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The Freedom of a Child Posted by Rachael on Jan 6, 2018
Child labor (बाल मजदूरी/baal majdoori, fem. or बाल श्रम/baal shram, masc.) in India is a pervasive problem with a long history. In more recent times, this issue has come into sharper focus as developed nations have enacted stricter laws (कानून/kaanoon, masc.) against child labor, which often entail mandatory education (शिक्षा/shikshaa, fem.) up to a certain…
Parveen Shakir: A Poetess for the Modern Age Posted by Rachael on Dec 31, 2017
Born in 1952 in Karachi, Pakistan, Parveen Shakir (परवीन शाकिर) was a renowned poet in her lifetime and beyond. In addition to her career as a poet, she also served as a teacher and a civil servant of the Pakistani government. Remarkably, she began to display a talent for writing early in life, so it…
Levels of Language: Register in Hindi, Part 3 Posted by Rachael on Dec 29, 2017
In today’s post, I’ll be discussing the newest transformation that Hindi has undertaken: Hinglish. This term refers to a combination of Hindi and English vocabulary, syntax and, sometimes, grammar and idiom. It can refer to speech that includes a vast majority of English and a minority of Hindi or vice versa. But, for the purposes…
Levels of Language: Register in Hindi, Part 2 Posted by Rachael on Dec 23, 2017
In my last blog on the concept of “register” in Hindi, I discussed the more formal register of this language, which is heavily influenced by its “parent language” of sorts, Sanskrit. In this blog, I will delve into a more informal and colloquial register of Hindi: what is sometimes called “Hindustani.” “Hindustani” is a quintessential…
Levels of Language: Register in Hindi, Part 1 Posted by Rachael on Dec 17, 2017
“Register” simply refers to the various levels of speech that exist in any language––such as formal, informal/colloquial, slang, etc. Just as we have different registers in English, like the formal language you would use in a research paper or the slang terms you use when talking to a close friend, there are different registers in…
Upendranath Ashk: Rebel, Misfit, Iconoclast (Part 3) Posted by Rachael on Nov 16, 2017
Namaste/नमस्ते, aadaab/आदाब/آداب, and welcome back to my blog series on the notorious Hindi-Urdu writer, Upendranath Ashk/उपेन्द्रनाथ अश्क/اپندرناتھ اشک! If you haven’t yet read parts 1 and 2, you may want to do so before delving into this third and final part. After his third marriage to fan and fellow writer, Kaushalya Devi, Ashk soon sought…
Faiz Ahmed Faiz: The Dawn of Freedom Posted by Rachael on Nov 11, 2017
This week, I’ll discuss another major writer in the Hindi-Urdu literary world: Faiz Ahmed Faiz (फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़). Faiz (1911-1984) was an intellectual who is known mostly for his poetry, which is often revolutionary in tenor. Today, he is considered one of the finest writers in the Hindi-Urdu literary sphere. He wrote mainly in Urdu…