t think it’s a counterpoint between the north and the south,” the filmmaker said. “It’s not a battle. It’s looking at a vernacular region’s oral traditions which reveal to us a richer history.”
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Pemmaraju is now looking to raise funds to complete the editing of A Tongue Untied.
Gautam Pemmaraju. Courtesy Twitter.

Dakhni, a confluence of languages and dialects

Sajjad Shahid

    Unlike northern India which shared boundaries with states predominantly under the sway of Persian culture, the Deccan, far removed from the frontiers, was free from the cultural bias which defines relations between neighbouring countries. This freedom promoted an atmosphere conducive to greater exchange between the local population and the Muslims settlers who patronised existing art forms with unbridled enthusiasm. The resulting social milieu enabled local talent to intermingle with the Deccan nobility on equal terms.

    The common language, Dakhni, originating from the interaction of two distinct cultures first gained popularity through its usage by the Sufis who had migrated to the Deccan. Its development in the Deccan, however, was far more rapid and pronounced, for Dakhni gained acceptance as a literary language long before Urdu attained a similar status in the north. Dakhni differs to a great extent from its northern sibling as its area of interaction was home to a different set of languages, predominantly of Dravidian extract. Its contacts with Kannada, Telugu, Marathi and other South Indian languages and dialects, from which it absorbed freely, gave Dakhni its distinct flavour and identity.

    The first major work in Dakhni, the epic ‘Kadam Rao Padam Rao’ by Nizami of Bidar, was composed around 1460. Its vocabulary, although relying heavily on Sanskrit t a t s a m a s, is rendered in a diction which is both expressive and supple enough to prove that the author was expressing himself through a living medium. It is notable that the Hindu pantheon often shares the stage with Islamic heroes in compositions of Dakhni poets. During the long period of interaction, the regional languages of the Deccan also came under Persio-Arabic influence. It is therefore not surprising that words like k u z a (for water container), are still prevalent in Telugu long after their use has been rendered archaic in the Urdu language.

    It is notable that the euphoria of Akbar’s times was also mirrored in the South where similar results were achieved in the field of synthesis. The two major kingdoms of the Deccan __ Golconda and Bijapur, also reached a zenith in their socio-cultural development during this period of history. Unlike Akbar (1556-1605) who lacked formal education, his contemporaries in the Deccan were accomplished poets. Mohammed Quli of Golconda (1580-1611) and Ibrahim Adil Shah of Bijapur (1580-1626), along with their court poets have left behind a vast storehouse of literature which being in Dakhni – a language of the masses, is a better representative of its times when compared to the court productions of Mughal India which are rendered mainly in Persian, a language restricted to the elite.

    So great was the contribution of the Deccan sultans to local arts that some of them are considered masters in their chosen field. Ibrahim Qutub Shah of Golconda, a patron of the Kuchipudi, was so instrumental in promoting the dance form that his name (Malik Brhama) is invoked as a prelude to traditional performances. Jagatguru Ibrahim Adil Shah of Bijapur was a famed musician of his time and his ‘Kitab-e Nauras,’ a treatise on music, illustrates the finer points of various r a g a s and r a g i n i sand bears testimony to the extent of cultural fusion achieved in the Deccan.

    Even after the fall of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), there was a continuation of Dakhni literary traditions for quite some time. Although Zaifi sang praises of Aurangzeb, the trend in general had shifted from love sonnets and m a s n av i s to religious poetry with notable exceptions being the compositions of Ruhi, Mirza and Qadir which are considered by some as disguised elegies lamenting the fall of Golconda. The most important and popular poet of these times was Shah Mahmud Bahri of Gogi in the Gulbarga district who kept the torch of Sufi poetry burning during this bleakest period of Deccan history. He shifted to Hyderabad and composed his masterpiece ‘Man Lagan’ at the request of the Mughal governor but disappointed with the conditions in the city returned to his hometown where he died in 1718. We can gauge from his compositions that the universality of God and brotherhood of man remained the base of Sufi thought – unchanged with the passage of time.

Dakhini language

This language is a dialect of Urdu spoken in the Deccan Plateau region, in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Goa, some parts of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
·         This is a mother tongue or a native language for most of the Muslims in the former Hyderabad State which includes Telangana, Marathwada region of Maharashtra and some part of Karnataka.

·        Dakhani Urdu has a significant impact of Arabic, Persian, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada andKonkani.
·        In fact, many scholars describe Dakhini as Urdu language with grammar of Marathi with some Telugu, Marathi and Kannada words in it.

