There are people like Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who scaled Mt Everest. There was Arati Saha who crossed English channel. It was their personal campaign and not aimed at serving a larger cause. I have the privilege of knowing one Arvind Kumar who is 90 plus and has been living by his word for about half a century. He collected as many words in Hindi as he could in this period and put them in rhythm. and brought out a samantar kosh in 1996. It was a milestone in any Indian language. There have been many dictionaries but not putting all the synonymous at one place.
It was not a hobby of an obsessed. It was a noble cause for a language he has served as the editor of celebrated Hindi film magazine He was inspired by Peter Mark Rogest's thesaurus the prestigious forerunner that became a regular coimpanion for millions of users.
Not his daughter Meeta Lall has paid a great tribute to his illustrious father by publishing his life story Shabdvedh(Word piercer). This tastefully designed 410-page collector's item is a must read for all those who love words. Just take an example to understand this book. I was thrilled to find that my name Om has so many synonyms: The Sanskrit symbol for OM ( that font is not in English keyboard), Onkar, Om, with halant, Om, Oum, Oom,( for shudras), name, tar, trimatra, trayakshar, panchvarn ( aakar, ukar, maker, naad and bindu),, param, parmaakshar, Pranav, Bramhmakshar, Vedadi, Vedadi Beej, Vedadai Varn, Shabd, Shabdbraham, Sarvamvid.
It is an inspiring book for any one who wants to do something which is close to one's heart. Not for personal satisfaction for a larger cause. Hindi has been in doldrums since the sepoy mutiny of 1857. Till then Persian, Arabic and khari boli mixture called Hindustani was in vogue. It was a refined version of Braj and Avadhi dialects But some purists took upon themselves to introduce Sankaratised Hindi to give a distinct identity to the lingua franca of Hindus. It was to oppose Urdu and the Muslims who had started passing through a turmoil. They had realized that Muslims formed less than 20 % of the total population and will always be second grade citizens of India. It germinated the seed of a separate Muslim state later called Pakistan.
Now we come to 1947 when the newly formed government led by Jawahar Lal Nehru who himself was fluent in Hindustani but not chaste Hindi. He didn't oppose the suggestion of Sankratised Hindi as the national language. But it was opposed tooth and nail by the demagogues of South Indian. Hence the idea of making Sanskratised Hindi as the national language was dropped and it was renamed as official Hindi.
What is this official Hindi? Take another example: Do you know what is Bhartiya Rashtriya Vimanpattan Ptadhikaran. If you pass by Safdarjun Airport, you will find an official name board with this name printed in it. Its translation into English is also there: Airport Authority of India. Even an illiterate will easily understand it. That is the irony. It also applies to NCERT, whose full foirm in Englkish is National Council for Educational and Scientific Training. JNU is written as Jawahar lal Nehru Vishvvidyalaya but evry body calls and understand it as JNU. The point I am trying to make it is that there is no standard Hindi like Sankrit or Latin. There are at least four Hindis in vogue. Offical Sankratised Hindi, Hindustani, Hinglish ( what the present school and college students speak at home and outside in the street) and the Hindi which literaary authors use in their poetry.
Arvind Kumar's Shabdvedh stands tall in support of spoken Hindi. Being a man of words he doesn't mind adding all synonymous but he given piece of his mind against the unreadable Hindi of the so called writers who write for critics and literary criticism magazines. Unfortunately the same Hindi is taught in Indian schools through the NCERT books. Once when my daughter had to appear for her Hindi examination, she brought her Hindi text book and asked me to explain it in Hindi. After glancing through it, I was foxed.
Besides the great struggle which Arvind ji has undergone in counting 2.7 lac words in Hindi, he has glorified the importance of word in our life. Human communication started with painting as there were no words. Then came sign language and sounds to express oneself. It finally led to spoken words and finally the alphabets. Grammar and codification followed. But that is the domain of linguists. Talking about common parlance, words play an important role. I was forced with mathematics in my college but opted for spoken words through debates and eventually to a career in media.
There is an ugly debate between Hindi and English. I am also aware that Hindi purists have a pathological hatred for English but it is a global language. It is debatable, whether the British did a service by introducing English or hurt our natonalism. Gandhi, a great votary of Hindi, expressed himself well in English and beat the British by his drafting and newspapers in English also besides Hindi and Gujarati.
Coming back To Shabdvedh, this book must be procured and read at the first opportunity. you can contact lallmeeta@gmail.com or at 09810016568. It costs Rs 799 but it will pay back many times ever and will be a family treasure. It is an autobiography, a self help book, travelogue of the word and the history of Indian media in Bombay and Delhi in last half a century. It is published by .arvinbdlexicon.com and printed by Thompson. I found only one typographical error ( space between main and ne) out of more than one lac words.
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