The Dialogue On Hazaragi Language : An Opinion

                             Rob standing next to his mud-oven with an engraved Greek Letter pi 

Almost a decade ago, we had a discussion about Hazaragi culture, and one of the friends, who was about 25-30 years older than rest of us, told us about some characters that his mother used to engrave on the mud-cooking stoves, and that, those characters had resemblances to Chinese characters. He had asked his mother what those characters mean, and why she is engraving them? Her reply was that she had learnt this from her mother, and don't know the reason. It was a tradition that had survived by passing from one generation to next generation until mud-cooking stoves were replaced by oil and gas stoves. It was his opinion that those characters may had been some Buddhist or Shamanistic prayers or talisman that predated Islam and adoption of Persian language, and somehow managed to survive until his mother's generation. The characters may had been changed over time by copying and individuation processes, but they were there. Since that time, I have been looking for those mud-cooking stoves first hand, and the only place that I hoped to find them were in Hazarajat, but I have never gotten a chance to visit Hazarajat. May be some friends from Hazarajat could verify this and document those characters. Alternately, it is also possible that those characters were just some decorations and had nothing to do with history or ancient culture. Only documentation and research can bring them to the light (if they exist, because it is all based on narration of a single person). I put these two pictures as examples that even in our time, there are individuals (like above picture) who engrave things that interest them on things they build (like some sort of personal signature, tattoo or motto), or it could be just a traditional way of putting trademarks (below picture), still we can't rule out that those mud-cooking-stove engravings had some linkage with a historical practice or an ancient language (anything is possible) 

A traditional Example (Japanese): Setsu engraving in the mud-stove from setsu Farm 

The reason that I started this knol by mentioning a lost tradition of engraving characters on mud-cooking stoves is to point towards something, that in my opinion has to be included in the ongoing debate about Hazaragi language on social media. People who argue that Hazaragi is a language and those who argue that it is just a dialect of Farsi have some good points, and I definitely enjoyed reading them, but I think, what matters even more is to understand that language is something of a daily usage by people. Let's for sake of argument suppose that Hazaragi is a distinct language, how long will it survive? The reason that I am asking this question is that each year 25 languages are disappearing. Yes, currently, there are few million people, who speak in Hazaragi, but looking to rising rate of migrations and urge for adaption of global languages make the future of the language look very grim. Language is not a historical artifact or a historical building that could be preserved by putting them in books. It is a tool that people use on daily basis (I recommend to read this BBC article: Are dying languages worth saving?). The replacement of mud-stoves by oil, gas and electric stoves, the tradition of engraving mud-stoves with characters have died. It is a very natural process. When we were kids, we had tens of games that we were playing on the streets, but now computers games have replaced those games. You can document those games but you can't make children play those games instead of computer games. It is how cultures evolve. Technologies and globalization make us constantly learn new things and replace our traditional tools. Fearing technologies and globalization is not a solution but understanding how things work and adaption is the solution. If Hazaragi is a language and it has to survive, then it has to grow to remain a tool that people continue to use it on daily basis. Otherwise writing a few poems, a few stories or making a few dramas won't make it relevant for long as billions of more interesting, entertaining and useful contents in global languages are competing for times of the people.

Now let's suppose that Hazaragi is a dialect of Farsi and its usage by people expands, it won't take it long that it will become a distinct language. As I said before, the most important thing is that we have not to miss the point that language is a tool of daily usage. The only way that its usage can grow is that people have to feel the need to use it. Take the example of English for example. It has grown to become global language because the center for technologies, sciences, global trade and politics are in the English speaking areas. To make it more clear, although English has grown to become a global language, yet, the classy and artistic expressions are  borrowed from French, the expressions for law, wisdom and scientific terminologies are borrowed from Latin and Greek, a number of mathematical words from Arabic, words for natural well-being and fitness from Buddhist and Chinese traditions, philosophical words from German, Italian words for stage and performances, and so on. These words didn't enter into English because some academicians planned to do so. It happened because Greeks pioneered Philosophy and Sciences, Romans mastered laws, French have made fashion and sophistication their trademark, Chinese have masterfully balanced the mental and physical health in their cuisine, exercises and philosophies. Please don't take me wrong. I am not suggesting that Hazaragi will survive or become a distinct language only if we do what Greeks, Chinese and Romans did. Instead, I am stressing on the point that a language can't survive on its own. It needs distinct things to be expressed in it, in order for it to become distinct. If we keep developing indigenous traditions in arts, literature, food, sports and ......so on that is distinct to us, we will need expressions for them as distinct, and that is how a language will be able to stay relevant for daily usage and can grow to become distinct.

