Ruling the roost

Ahmed Tauseef

Aurangabad: A slice of young men and women with Marathi background learning basics of English at one of the professional trainers for call centers and BPOs in Aurangabad , epitomizes the growing craze for English here.
The British curse of the pre-colonial India has now become the blessing of post colonial era. Even the farthest and backward region in the world map like Marathwada is feeling the effect of the influence of this language.
Center manager at Smart Talk, Shadab Ali observes that the craze of English is moving out of proportion in Aurangabad. He, however, views this as a healthy sign because according to him Aurangabad is in the list of some international call centers and BPOs and they might venture in this city with lot of money and opportunities for English speakers.
Zia Wahab, a professor of communication at School of Business Education and Training (BEST), says in the past decade English has moved from being the gatekeeper of the elite to being a ladder up for the masses. It is the language of opportunities and jobs for the young Indians who are eying on the profits of being an English speaker in the globalize world.
When asked about the future of other regional languages amid the growing influence of English, Zia Wahab forms an opinion that since India's economy has opened to the outside world, and as the Internet and television have brought in the outside world, English has become a passport to everything from jobs, information technology to scholarships abroad. Taking cues from this example, any language that wants to survive has to be global, flexible and job oriented, says he.
In Aurangabad learning English is not considered as the gateway to BPO industry where money flows in bulk. Mr Amitt Bagchi's English classes are full of young vernaculars who want to get an M.B.A. or enter the army or police force, young Muslim women in black hijab aiming for the civil service, housewives who want to follow new English programs on television and gain the status that English speaking bestows.
Mr Bagchi is also a bit concerned about the standard of English going down day by day. He opines that the demand of English speaking employees and professionals is increasing, but it does not mean that we should compromise with the standard of a language, which is the essence of it. An experienced English teacher, Bagchi says most of his students sport ambitious sentiments and a will to excel. And they view English as the gateway to achieve their dreams.
Since most government schools still teach in Marathi or regional languages, the urge for English is changing the educational system, prompting an enormous growth in private schools that teach in English in this city which blends Marathi and Urdu culture in day today lifestyle.

Melting Boundaries

Ahmed Tauseef

Aurangabad: The city of Aurangabad hosted one of the towering personalities of Urdu literature---- Intezaar Hussain recently.
Hussain, a Pakistan based internationally renowned novelist and storyteller was in the city on a tour arranged by Sahitya Akademy, Delhi in the backdrop of first Munshi Premchand fellowship award offered to the writer.
Hussain, an 83-year-old young man as one of his friends introduced him to the audience, regaled Urdu lovers by giving the readings of his most read short stories.
While talking to Aurangabad Plus he stressed on the need of exchange of literature between India and Pakistan so that it helps understanding each other in a finer way.
The writer in one of his lectures turned a bit nostalgic and reminded the common culture shared among people of sub-continent before partition. He gave message of peace and love in all his lectures and held Urdu and literature as instrumental in shaping the common ideology of people of sub-continent.
A celebrated writer Hussain described the beauty and culture of Aurangabad in his own fashion. He termed the city as 'ajeeb-o-ghareeb shaher' (a city of its own kind). He was awestruck by the beauty of Ellora and Ajanta to an extent that he said it was hard to believe that they were built by human beings thousands of years ago.
Hussain was born at Dibai (India) in 1925 and was educated in Meerut. He migrated to the city of Lahore in 1947 and has been based there ever since. His story
Gadariya (Shepherd) is one of the most read stories of Urdu literature. To his credit Hussain has six collections of shorts stories and three novels. He is a creative writer, critic, columnist and translator as well.
One of his novels on Partition, Basti (Town), has been translated into English by Harper Collins. Basti, one of the best novels in modern Urdu, deals with the emotive appeal of loss of homeland, love and roots of people stranded in the catastrophe.

A perfect place to over-winter Tibetan nostalgia

Ahmed Tauseef

Aurangabad: Tibetan refugees have become synonymous to the winter in Aurangabad. Short in stature and with different facial appearance from Indians the Tibetan refugees meet the demand of warm clothing of locals every winter without fail.
Sonam Paljor, a 54-year-old Tibetan refugee, has been coming to Aurangabad since he left school to support his parents in seasonal business of selling sweaters, woolen caps and mufflers.
Like other Tibetan refugees Paljor's exit from his own country was not a planned migration in pursuit of a bright future. He had to flee to Northern India at the age of six along with the first batch of 85,000 Tibetan refugees in 1959 that rallied behind the spiritual leader of Tibet---Dalai Lama to escape Chinese crackdown in his country.
Ever since India is the home of Sonam Paljor, who makes his living through selling sweaters in winter and farming in the rest of the year.
During his stay in the city he bargains everyday with the locals infected with a common tendency that Tibetans struck the deal at any cost. "We earn around Rs 200 to 300 per day here", says Paljor. He resides in a refugee settlement in Karward district near Hubli in Karnataka where over 40,000 refugees from Tibet are settled.
The life for Poljar and his countrymen is not so easy or it is harder than it could have been in their homeland. These refugees lead a spartan life in a country which is struggling with her own burgeoning population and poverty. They slog out their lungs farming the land provided by GOI as an option other than selling sweaters if it is not winter in India.

