So, you’re sitting down, surfing through the channels and you decide, hey, how about watching something “local”, you know? Hollywood movies and series (HBO or not) are good, yes, but you need something different today, and for some reason you are hankering for a little Urdu. You finally find a Pakistani channel that you decide to stick with and watch. And that’s when things go really weird, really fast.
Irrespective of whether you tuned into a news channel or a drama channel, you’re slightly bemused at first to notice just how much “non-Urdu” is being spoken. You check to ensure that it IS, in fact, a Pakistani channel that you’ve tuned in to; and then to ensure that it IS, in fact, an Urdu language Pakistani channel. Yup, that you have. So what exactly is all that English doing in there?
If you’re watching the news it’s all the more confusing because, hey, isn’t news supposed to be scripted? And if it is, then how hard is it to come up with news in Urdu? I mean there are writers who write in Urdu, right? Who can ACTUALLY speak the language pretty well, right? (Though, if you go by the spelling and grammar of the tickers that run on the news channels, you’d be loath to give them that much credit.)
And if by some chance you tune into an entertainment channel, well then, you only have yourself to blame for having to listen to an actor with no facial expression and dead eyes, deliver this nugget of gold like the complete automaton he is: “[his friend] nay apna khana finish naheen kiya abhi, issi liye woh apnay office main time say work kay liye naheen pohnch sakta”. And my personal favourite? “Kia aap mujh say agree hain?”
And, by CTHULHU, once the ads start, it’s one hair ripping “aap ko germs say safe rakhay” after another “aap kay liye aik gift free.” But by that time you’re probably numb enough with the onslaught of an alien language that is neither here nor there to actually not give a damn.
Apparently, there’s a name for this shitty phenomenon: Minglish (I shit you not, I’ve heard people working at advertising agencies using that word to mean this bastardised version of Urdu/English, and clients there INSIST that their ads not be in plain Urdu, but in Minglish). What is it, you ask? Why it’s the tendency of illiterate idiots to try and pretend they’re cultured – because only those who speak in English are cultured, of course.
Why say “haath milao” and be thought of as Urdu medium, when you can say “Hand shake karo” and totally become “maadren” (yeah, at least in your head). The fact that you sound MUCH MORE illiterate and come across as a total “burger wannabe” is beside the point however much that escapes you. But what irks me the most about this “trend” is that slowly and surely most of the urbanites are losing touch with Urdu to the extent that we don’t even know how to form a complete sentence without adding some English in it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those “Urdu is awesome cos it’s desi and English is shitty cos it’s not” people. What really gets to me is how “complexed” we are about knowing or even speaking in Urdu. For most of us, conversing in Urdu is a sign of being “paindoo” or “not educated enough.” And we just HAVE to add a bit of English into everything (even when it doesn’t fit) lest we be thought uncouth or uncultured, cos hey, you can’t be cultured unless you speak English.
What’s also baffling is the fact that these people think that going around telling others that their Urdu is “weak” is a sign of being “maadren”, too. What in the WORLD does being bad at a language that is ubiquitous around you prove? That you’re too dumb to actually learn things and concepts even when they’re all around you! So why the smugness? Why the feeling of “pride” at being bad at Urdu? Oh wait, because you think that if people find out your Urdu is awesome, you’d be thought less of.
The irony? These are people whose English (not just Urdu) is so weak that you’d be hard put not to laugh at their faces when they decide to use it! They’re the ones who don’t know where and how to put “has” and “have” (“She have been here, you know?”), they don’t know subject and verb agreement rules (“I don’t think he like it.”), don’t even realise the rules applicable to using past tense (“I didn’t understood what you said.” Yeah, maybe cos your English bloody well sucks!), and let’s not even get into the complete mess that is their spelling and diction. You’d think that if they were that concerned about being considered “cultured” they’d at least work at it, but nope, it’s easy to say “My Urdu is sucks, but my English very good” around people who know jack all about English to actually notice what an illiterate halfwit you sound like. Please, for the love of God, quit your “I wanna to go theres” and “I didn’t thought you’d minds”, already. SERIOUSLY!
If you’re so much of a superficial idiot that you think just peppering your words with a bit of English/Minglish would make you “cool” and “hip” and totally progressive, despite the misogynistic, regressive nonsense you spout in your spare time, then not only are you wrong, but you come across as this really suffering-from-massive-inferiority-complex-and-low-self-esteem-individual who would go to any dishonest lengths to prove that s/he’s worthy (Jesus H. Christ, how low IS your self-esteem?). Maybe the right thing for you would be to seek help for this problem.
In the meanwhile, those of us who actually DO know enough English to actually be proficient in it, and also have extensive mastery of Urdu (and, unlike you, are not ashamed to admit it and can freely talk about how they love reading Urdu literature or anything in Urdu), would like to tell you that NOBODY buys your spiel: we know you for who you are – a goddamn fraud!
