Dr Syed Mohammed Anwer, an advocate of the Supreme Court, launched a unique linguistic, calligraphic art book, SamrupRachna Calligraphic Expression of ApniBoli [Hindi-Urdu] at the Mother Languages LiteratureFestival in Islamabad.

The first of its kind, the book is as much a coffee table art book as a socio-political comment on the fact that Hindi and Urdu are a single spoken language.Q: What was the inspiration for your book? A: The main inspiration for learning Hindi was my late mother, who taught me the language during summer vacations while I was still at school. She was the one who first told me that Devanagari was the other script for my language.The project began as I was doodling in the Devanagari script and wrote a few words in both Devanagari and Nastaliq side by side and noticed the fascinating patterns that emerged.

Q: How significant is the linguistic script difference in the political divide between India and Pakistan? A: If we go into the background of the political divide then we realise that the people of the subcontinent associated many things with our religious identities and unfortunately the language was also divided, at least as far as the script is concerned, according to religion. Hindi is written from left to right in Devanagari script, the script of Sanskrit, while Urdu is written from right to left in the Nastaliq script borrowed from Arabic. Interestingly, half the sounds of `apniboli` do not exist in Arabic, and 40pc do not exist in Persian.

The divide, whether it was intentional or unintentional, done in good faith or not, is now history. It started with the initial years of the Fort William College when the British started recognising both scripts of the language. Back then the language was known as Hindustani. With the passage of time the gulf between the users of Devanagari script and those of the Nastaliq script had widened immeasurably.

My thesis is still that it is one language that we speak and in that sense it is the second largest language of the world as a spoken language but it is unfortunately divided into two as a written language.In linguistic terms, the existence of two writing systems for one language is called synchronic digraphia, and if we cease to associate the script or the language with any religion we would have a profound basis for unity and amity between the two neighbouring nations.

An interesting fact of `apniboli` is that the birthplace of Sanskrit is that part of the subcontinent which is now Pakistan. The first known grammarian of Sanskrit was Panini who was born in what is now called Charsadda. He studied in the Taxila University of that period. Sanskrit thus, has close ties to modern-day Pakistan.

Q: Any future plans to carry forward the work you began with this book? A: I am already working on the second book of this series, titled `Apniboli, ApnaSamaaj`. That book is an extension of this work where I will highlight the com-monalities of culture, not only the language. That book will elaborate on each painting published in the first book with a small essay on cultural aspects and dimensions of the object in the painting.

By Syeda Shehrbano Kazim