• Some sounds of original Urdu are also replaced by the sounds of Marathi, Kannada and Telugu, while many other sounds remain as in standard Urdu.
• The sounds changed are- The sound 'ai' and 'au' sounds in Dakhni are similar to those pronounced in Telugu, Marathi and Kannada while they are pronounced in a different way in Hindustani.

·        Dakhini Urdu is also called Hyderabadi Urdu.
·        The Dakhini Urdu language in itself has many dialects of which two main dialects are-
·        North Dakhini is spoken in former Hyderabad state, some parts of Karnataka and Goa.
·        South Dakhini is spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh, northern parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
·        North Dakhini is sometimes considered as the source for modern Hindi.
·        Dakhini Urdu can be comfortably written in Devanagari, Urdu or Persian scripts.
·        However, people prefer standard Urdu over Dakhini for purpose of writing.
Here is a picture from wikipedia showing a 5 rupee note of Hyderabad State which has "5 rupee" written on it in Urdu, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada (The official languages of Hyderabad State) and English.

Origination of Dakhni - Urdu Language

Urdu is a part of Indo-European language and its origin in the Indian sub-continent can be traced to the advent of Muslims in India. The word “Urdu” has a Turkish origin and it literally means ‘army’, ‘camp’ or ‘horde’. The Turkish army stationed in Delhi, from the time of the Ghorids (1193 A.D onwards), was known as Urdu or Urdu-i-Mualla, the exalted army. It is generally believed that while this army spoke Persian, the inhabitants of the city spoke an early form of Hindi known as Khari Boli. The interaction of the foreign army with the local communities led to the amalgamation of indigenous and Persian language spoken in these military establishments. This process was not confined to the military establishment alone but extended to a larger cultural level interaction between the indigenous population and other Muslim immigrants such as traders, travelers, Sufi mystics and other settlers. This interaction led to the evolution of Urdu as the common language with its distinct characteristics.

Although Urdu is said to have originated in Delhi, scholars like T. Grahame Bailey point out that the earliest Turkish armies first entered and settled in Punjab and Lahore and frequently inter-married with the indigenous people. In the due course of time, as a result of this cultural synthesis, must have spoken the language of the country, modified of course by their own Persian mother tongue. The basis of early Urdu was thus, old Punjabi, which must not have differed a great deal with the Khari Boli Hindi. The points of divergence between Khari Boli and Urdu are very few, the main distinction lying in the fact that while Khari Boli uses few, Urdu many Persian and Arabic words. In north India, the word ‘Urdu’ came to be applied to this common language primarily to distinguish it from Khari Boli and Persian. Here it was called Zaban-i-Urdu, the language of the army or Zaban-i-Urdu-i-Mualla, the language of the exalted army. In course of time, the word Zaban was dropped and Urdu came to be used alone.

Besides north India, another area of significance in the early as well as later growth of Urdu was Deccan. Few important historical events have been associated with the early growth of Urdu in the Deccan. One of these is the imperialistic designs of Sultan Alauddin Khalji (1290-1320 A.D) which led to a series of imperial military expeditions in few parts of the Deccan led by his military commander, Malik Kafur. Another being, the Deccan campaigns of Sultan Muhammad Bin Tughlaq and transfer of his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, during 1326-1327 A.D. These historical developments helped in the transportation of Urdu to Deccan by the Turkish army, scholars, Sufi mystics, traders etc. But more important perhaps, was the foundation of the independent Deccan kingdom of Bahmani, in opposition to the Delhi Sultanat in mid 14^th century. Rulers of the Bahmani kingdom, though Muslims, discarded many of the conventions of the north and remained intent on developing their own culture. Thus, despite their strong affiliation with Persian, the cultural language of the Muslims in India, they nevertheless, decided to cultivate their own language in preference to it. They thus adopted Urdu which was influenced by local vernaculars especially Gujarati and Marathi and subsequently managed to impose them in large part of the Deccan. However, the language here was not called Urdu but Dakhni or Dakni. Thus spoken Urdu has two variants; i) Dakhni (spoken in the Deccan) and ii) Northern Urdu spoken in north India originating from Delhi.

Thus, one of the unique features of Urdu language was its capacity to absorb words and expressions of other popular languages which in turn, enriched its own vocabulary and expressions. Besides, Urdu also incorporated historical events, myths and symbols as well as the poetic meter and verse forms of various Indian languages. All these elements were woven in to a unified medium of expression giving Urdu language its true Indian foundation. The languages known from its beginning as Hindavi, Hindi, Gujari, Dakhni etc and which later came to be known as Rekhta, Urdu, Urdu-i-Mualla or Hindustani has been a common denomination of all the tongues spoken in the sub-continent. After having absorbed various regional characteristics and styles in the process of its spread from one corner of the country to another, Urdu established its own identity through a script of its own, containing features of both Arabian and Persian scripts.

