The "Mooda"

A stool made of coir fibre. This is a word I heard after such a long time. I was fascinated and enjoyed every bit of the urdu language used in the film In Custody. This is a movie which I never knew existed. It deals with the plight of the urdu as the "dying language" in India. This movie was released in 1994. Today, more than 15 years later, I realize that I haven't heard the word mooda in a long time. And I don't think it is because I have spent the past four years of my life outside India. Although no word except "mooda" can do full justice to the "chair" in the above image, such words just don't seem to be in as much use nowadays

The film certainly was extremely moving. I enjoyed every bit of it. The characters were inherently filled with such humane contradictions that they were very interesting to watch. Shashi Kapoor plays the character of a wasted, attention seeking, one time great urdu poet. Om Puri plays the character of a disappointed family guy who goes out of his way to make a seemingly futile attempt to pay tribute to his claimed first love, the urdu language. Parikshat Sahni playing the character of a one time nawab attempts to project that he is very practical because he wants to sell his crumbling ancestral property. Yet, he goes out of his way to gather financial support for Om Puri's project urdu poetry and is visibly disappointed when it is not completed to his satisfaction.

However the most interesting character was that of Shabana Azmi. She plays the poet's wife who is a wannabe poetess. She attempts to project that she is disappointed by her husband reciting his poetry to a bunch of people who only seem to be after his alcohol. But she also steals her husband's poetry and drives away the one guy who seems to genuinely appreciate his poetry. Shabana Azmi also doesn't miss presenting her own feminist agenda in the movie (which she admitted to in a later interview) when she rants about how in a man's world a poet"ess" is not given the due appreciation.

Ismail Merchant, the director of In Custody, said in an interview that Urdu is probably dying in India as the politicians see it as a threat since it is considered the language of the muslims. But after watching the movie, and based on my interpretation of the characters, I didn't think ANY of them really cared all that much about the urdu language as such. They seemed to be more concerned about their own personal agendas which rose far above any appreciation for any language.

I can certainly speak for myself when I say that I fail to recognize a few urdu words and quite conveniently mistake them for hindi. On several occasions, when asked to find a hindi translation for a word, I have inadvertently come up with an urdu word and vice versa. I am not sure if I really care that deeply about urdu as a language but I certainly believe that words like "mooda" should not die.