yuvraaj [hindi] - prince, skijumper

yuvraaj - new movie with mumbaikar superhero salman khan and music by ar rahman - is launched in india and pakistan tonight. most of the shots in the trailer at least are done in tirol, second best "european kashmir" (after engelberg/switzerland) for the bollywood film industry.

and in case coming january the bergisel stadium will be be full with women clad in saris and men spitting pan, following the Neujahrsspringen - you know why. kosta and kozack should probably stock up their supplies as well -

polemy central

the advantage of totally wretched politics - you can at least have a laugh or be totally stupefied with a mixture of sadness anger and irony. in austria inability to create a government is covered with a seriousness that laughing or crying about it does not bring tears to your eyes ...

danka newsletter 20/11/2008

sent as danka newsletter (www.danka.com.pk)

Dear Friends,

Counting the languages I came across all over Pakistan I end up at … 16. Now that’s without ever having gone further down south than Faisalabad. There are areas in the north were people living just a few kilometres apart speak completely different languages – have always done so and still do. Drive up the KKH from Gilgit to Karimabad and, linguistically you have entered a different world (from Shina to Burusheski). A few kilometres away there is one village sticking to another language again and just 3 hours towards China you’ll end up in Wakhi country.

But as a Punjabi or just a resident of Lahore you may have already tuned your ears to a much finer level. While a foreigner may not be able to see the difference between a Karachiites Clifton Urdu and a Lahori Defence Punjabi, a Lahori may already tell a housemaid from Okara from a mechanic from Sialkot. My Punjabi is admittedly at a toddlers level but after some time in Lahore I felt comfortable with the Lassi Wallah in Landa Bazaar, the mechanic in Johar Town and the strawberry girls on the canal (they know great recipes for strawberry shakes, mind you!).

Then I travelled towards Cholistan, to southern Punjab and was wondering whether I lost my ability to understand the language. And at Nankana Sahib, where a Sikh boy from India showed me an my parents around the Gurdhwara I was looking forward to translate his explanations to my mum and dad – he said he would speak Punjabi. I had troubles to pass on the broader context from what I grasped.

And in the end there are of course the different intonations of the language by outsiders from Punjab who learned the language but bring their own linguistically flavour to their words. Be it Pathans selling electronical appliances on the street, praising their ware in Punjabi or Baltis who adapt to their visitors from the low lands.

And while writing that a new event has popped up on Danka that just fits the topic swearwords fit Punjabi – an international conference on Literature and Language including Muhammad Hanif, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes. A must see for all interested in words …

Speak your culture and let us know what your observations are of Pakistans linguistical diversity …

Your Danka Team

Abschlussbericht

www.direkthilfe.at

danka newsletter 11/11/2008

sent as newsletter for danka (www.danka.com.pk)

Culture afloat

From where we ended the last newsletter we want to take it on this time – literature. A truly remarkable book (Empires of the Indus by Alice Albinia) was written by an English woman in 2008 who, during the last 2 years, travelled from the source to the spring of the Indus looking for its impact has in its different stages – in time but also in space – and how people along it impact the river.

She starts off in Karachi where she meets the sewage cleaners and the fishers who have no water in the part of the river where it should be biggest. In Sukkur she finds the strongest spiritual link to the river still existent today and a meeting place of religious believes. Ahead the rivers and the different ways split – from Sutlej through Punjab and all the way to Indian Kashmir to Kabul river and into Afghanistan. The importance of the river for whole civilizations and people like Mohenjodaro and Harrappa, Gandhara, the Swat valley Buddhists and today radical Islamists and farther north the Kalasha is visualized often in their paintings and poetry but also in histories of conflicts that had impacts with reverberations all the way east to Bengal and west to Greece.

Over the Khunjerab Pass she crosses into China and Tibet and finally reaches the spring of this huge river and people who show similar worship for this water mass as those in southern Sindh although they apparently have different cultural beliefs and histories.

Apart from human lives and histories interwoven with this river it also gives a beautiful picture from above – next time you fly from Lahore to Dubai or anywhere in the Middle East grab a window seat and follow its flow all the way down to Sindh where the plane will eventually sway off into Baluchistan and endless sands.

For Lahoris the importance of rivers becomes apparent in a painful way in these months – electricity that isn’t there. Apart from the new cultural event of light shows at reduced prices and increased heat – where has the Lahori river gone? How important is it still for the inhabitants of this city? The Jeep rally made use of its old river bed – but what about the river that’s still alive in its new, ever-changing location? Not to mention the canal – is it more than just brown fluid between two congested lanes?

Swim in your Culture – and let us know what your Ravi looks like!

Your Danka Team