One more point to support my argument. Hazaras were living in Hazarajat since their origin with total blackout of history, and there are only few things that made them come to light, The resistance of Hizb Wahdat, Buddhas of Bamiyan and nonviolent protests of and for Quetta. Similarly, just the existence of a language is not a guarantee of its survival in the future. It needs distinct things to make it distinct, and it needs important things to become important.

To further my point, take example of India and Pakistan. Pakistan is partitioned from India on the basis of two nations theory (Although Hindu and Muslims of subcontinent are racially same but culturally they are two different nations). After partition, the film industry was also divided. The Indian film industry made better films and despite of governmental bans on Indian movies, they were widely watched in Pakistan and now the Indian film industry have practically killed the nation theory. Pakistani youths listen, sing, dress, act and speak the language of Indian movies.

Where Is My Glasses?

Impressed by the technological leaps, naturally, I was also looking to the worldviews as futuristic and filled with ambitions of conquering Universe. No doubt, naive are the impressed, and so was I. But the good news is that naivety is not a permanent damage. It is a temporary blindness of imagination, and if that is too much, I can concede to call it temporary seizure of imagination, or as an alternative I can call it poverty of imagination. Thanks to thousands of years of inherited-gossips, we can be poor at anything, but not words, and thankfully, I can use it lavishly without fearing that one day, I am going to run out of it. They are certainly, not of those natural resources that can't be renewed (so there is no worries about any carbon-taxation or facing protests of activists), and they are definitely going to inflate like fiat-money (You have to guess the rest as it is becoming too political). I hope you are getting it by now, that why am I asking for my glasses at the title of this knol?. I am going out of focus too soon, and need my eye-glasses to come back to the point, I started. 

OK, back to the starting point, I was so impressed by the technological advances that when first time, I read about Nietzsche declaring that "God is dead", I thought, wow, certainly, there is going to something mind-blowing. I have yet to understand, the invisible God, and philosophers have killed Him a century ago. Now, I was naively looking for something beyond God, bigger, better, mightier and smarter and ....etc. As I dig in more, I found, hey, am I going to the wrong direction? Is it just me having this problem (because I got a poor eye-sight) or there are other people also like me, who have orientation problem? When God was alive in the philosophers' minds, humans were looking for themselves in the image of God, but after killing Him, they are looking for traces of themselves in millions of animals, plants and in-between organisms. Hey, isn't that like we are walking backwards instead of forward. I had heard, when a person or a nation becomes old (In words of street boys, close to other side than this side), and can't see any hope in the future, then seeing into future becomes painful, and he starts looking into past, starts fantasizing his past, glorify it and start liking to live there. Whenever, he faces a difficult time, he looks back and sees his glorious youths, with all those tops that he had conquered, those jubilant moments with outburst of happiness, or his old kingdom of youths, where he had no worries, and feels better. One who has fallen into love of past, don't need any kind of morphine for any pain. Isn't that chronic-disease of Muslim world? All their assertion is to recreate the past, as their present and future is too painful and unlivable? (In fact, they are so scared of their present and future, that they miss no opportunity of destroying the present -boooom- and see those who try to take them forward as traitors, and do not hesitate to wipe those kafirs -grrrr-). I have to correct the Marx and say, past is the strongest morphine ever evolved or can be created. It can affect billions to a point of no chance for recovery. Again, where is my glasses? 

You may argue, your body, organisms, rocks, lands, water and atmophere and everything natural holding the real history and the rest are just social constructs. I certainly agree with that. There is no escape from facts, but technologies are not history, they are constructs. OK, I take back my arguments and say, there is disconnect and widening gap between technologies and our world-views. Technologically, we are moving forward, and intellectually, we are moving back. Oh, right, that is what Picasso painted. See, I need my glasses. I go back again and again to Picasso and each time, see something new there, that I had missed previous times. I can't escape not be impressed both while looking forward and looking backward. 