Paljor says his Indian friends were a great help in training Tibetans about farming, as they were not familiar with the ways of farming in the alien land.
The Tibetan refugees in India hold the refugee status since the GOI granted asylum to their temporal leader. Often referred to as model refugee community, Tibetans officially form the largest refugee group in South Asia and is perhaps the only refugee community, which does not live in camps, says a report based on social and demographic statistics of Tibetan refugees.
Tibetan refugees are spread across the country in tens of thousands since 1959 with a major part settled in the state of Karnataka.
However, this refugee community with Buddhism as the major religion has adopted urban Indian life. One can see young Tibetan girls and boys dressed up in modern outfits mingling with Indians. They speak Hindi and English with equal fluency. Concerned about keeping the Tibetan culture alive, the Tibetan Refugee Sweater Sales Association has made it mandatory for women to put on Tibetan traditional dress.
Young Tibetans who opened their eyes in India do look this country as a launching pad. Sonam Chodon is a young Tibetan girl based in Aurangabad is pursuing her masters in commerce from a local college. She helps her parents in seasonal business who hail from Karnataka every year in winter. "I join them after college and stay here till the shops are closed", says she. Sonam epitomizes the young Tibetans in India who are aware about their status and know where they have to go at the end. But her ambitions are like Indian friends. She wants to do a job that would earn her dignity with good money.
At some extent it proved fortunate for Tibetans to seek asylum in India. When India spread her arms for Tibetans fleeing Chinese suppression, she also opened her resources for these alien refuges of Tibet, which their indigenous home with its limited resources with severely dry weather could not provide.
A number of young Tibetans, including two daughters of Paljor, are now settled in developed countries like USA, Canada and England benefiting from the education facilities available in India. They are vibrant and respect Indian customs and traditions keeping their Buddhist and Tibetan identity alive.
Though Tibetans are languishing in the country for about four decades, reflect a strong desire to settle back in their motherland free from Chinese occupation. Paljor says he is quite hopeful that negotiations with China would reap results and he would go back to his country quiet opposite the way he had left it.

Away from bloodbath

By Ahmed Tauseef

Bassam Ahmed, a 26-years-old Iraqi welcomes you with a toothy smile, a symbol of affectionate gesture of Iraqi hospitality, as you knock the door of his apartment in one of the residential areas of the city.
A trickle of Iraqis pursuing their academic careers in the colleges and university of Aurangabad city is an indicator that how the invasion of a country could be more devastating than the tyranny of single dictator. As Bassam admits, he preferred this city in search of peace as well.
"I don't like presence of American soldiers on the streets of my country, they are trouble makers", says Bassam who is doing his masters in fine art from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University. Bassam, who lives in the city of Babylon in Iraq, finds no comparison to peace and communal harmony of the city. Hailing from a country worn to shreds due to sectarian violence and skirmishes between foreign peacekeepers and local war lords, this Iraqi young man is duly impressed by the similarities in the lifestyle of different communities living in the city.
Although the education system of Iraq does not charge a single penny as fee right from the standard 1 to doctorate, Bassam and other Iraqis are shelling out money to earn degrees here. The reason is safety of life which interim Iraqi government or presence of Americans could not assure at least at this juncture of time. Admits Bassam that many times he was missed by a stray bullet by hair's breadth in Fallujah.

Mohsin Al-Shammari, a PhD in the field of engineering from the university of Baghdad and also a teacher there, found the equipments he needed to experiment in Aurangabad. Al Shammari, who is in the town for experimenting his projcet, never fails to contact his family back home Baghdad through Internet. Though the part of Baghdad where his family lives is not troubled, but still there is an element of worry as his country is now going through its toughest time ever where life has lost its meaning.
Like his friends, Mohsin does not endorse the presence of America in every nook and corner of Iraq.
He says more than five Iraqi families are living in the city for the purpose of education. Some of them even have women and children with them, says he.
As the discussion about politics and culture goes on in Bassam's apartment a tall and lean Osama chips in. Osama, an Iraqi as well, is pursuing his masters in law at one of city's law college. These new faces of Iraq are however nostalgic about their base. They want to utilize their skills and education in rebuilding a stable and prosperous Iraq free from the presence of foreign faces. No matter they learn those skills and polish them either in a small city Aurangabad or world's one of the oldest city for learning---- Baghdad.