Day 1: the beginning

آگاز

~ Beginning ~

The idea for this blog came from the 100 Days Project initiated by the wonderful people behind 100 Days 2011. The central theme is one hundred days of creativity, at the rate of a piece a day. This is a wonderful community of creative minds and I hope I shall be able to make valuable addition to it. 

I picked on Urdu for several reasons. One, it is a wonderful language (and you'll be hearing many paeans to its glory from me in the coming days); two, it has a wonderful script called the ''nastaliq", which is great to practice; and three, I will get to photograph and share what I learned and wrote in this wonderful language with so many people.
Hence, the title of this post - the beginning.
Urdu is one of my country India's 22 official languages. It has a rich history of which I shall post tidbits by and by in the coming days. In its formal register, it is called "The Language of the Exalted Camp", referring to the imperial courts of the Mughal emperors. It is a language of grace, of courtliness, of politeness and propriety. Its grammar constructs are formal, and often grand. Its subtle polish has had a long and wonderful impact on the literary and poetic sensibilities of the Indian subcontinent.
But more on Urdu a little later.
Here is my first word, in the first alphabet of the Urdu script: alif. The word I've chosen is ''aah'' which means ''sigh''.

Here is a couplet in Urdu written by the legendary poet, Mirza Ghalib with the word ''aah'' in it:

aah ko chahiye ik umr asar hone tak

kaun jeeta hai teri zulf k sar hone tak

(A sigh needs more than a lifetime to turn into hope realised/ how long can one live 'ere your tresses turn?)