I Stayed Silent

He was really enthusiastic to take me to the hotel that he was taking his daily lunches. He explained, "It is the proportion of onion and tomato that determine, whether a gravy is going to be sweet or sour. The key to good cooking is to keep the track of proportions" Although, most of his tips and stories were repetitive, as I had heard them countless times (Occasionally, he was giving some rare insights about life, that proved to be valuable times and again to me), but he was so enthusiastically telling them that, it didn't matter to me, what he was talking about. I just wanted to listen to him. His talks were like music. You had to focus on the rhythms than lines. I was sure, the same is going to be true about his choice of the hotel, and I wasn't really going there to taste the food. I just wanted to see the satisfaction in his eyes. I just wanted to see him taking pride in touring me into his world. That mattered to me more than anything else. As we entered the hotel, I immediately noticed why he liked this place. There were couple of his friends that greeted him in their own style (using trade language) The cook was almost the same age as he was. The hotel was one of the tens of ordinary hotels around the city. There wasn't anything special to the hotel. The worn-wooden benches, large wooden double-doors that were hinged to wooden frame and opened against outside walls, the soot-black ceiling, a raised place for cook and his utensils. Everyone were talking with everyone else, not just with persons sharing the same table, but across the tables. The cook and the waiter were not only good listeners but also active participants. The topics were shifting quickly. I was so comfortable there that I could sit there for hours and just listen to them. Our lunch arrived. "How is your food?" he asked. "I really liked it. You have a great taste." and then I looked into his eyes, to see the sense of pride, satisfaction and kindness in them (Frankly speaking, I always prefer having my food at home. No matter, how great a hotel is, they can never match the comfort of home). I sensed that he was observing me, while talking with his friends. I tried to focus on my food and do not let him feel that it wasn't different than what I was used to eat. A young-man entered the hotel. He had squared face, long hairs, thick eyes-brows, narrow-eyes, humpy-nose, and plump body. He was clean-shaved and neatly dressed. He ordered tea. As soon as he entered in the conversation, the environment of hotel suddenly changed. Everyone became serious. I sensed the tension in the hotel. He was questioning everything, from their beliefs, values, practices to their life-styles. These men, who I doubt anyone had a proper schooling, trying hard to convince him that these traditions had stood the test of times. They were throwing parables, proverbs and examples from their experiences (apparently, these were all they knew) to defend their values. But the young-man was seemed determined to straighten these middle-aged men. Several times, I wanted to jump in and to face this man, but I controlled myself and stayed silent. I stayed silent because I was concerned that by my participation, he may feel that I thought, I am better qualified to face this man than him. I always wanted him to feel that he is in control of everything. The debate ended without any conclusion, as both sides apparently arguing against themselves than their opponents. The young-man left hotel and things slowly returned to normal. I guess, he had forgotten about me, when he was debating that young man. "What do you think about arguments of that young-man?" he asked me. "He is just trying to discover himself. He is going to grow. Don't feel bad about his arguments" I chuckled.... "If I was that young-man, I would have asked a lot of questions about your experiences that our generations have never gotten a chance to know. Only a gemologist knows the real worth of a gem" I added.  

Sorry For Disgracing You, But I Am Hungry

It was first time that I was visiting the American Museum of Natural History, and me with my this chronic bad-habit of trying to-be-closer to guide (I always confuse curiosity with distance: I believe that, the closer you are to the object, the curious you are, but that is just the wish to be curious, not the curiosity. Curiosity is an insatiable greed for knowing) to consume the information both through my eyes and ears. The guides are shrewd. They know awes are momentary and shocks are everlasting- experiences, and they have mastered in shocking the visitors. As my brain was struggling to handle the flow of traffic of information coming from both the ears and the eyes (I don’t know, if brain also gets information through the mouth, when there is nothing in the mouth to taste, but the mouth is open, as if, it is competing with eyes and ears for information), the guide asked the group, “what makes dinosaurs, dinosaurs?” As I am the narrator of this story, so I give myself the right to stop the flow of the story  for a short-break to tell you, what was going on in my head, while I was struggling for the answer. I knew the straight answer that paleontologists like to call parsimonious answer, but I couldn't utter a word, and instead starting asking myself (It is just my arrogance and self-love that I have to have my opinion for everything: poor me), what if someone asks me, “what makes a man, man?” My mind was flooded by countless images that men express their manhood with. Some think mustache is the most expressive symbol of manhood, so they keep thick mustaches, even borrow parts of beard on the cheek to make it appear thicker, and shave the rest of beard to make their mustaches more prominent. Some think, beard is the sign of manhood. They shave their mustache to make sure, mustaches do not appear above the beard just because of their location on the face. Some think, it is long-hair that is the sign of manhood, and some think, hair at any place is feminine, so they shave their head, beard and mustache (eyebrows and eyelashes are some minor errors in this type of thinking, but minor errors can be tolerated as a common problem in all kinds of thinking). I thought, I can actually devise different classes of man-personalities just based on their preferences for hair on their faces and heads. But before I could shake my knowledge of importance of scales among dinosaurs, one of the students answered the question, “It is the anterior positioned pelvis that allow upright walking”... “That is right. That is why, dinosaurs are not extinct.

