We went to a a kind of a recital/talk on Urdu poetry...called Shayyari....the speaker interestingly enough was an English guy called David Matthews married to a Russian lady and along with Urdu he speaks about 6 or 7 other languages....including Hindi and Nepalese (I thought they spoke a form of Hindi....)Apparently he speaks Russian to his wife. Oudesh had a great time practicing her Russian on them. Of course she speaks excellent Urdu as well. Anyways, it was a warm night and we were served piping hot tea and when I remarked would the hot tea cool us I was given a Urdu poetic reply "only iron can break iron".....I think I got the gist of that.
The evening was quite pleasant...I had worn my Lakhnavi pale blue chiken work salwar kurta (given to me by my cousin Marjorie)..as David Matthews translated some Urdu poems of well know people...and his translations were quite good, especially since he recited them in the same rhythm as the Indian poetry. Urdu is a language of great politeness....and there was a lot of "Aadab" and slight bowing to everyone....(Aadab is the mostly Muslim greeting with a slightly cupped hand and almost touching your forehead)....The interesting thing was that although there were quite a few Muslims there, many others were Hindus or no particular religion or Christians who had gathered in the name of good Urdu poetry. Hyderabad, is of course or atleast used to be a predominately Muslim city. The Nizam of this State was at one time the Richest individual in the world. Lots of women in burkhas....I think they wear them for show....half the time they walk around with the veil thrown back and sit around chatting with men in shops etc. Oudesh, who grew up Hindu in this area, says they hardly ever saw anyone in Burkhas when she was growing up. So go figure!
It's another warm day today, although I woke up early and enjoyed the morning air. Will be doing some packing today and going through Vasant's collection of family or other related matters which can help me in the book project.
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