Friday, May 16, 2008

Reporting Romance in Urdu papers

Urdu is considered more suitable for expressing love. After all, the Urdu poets for centuries have been writing about 'ishq' and 'mohabbat'. The Urdu newspapers have a slightly different character and the reports about elopements are published quite prominently.

Headlines like 'Ishq mein giraftaar, aashnaa ke saath faraar' (Girl in love, runs away with youth) are quite common to see. Though such news items are read with great interest by readers in Hindi and other regional languages also, the Urdu vocabulary makes it a bit more eye-catching and often humrous.

Recently, I read a comprehensive report of a love affair between a 15-year-old girl of Mumbai and a 22 year old youth in a Urdu daily. The girl had called the youth at her place but when he reached to the window of her fifth floor house, she got scared probably due to the family members who were around her and he fell down from that height.

The guy was seriously injured and is in hospital. And this is not all. A case of theft attempt was also made against him. Undoubtedly it is one of the most comprehensive report you can ever read in any newspaper about the 'aashiqana bahaduri' (courage or foolhardiness of the lover, whatever you call it).

The story is that the girl had written a letter to the youth and told her to enter her room through the window. He did the same but the girl got unnerved and the youth had to suffer terrible consequences. He is in hospital with broken bones and also termed a thief.

The headline of the news was quite long: "Mahbooba se milne ke ishtiyaaq mein paanchvi manzil par chaDhne vaala naujavaan neeche gir kar zakhmi". And if this was not enough, the sub-headline was spread over five lines with a big font. The news was of course too long, with all details and at least had 750 words.

The poor aashiq must have been thinking that:

yeh ishq nahiiN aasaan....
ek buland imaarat hai aur kuud ke jaana hai
haddi tudvaa ke aana hai aur phir khabaroN meN bhii chhaa jaana hai....

Readers do expect good coverge to such a valiant effort. Scaling fifth floor is not an easy task. The report is surely interesting. Have you read it? Meanwhile, I had written a post when gunshots were fired in Najeebabad after a mushaira when two groups had an argument over the understanding of a couplet. Do read that also.

[Photo: Just the headline and sub-headline of the news]