We still have them in the form of the birds.” replied the guide with excitement. That answer watered down all my excitements about the dinosaurs. So, all the thrills of Jurassic Park movie were no more than thrills of horror movies (The only horror-movie that I have watched till end is Army of Darkness. The rest are just ridiculous and yucky that I can’t tolerate more than 10 minutes). Whenever, I go to grocery store and see the chicken legs, wings and breasts, I say to myself, “Look, these are the descendants of those great-dinosaurs that for 130 million years were dominant terrestrial organisms. Forget the lion as king of Jungle. We can’t compare the lions with those majestic dinosaurs. “ When I cook them and want to eat them, I excuse the chicken, “Of course, you are the descendants of truly majestic dinosaurs. Sorry for disgracing you by cutting you into pieces and cooking you, but I am hungry and crave for the meaty legs of yours. As you know,  there is no animal-rights to knock my conscience. I can rationalize all these disgraces as my cooking skills.” Although chickens have nothing of those majestic dinosaurs that ruled the earth for long, but I still love them, as they are not like humans that once crashed by forces of history try their best to avoid present and fear to step in future, and take great comforts to go in the glorious pasts of their ancestors, that they have experienced not even a gram of it. Chicken never boast of their ancestors, nor they try to claim any honor for their works, that they themselves have no role in them.

I Think, We Need To Educate "...."

