Reminiscing the beauty of Urdu

“Urdu language is akin to beating a drum. There is a rhythm, sweetness and lyricism in it,” says V R Ghanathay, 95 during an Urdu class at Our Sacred Space in Secunderabad on Wednesday. The ardent lover of Urdu is still a student and is one of the most regular to the classes.

Born in 1922 in Secunderabad, Venkat Rao Rama Rao Ghanathay has seen the Osmania University (OU) grow from scratch and was also part of the Bureau of Translation for three years.

“As a youngster I would wander all around town and we used to see huge boulders strewn all over the place but never imagined that a university of such magnitude was coming up,” he quips.

In the early 1940s he was an assistant at the Bureau of Translation and was part of the translation of Grey’s Anatomy. The entire process was called block making and three sets of pictures in different colours were superimposed over one another and a final print was taken. “I was paid Rs 80 per month and thoroughly enjoyed my stint there,” says the retired railway employee.

Ghanathay’s great-grand parents came to Hyderabad from Maharashtra but Ghanathay, like most Hyderabadis, fell in love with Urdu and is still learning it.

“All along Urdu is perceived as one belonging to Muslims, which is not true and I am a living example,” he says. “Language belongs to its people and in Hyderabad we have people settled from different parts of the country,” believes the man.

He however, bemoans the decline of the language from the public life and education. Urdu that once was the medium of instruction at OU has now taken a back seat and Ghanathay gives three reasons for its decline- “The formation of a new State after independence, Central government’s three language formula and the growth of English and Telugu.”

“Times are changing and the culture of Hyderabad too has undergone a huge change,” says the nonagenarian. “Urdu will never die, it has declined though,” he says and signs off with a couplet from Mirza Ghalib:

Dekhna taqreer ki lazzat ke jo uss ne kaha Maine yeh jaana ke goya yeh bhi mera dil mein hai meaning (Look at the pleasure of speech for what she said I began to feel that this, too, is in my heart)

By T P Venu