Life is a celebration

 'Jashn-e-riwaz' was recently in the news for all the wrong reasons, a Happy occasion such as Diwali was marred by a silly controversy. I wonder whether a Diwali Mubarak would cease to be "shubh" or happy, or for that matter, a 'Shubh Eid' be unpalatable to the Ummah for having adulterated the puritanical Eid Mubarak"! Imagine the mess a mubarak or shubh Xmas would create rather than the usual Merry Xmas! Would Santa Claus be left sulking for having spoilt his merry HoHoHo and refuse to slide down the chimneys just because of a slip of the tongue. Have you ever wondered, as to why did homo sapiens firstly invent spoken languages for communication and how did these languages evolve over the years? While languages fulfil the basic need of communication, the intricacies or finer nuances of each language were refined by the litterateur. The lingua franca today is English, despite the Italian origin of the phrase and its early usage to describe the French-Italian jargons or pidgin. English is ruling the roost because it proved to be the most flexible and adaptive by choosing to adopt more foreign words as compared to its competitor, French, which too was running neck in neck for a number of years, until the emergence of US as a superpower tilted it in the favour of English.We Indians had at least one benefit after  the two centuries of colonial Raj, our prowess in the Queen's language!

Any guesses, as to why Hindi despite being our mother tongue and the national language has been restricted to just formal official correspondence that too with diktats of the 'Rashtrbhasha Prachar Samiti'   ( National language publicity committee).  Hindi which was taught in schools and colleges was highly sanskritised Hindi, not the popular Hindustani written in Devnagri script. For any language to be adopted, it must be easy to learn and speak, thereafter it should be flexible to adopt words from other languages and enrich itself by being more inclusive. Jungle, bazaar, pyjama, bungalow, chutney, guru and so on, there are hundreds of words which have found a place in the Oxford dictionary. Unfortunately we remained steadfast in our usage of correct Hindi, thereby discouraging others and impeding its natural growth. Hindi films, songs and entertainment industry by and large have done a yeoman service by spreading the language even beyond our borders. Soft power of this kind plays a major role in winning over the populace rather than forcing it down the throats of unwilling citizens. Yes, there is a lot of politics in the languages conundrum but if the powers that be are really keen to spread the reach of this beautiful language, they must release the shackles and let it bloom....

Anyway let us get back to the 'jashn', which in Urdu means celebration and riwaz is simply tradition. The ad itself is inspired by the vintage Siyaram ad where the Prince is welcomed in a Royal homecoming. So let the celebrations continue whether we call it Jashn, tyohar, utsav or festival…just a matter of semantics(!).Call it what suits you but celebrate we must…after all life itself is a celebration!