He found me in my “deep” thoughts, asked in his usual soft voice, “It is cold out here, is something troubling you? … I..I mean, I wonder, if I can be of some help?” … I didn't even notice, when he got there, feeling embarrassed, I re-positioned myself, and tried to appear normal, replied, “Oh, good morning, (trying hard to remember his name, but failed as always)... yeah, it is really freezing-cold out here (finding the question mark still hanging from his curious face, I tried to laugh), ..Ha-ha, you know, my troubles love to grow… they do not like any austerity or down-sizing!” … and and then tried to show some manners “Thanks a lot for offering help”... (and then tried to be a little bit funny -which I have never been successful at- to give the normality some gravity of expression...“No worries, man! ...You know, what? my relationship to thinking, is the kind of relationship, that health-conscious people have with oxygen. In order to get relaxed, they practice deep-breathing, and go for walking to get some fresh-air, and upon returning home, they try to fill themselves up with “anti-oxidants” to stop those oxygen with free-radicals, that they fear are actively ageing their cells. I do the same with thinking. I practice deep-thinking to get relaxed, and when the thoughts start worrying me, I try to get rid of them with South-Asian melodies.”… as I finished my rationalization, I tried to see the results of my "funny-efforts" in the form of some sparkling in his eyes...but instead of wide open eyes -as sign of fun- his eyes were narrowed, and by his expressions were signaling to me that, he is more curious than just fun-loving guy. My brain hurried to get in defensive position for his next question… And, as was expected, he asked, “Hmm, so, what was you struggling with,....was it an early morning relaxation by some deep-thinking, or getting rid of worries by melodious-memories?”... (Ah, these curious people!!! they don’t get impressed by funny-efforts at all, and make you feel that everything is just a problem to be solved..may be, I also have learned to be stubborn at times,- though, I hate to be- so, I tried to give my “sense-of-humor”, a second chance to amuse him)..."ha-ha, it was totally opposite of them. Actually, I was sugaring-up my brain by some silly ideas… I don’t know, if you have heard the story of that shepherd, who is laying in his cozy-barn, seeing his well-fed cattle relaxing, asking himself, I am sleeping in this warm place and so are my cattle. What about those wild animals, who have to spend all night outside in this freezing cold? Alas, my barn is so small, and the wild animals are countless, shy and unfriendly. What should I do to help them? He keeps thinking and fails to find any solution. Tired and helpless, he falls in sleep… I feel, I am not different to that shepherd. I keep thinking about my "people”... and then, in order to make sure, he has gotten my point, I soon corrected my last statement, “Well, it is not much of thinking, but rather worrying”... (a little pause-I think, he was trying to come up with a to-the-point question, as his face was signaling that, some sort of serious thought-process was going on in his head-)... “What exactly you are worried about mostly?”... boom! I wasn't prepared for the precision of the question, and I tried to escape answering it, “Just ask me, what is not worrying me, as the list has no ending”... “OK, let me ask it this way. What was worrying you, this morning?” …I thought, OK, let me take off my guards, and tell him, about the thoughts that were running in my mind. He might have his own opinion about the subject, and that would be interesting to know, “Well, most of the mornings that I pass the street behind us, there is a kindergarten, and I see the teachers line up the children, and take them out to teach them very basic things, for example, everything that are the sides of roads, from traffic signs, signals, how to cross the roads, bus-stops, facilities in the town, and how to interact with people on the streets. In short, they teach children, how to live and behave, before they teach them how to read and write. I take great interest in it, as despite appearing not much important is actually, the most important thing. Learning how to behave, knowing your rights and respecting others’ rights is something, that makes not only your life easy, but also other people’s lives easy.” … “That is not a worry. That is just a realization of something, that people long have devised and implemented” he appeared to be eased off… I hurriedly added more details to defend my position, “I mean, one is needed to pass traffic rule exam, take a safe-driving class and pass the road test, befor he/she is able to put a car on the road… It is in the interest of the driver and in the interest of everyone on the road, then I wonder, how is it possible that people run public institutions, like madrassahs, mosques, schools, organizations and ministries without any kind of proper education, and without showing any kind of efficiency?”... I guess, he got some of my points, “Yeah, Occasionally, I come across the reports from your country, and it is really sad”... I got a chance to explain it
in a little bit more detail, “Since 2000, we had almost 8 years of a military-civilian democracy, and it didn't

work, and then we had 5 years of civilian-democracy, and it is not working either. We had Imran Khan’s Pop-Mullah mix “revolution” through general election, and Tahir-ul-Qadri’s “revolution” through sit-in protests in the capital city with no net results on the ground. There are some basic problems that why things do not work. The problem is with the people, and with the system. I strongly believe that the whole society, including me, need education in knowing our rights, ways to protect it, and respecting the rights of others  more than literacy, just like those kindergarten children. For people who run any organization, and public office needs to pass the test, like drivers. It is in interest of everybody.” I stopped to see his reaction to my layman kind "utopia", of analogies, and over-generalized solutions… “Although, I am not much familiar with ground realities, but no one can deny the importance of education. You said that nothing is working, so do you have some thoughts on the system?” ... I felt that, his curiosity had lighted again. And, I was assuming that he knows much, so I don’t have to go into details for everything, and just need to point to the direction, and he will figure out, how this utopia will unfold. I just gave an outline, “Although, I am not saying that it is going to solve the problems in few years, or even it is going to work, but there must be a starting point. As I see no other checks, because neither military, nor supreme court proved to be a check on degrading-governance, except the people, I favor some sort of direct-democracy. For the whole decade government remained indecisive over action against terrorists and their supporters, creating more provinces, and ….blah blah blah. If there is a mechanism where people could ask for referendum, it will solve the indecisiveness. Otherwise, elections, noisy debates on media, sit-in protests and suo-moto-actions do not make some progress towards solving the problems at all.” … “You have some points here, but I am not sure, how they will look in practice, especially, in a country, where minorities are increasingly under more pressure. Direct democracy may put their survival in danger, you know…” I was sharing his fears, “I agree with you” and we both were standing there, with no clear idea,… and I guess, now, he had some idea of how, some of my worries were looking like… I took out my cell-phone from my pocket to check the time and said, “The bus should be here in 2-3 minutes”...