Is there any difference between spoken Hindi & Urdu?

Before the partition of India in 1947, when India and Pakistan weren't two separate countries; Urdu and Hindi were very popular languages of Indian sub-continent. Even after the partition, if only one language had to be chosen as the national language of India, it was difficult to choose one among these two.

There were many Urdu speaking people. Many big newspapers, magazines and periodicals were published in Urdu. But now many of those popular periodicals have disappeared. And there ain't many people who read only Urdu script.

Earlier, even popular Hindu scripture viz. Geeta was translated to Urdu as many Urdu readers wanted to read it in their language. Today, only about 4% of India's population speaks Urdu.

New generation feels more comfortable to write Hindi and Urdu in Roman script. So most people only know the spoken language.

But Hindi and Urdu are so similar that it's easy to understand by both Urdu & Hindi speakers. Interestingly, when I was new on Steem platform, I happened to interact with a girl from Pakistan. She wasn't very comfortable in interacting in English. So she asked me if I knew Urdu. I said no to her. But she insisted that most Indians know Urdu. I told her that I don't know. Then I asked her if she knew Hindi, she told me that she don't.

Over the course of our regular interactions, once she mistakenly wrote something in Urdu to me and I responded to it. She was delighted to see my reply and said. "See, I told you, Indians know Urdu." And it was funny when I insisted that what I wrote was actually Hindi. 😊

Shaam-e-Shayari

Urdu language has a rich culture with several renowned poets and writers. Its vast literary treasure include different forms of poetry like Ghazals, Nazms, Marsiya, Qasida, Naat, Qawwali and many other off shoots of Urdu poetry.

Of these, I'm particularly interested in Ghazals and Shayaris.
However, spoken Urdu & Hindi are very similar languages and many of their vocabulary is common. But it is still difficult for me to understand many stanzas / misras of Ghazals .

Today, I got an opportunity to join a short course in Urdu on this. Titled Shaam-e-Shayari, it's focused on interpretation of Urdu poetry and language.

Volunteer Prof. Hamida Banu

My city is blessed to be visited by a very talented Urdu professor whose passion is teaching Urdu. She teaches Urdu at University of California, Berkeley and is currently visiting my city for 3 weeks.

Fortunately, she agreed to conduct a short course for 3 weeks on this subject during her visit. Interestingly, she is doing it for free. She says, she never intended to teach it in return for payment and she do it all for free for the love of this sweet language.

Of course, University do pays her according to the university rules. In fact, she is also a visiting faculty to I.I.T. - Gandhinagar and she had refused to take any charges there too. But they still pay her as per norms.

When she went to IIT Gandhinagar for the first time, she was shocked to find only 8 students for her class. When she complained about it that she can't come all the way from California for just 8 students, Institute told her that 8 students are actually a good turnout for a humanity course as it's basically a technical institute. So she somehow started the course and 19 students joined her.

Her course and her teaching style soon got other students interested in Urdu. Next year, when she arrived, she found 35 students for the long course and 70 students for the short course. This year, her students count increased to 120.

This was very unexpected! In fact, she was provided a very small classroom and when she entered the class, she found many students standing at the back. Naturally, she got confused and thought she has entered the wrong classroom. On confirmation, she found all these students were eager to learn Urdu. Then a bigger classroom was arranged to accommodate all of them.

Why I'm telling you about it? Well, here at Udaipur, she is doing it all for free. Some organizers are facilitating this event, providing reading material, venue etc. and they too are not charging any fee. Today, they even arranged tea and snacks for all participants. I couldn't resist myself to ask the organizer for what motivates him to do all these and spend own money on it. He replied that he too loves to learn this language but can't find any opportunity to do so. And when there was one, he wanted it to share it with all.

On a short notice, there weren't many participants in today's introductory class. So as soon as I returned home from there a couple of hours back, I received a call from the organizer. He was making sure whether I'd join the course in case if it is organized. I asked him, "What do you mean by 'in case'?" He explained, if we don't get even 20-25 participants, we won't be able to do it.

So I'm writing this to make everyone aware about this course. It will start this Monday and will be conducted 3 days a week with 90 minutes session everyday. I know, my blog has many ghost readers and they may spread this information to others too who may be interested in it. So if you're at Udaipur, then do join this course for my sake ....'coz I don't wanna miss it 😉