‘Love’ in Ghalib’s ghazals

Although Ghalib wrote on diverse themes, the theme of love was dominant, which he brought out in the form of his ghazals. In fact the term ghazal itself originally meant something like ‘conversations between lovers’. In a ghazal, the poet lover expresses his passionate love for his beloved. In the couplets of Ghalib, this aspect occurs with astonishing regularity. He writes of being overwhelmed by love, of powerlessness in the face of love, of the joy of loving even if one’s love is not returned, the even greater joy if it is returned. He also speaks of compulsions to love, even if the beloved spurns him or even if it violates all the social and religious commands of the community in which the beloved lives. One of the characteristic features of Ghalib, where he seems to have broken from the traditional ghazal poets is that, while treating the experience of love in his poems (including his own), he could express it as a detached non-participant observer.

Another important distinguishing feature of Ghalib’s poetry is the unorthodox manner in which he portrays love and its characters. The love which his ghazals portray is an illicit love. The poet’s beloved may be someonelse’s fiancee or wife or a courtesan or a handsome boy. Such type of love and lovers were frowned upon in the medieval Indian society (of which ghazal itself was a product) and such lovers invariably entailed suffering and distress. Another dimension of love, depicted in these ghazals is that, the beloved (she or he) may not be a human beloved at all. The poet may express love for God or for any ideal in life to which he may commit or surrender completely. Thus in a ghazal (including those of Ghalib), love had both the dimensions-Physical and Mystic. The poet uses a language and symbolism which enables him to speak on different meanings of love at the same time.

The depiction of earthly love in the Urdu ghazals of Ghalib and other contemporary poets has to be seen in the context of its legitimacy in the medieval Indian society. In that age, marriage was an alliance between families to maintain social status, and had nothing to do with passionate, romantic love. But marriage did not always prove to be a safeguard against such a love outside of it. But this love was a severe test for both the lover and the beloved and since permanent union of lovers was non-existent, love ultimately proved to be a tragedy for all concerned. It was this stressful love that provided the dominant theme of ghazal. In a society where segregation of sexes was strictly followed, another outlet of love was homosexuality. In a cultured society of Ghalib’s day, such love, though strongly condemned in orthodox Islam, was a common place and in practice evoked no hostile reaction. Any such emotional experience of the poet, found its expression in his poetry and so, one of the ‘beloveds’ of the Urdu ghazal could be a handsome boy. Another consequence of the segregation of sexes, along with low educational and cultural level of respectable medieval Indian women, was the institutionalization of the salon of the courtesan. In a highly conservative society, the kothah of the courtesan, alone provided the most easily accessible forum for men to mix socially, and without inhibition, with women. This also provided the setting for much of the symbolism and imagery of the poetic renaissance of the times. Thus, in the Urdu ghazals, quite often, image of the beloved became the image of a courtesan.

Another important dimension of ‘love’ depicted in the Urdu ghazals, including that of Ghalib, is the mystic love, which is often blended with the earthly love. The passionate, illicit love between two human beings is used as symbols of the similar love of the mystic lover for his God, his divine beloved. The whole structure of mystic love is built upon the deep emotional relationship of the lover with God. In this situation, the seeker of God relies on love of God for guidance without the intervention of the learned or self-proclaimed true guardians of religion. Such radical methods of the mystic lover are therefore considered by the orthodox as subversive doctrine or in an extreme form, as blasphemy. Thus the mystic lover shares same dangerous prospects as the earthly lover of a human beloved at the hands of the society. Moreover, in the ghazal tradition, the beloved is portrayed as extremely cruel to the lover but the lover accepts, without hesitation, all the misfortunes, including death. In many of Ghalib’s ghazals, the expressions of earthly and mystic love are interwoven. Thus, some of his couplets can be taken in earthly sense and others in divine sense but many of them could be taken in both senses at the same time. In this way, the standard metaphor, used for human beloved proves to be appropriate metaphor for the divine beloved too. One such example of Ghalib’s verse based on the above convention is:

       “Though I have passed my life in pledge to all the age’s cruelties

Yet never was the thought of you once absent from my mind”

By the ‘you’ in this couplet, Ghalib may mean a woman or God or any ideal, to which he was passionately committed or all of these things.