I first met her at a friend’s party. Inevitable, considering she was the only other smoker in the vicinity. Turned out she was practically my neighbour, just a street away from where I live. We decided to catch up over a coffee sometime.
We did. And again. Often. Every evening. She was delightfully witty, independent, promiscuous, well read, informed, complicated, manic depressive, pretty, average kisser and smelled indeterminate yet nice. A daily dose of hormones, tobacco, caffeine and conversation… didn’t take me long to be smitten silly.
One such evening she mentioned that she couldn’t read Urdu although it is her mother-tongue and she speaks it well.
Predictably, my infatuated heart leapt at the opportunity to impress the lady. I told her that by next week, this time, I’d have learned to read (and write in) Urdu. Learning a new language is hard of course but learning just the script of a language that I understood well, now that I knew I could pull off.
Wonderful thing, the internet. I stumbled upon this site. Ten short chapters, focusing on teaching just the script, not the language or grammar! In fact most of the tutorial is actual English words and sentences written in Urdu script. The chapters are terse and paced well. At five chapters a day, I managed to go through the lot thoroughly over the weekend. And that was enough.
Urdu script is written right to left. With most letters having three different forms depending on where in the word it appears, the script is like none other I’d encountered before. Many times vowels are not written but guessed whilst being read depending of usage. A very involving task and a strongly recommended activity on a rainy weekend.
Right then, was the fair maiden impressed, you ask? Never got the chance. That week she found a job in New Delhi and moved there. The relationship then went the way all long distance relationships go.
< sound of toilet flushing … >
