URDU v/s Sanskrit
Urdu = Muslim! Sanskrit = Hindu! What a perspective!

By Satya Narayanan R.
This has become a common experience for me. I try my best to share my thoughts at every opportunity that comes by but it avoids me often, leaving me a bit more resolved each time to contribute to the change that I would like to see in our society.

Sounds like a conundrum? Let me share just one incident with you. I was traveling in a Shatabdi and as usual (of late), I was reading an Urdu newspaper. A father-son duo happened to be seated next to me during the journey, returning after an admission related trip to Delhi. Their discussions about Gujarat and my reading the Urdu newspaper coincided. There was a sudden drop in their volume as the son pointed out the newspaper I was reading to his father and whispered something to him.

In a while, we started a conversation and after this ice-breaker, an enquiry about my name and profession was inevitable. My answer pleasantly surprised the father, who took a while to digest the fact that I had a Hindu name. The obvious question followed, “Then, how come you are reading Urdu?” The poor guy had to hear my much-rehearsed monologue, though he was polite enough to nod in agreement and wonder!

The monologue
It is the social delusion that gets most of our minds into believing that language and religion are inseparable. In fact, language is an integral part of any culture but has little to do with religion. We would be able to appreciate this thought more, when we meet a Muslim living in Tamil Nadu, Kerala or Dhaka, who is proficient in Tamil, Malayalam or Bangla respectively instead of Urdu! Similarly, my Hindu friends in Pakistan are at home reading Urdu. Dr. Abdul Kalam is likely to be more at home interpreting Tirukural in Tamil than a couplet by Faiz or Ahmed Faraz! By the way, did you know that Urdu language exists in our society (Indo-pak) of pre-partition India alone? It is a beautiful invention that has grown organically from the languages Amezish, Persian and Arabic! There are 22 plus countries that speak Arabic and one that speaks Persian, while Urdu resides here only.

When it comes to Sanskrit, those who are seen to be reading or speaking Sanskrit are dismissed as right wing Hindu extremists. By that definition, both my parents are hardcore fundamentalists as they speak only in Sanskrit at home and as it happens in a typical South Indian family of our era – we were brought up on a daily dose of Sanskrit literature using various un-oppressive forms including songs, slokas, pujas and chants. They were even used as background scores while we played cricket or badminton in Hyderabad, the city of the Nizams! We knew these by heart, absolutely verbatim! I believe it to be a huge part of building up on our culture for the future and thus, wish that we saw more beauty and took pride in Urdu and Sanskrit instead of keeping a contemporary mindset.

Microfinance and its Tandav

By R. Sreenivasan
Off late I have been reading a lot about Micro-finance, the good it has been doing and the tandav (dance of distruction) too... I read a couple of blogs and reviews about ‘A fistful of Rice’, which motivated me to share my experience here.

If the intention to set up a micro-finance institution is to empower the women and help them create small businesses for securing their families, it certainly serves the cause. Though the loans given may be as small as Rs. 5000/- ($100) or even Rs. 2000/- ($40), the rates of 3% or 4% per month are too high for the poor women to pay back, as it amounts to over 40% interest on the original loan availed. How many of us will ever take a loan at these rates? And that is what MFI business has turned out to be – how to give loans’ extensions generating more returns for the company!
Let me share my first hand experience with a well-known and most successful MFI in India. This MFI had managed to give loans to a huge number of women and create a fertile environment to lend even more money. They thought of taking this a step further by getting involved in setting up schools in villages for educating the children of the women they had given loans to. At first, I thought it is a great way of helping the underprivileged and empowering the women further.

The schools started to blossom slowly and the frequency of my interactions with this MFI increased. This was the time, I felt that ‘Dal mein kuchh kaala hai’ (covert intention). I realized that the only reason that the MFI got involved in setting up schools was to attract more and more women to avail the loans. There by, the women would keep paying back forever at rates of 40%+, assuming that they are educating their children for free. Further communications with the MFI revealed that they engaged themselves in keeping the children in school at any cost; their motif was to stop the children from being withdrawn from schools. They were least bothered about helping the children enjoy learning!

As months progressed, the MFI, in spite of making huge profits in the business, did not show the patience and perseverance to make the schools excel. They withdrew from the project but thanks to the educationists, the schools are still running in spite of facing financial struggles. I always wonder where this attitude of MFIs would lead to. It is very sad that we had to witness many a woman ending their lives for not being able to pay off the loans. I sincerely hope that the regulatory authorities take steps in a way such that genuine MFIs are not impacted adversely but at the same time the devious ones are taken care of; and all educationists and genuine developmental facilitators, who are keen on helping rural India progress, succeed in their mission.

— The writer is the director at Indus World School of Business, Greater Noida