It was Sanjiv Saraf’s love for Urdu which has powered the initiation of Jashn-e-Rekhta, the biggest festival which celebrates the language, discovers Saimi Sattar
Some years ago if someone had suggested that a festival celebrating Urdu, a language which most felt was dead or dying, would have footfalls that would rise 10 times in four years, it would have invited large guffaws. But Sanjiv Saraf, founder, Jashn-e-Rekhta, has accomplished just that. From 18,000 people who turned up at the India International Centre in 2015, the numbers have swollen to 1.7 lakh plus this year, necessitating a change of venue twice since it started. From the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, it has now moved to the Dhyanchand National Stadium. “By the looks of it, we would have to shift again because this is not large enough to hold the audience,” announced Saraf as the festival drew to a close with a final performance of Sufi naghma by Nooran sisters who belted out the popular numbers in the film, Highway.
And not surprisingly. For the past two-three years, as December approaches, Delhizens eagerly tick their cultural calendar for the new must-visit. At the Jashn-e-Rekhta, a multi-faceted festival that celebrates Urdu, one had to just walk across the four different venues to witness programmes that spanned the entire spectrum of a discussion on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s three loves to a really modern take on ghazals which were fused with Hindi film music by Shruti Pathak or even a baitbaazi competition which is akin to an antakshari except for the fact that the songs are replaced by couplets of popular Urdu poets.
An IIT-Kharagpur alumnus, Saraf set up Polyplex, a global business venture from scratch in the 80s. Today, it is the world’s fourth-largest producer of thin polyester film and has manufacturing facilities in India, Thailand and Turkey. But more than that, he is now positioned and known for being the patron of Urdu. He said, “Who says the language is dead? It lives in the hearts of crores of its lovers.”
Saraf was sitting inside an enclosure at the venue while the strains of Naghma-e-Khusro by Ustad Iqbal Ahmed wafted in, setting the tone of the conversation. Year after year, the festival sees the biggest of names lining up for its different events. When one wonders how such a bedazzling constellation of celebrities makes it way every year to Jashn-e-Rekhta, Saraf said, “It is their love for Urdu which makes them come for the festival as they realise that someone is serving the language with great intensity and selflessness. There is, of course, an emotional connect with the language that they have.”
However, it was not the festival that Saraf initially started out with, rather it was a website that aimed at helping those who wanted to learn Urdu, just like he did. He recalled, “My interest in Urdu in the beginning was triggered by old Hindi film songs which were in Urdu and had lyrics that everyone loved. I started from there. Then in college, when you fell in love and broke your heart, respite was to be found in Urdu poetry.” It helped that his father loved to listen to ghazals of Mehndi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Iqbal Bano, Farida Khanam and more.
However, his life took the usual trajectory of college education and earning a living where he went to Gwalior, Bengal and later Odisha as “it was essential to tick all the boxes for the sake of society and for my own self.” But the love of the language was still sub-consciously alive in him. “I realised that work can be a way to earn money but there was a need to nourish the soul as well,” he said and decided to learn to read and write Urdu at the age of 53 with a proper Ustad who came to teach him at home. “I realised there are many people who are not aware of the Urdu script and are deprived of its beautiful wealth of tradition,” he said. The response was tremendous and the audience started multiplying manifold. “Initially there were two people in the Rekhta website team and now there are 90, who are in the technical, editorial as well as in other departments,” he said. The project has expanded to include reaching out to schools, preserving old books and more.
And then he decided to do something more. “We thought that a website is two-dimensional as one can just read Urdu. There is no other language in the world which lends itself to so many different performing artforms such as drama, ghazal sarayi, dastangoi, sufi singing, qawaali, baitbaazi or marsiya.” This led to the birth of the festival.
When it was conceptualised, no clear format was fixed for Jashn-e-Rekhta. “We were clear that we should present the different genres of Urdu. We paid attention to include elements that were both popular as well as traditional which would run parallel. It should not be just entertainment but include intellectual discussions as well,” he said. Now four events happen simultaneously at the same venue.
“This year, youngsters came in large numbers at the Naubahar mushaira. I was amazed by the number of young poets and their calibre. This has become a sort of tiger that I am riding which I can’t get off aur baithe rehne me hi barkat hai (It is a blessing to remain astride the tiger),” said Saraf who credited his team for its success.
He also attributes the success of the festival to the language which he believes is a magnet. “We have just dusted and exposed Urdu to people by bringing it to the centrestage. The youngsters have a very short attention span. If something does not grip them in the first 15 seconds, then they abandon it. We’ve engaged them across social media on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest to create a buzz and made Urdu look cool. The youth in turn share the events on social media which in turn multiplies the reach,” he added.
The success of Jashn-e-Rekhta has clearly defied those who want to compartmentalise the language within the box of religion. Saraf said, “Language has none. If they believe that, then there can be no bigger misunderstanding. But the unfortunate part is that the Britishers divided the Hindustani language which represented the composite culture. The Persianised version was called Urdu and the Sanskritised one was referred to as Hindi. Even now common conversations are peppered with Urdu words. We say subha shaam not pratah kaal and sandhya kaal or for that matter hum kisi ka intezaar karten hain prateeksha nahin. There are thousands of words which we use without even realising that they are from Urdu.”
He also goes on to point that the songs and dialogues in Hindi films are all in Urdu. “One might say Hindi, but if you start to assess and count them there are only some songs which are actually in Hindi. There have been so many translations of Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata in Urdu, which were an attempt to showcase the syncretic culture, writings and books so that they reach everyone and not be restricted by religions,” he said.
Saraf, like most people, believes that a lot needs to be done to further popularise the language. “Though this is a government-related decision and a political issue but my personal opinion is that if we are giving the option of German or French, then we should definitely have Urdu as an option too. The grammar is the same as Hindi. In American colleges the two languages are taught together,” he argued. Coming to the script, for Saraf it is an emotive subject. “First people should learn to speak and understand and it is only later that if someone wants to learn the script, they can do that. No one told me to learn it and I did not have to appear for an exam nor did I have an atmosphere at home. But it was dil da mamla (a matter of the heart).”