Egaro : Thoughts from United Bengal

"if you are kicked, you can kick back only in the game of football"

"if you know how to play football, then you have almost learnt the Gita" 

- Swami Vivekananda

Football is nothing but an application of the karma yoga theory. AICC has sold itself to IMG-Reliance for Rs 700 crores. The I-league is being harassed daily in the name of improvement. The national team is an infant for World Cup. But, one cannot deny that India is one of the oldest 'association football' playing nations in the world. The Indian Football Association (IFA), which presently governs football in the state of West Bengal is a member of the British Football Association (FA) since 1893.

The IFA Shield started in 1893 by the then ruling British army officers is one of the oldest club cup competitions in the world. Mohan Bagan AC was established on 15th August, 1889 at Calcutta, then the capital of Imperial India. It is one of the oldest football clubs in Asia. For over a decade the Bagan players (Mariners, as they are known popularly) played passive to the British bosses. Then came the partition of Bengal Presidency and a volcanic nationalist movement followed. Khudiram Bose, a 15 year old boy attacked a British officer and was hanged.

Bengal was socially and culturally reforming itself. It was the time when BishwaKabi Rabindranath Tagore (the universal poet) was yet to bring home the Nobel Prize. With the social reformations introduced by Raja Rammohan Roy and Ishwarchandra Bidyasagar, and under the leadership of Swami Vivekananda, the Bangali youth had already decided for a war.

On 29th July 1911, Mohan Bagan AC created history being the first all Indian club to win the IFA Shield. They beat East Yorkshire Regiment in the finals of the knockout tournament to be the first Asian team to beat a foreign team. 10 players played barefooted, only one Prof. Sudhir Chatterjee had his boots on.

Egaro (the eleven) is a bengali sports movie which says the rest of the story beautifully.
Egaro = Lagaan - Amir Khan. Recommended if you are an Indian, must if you are a Bengali.

[Mohan Bagan's Immortal XI]

The Film : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc4l0EmF7gk

Romanaagarii : Youngistaan ki Awaaz!

“Jab tak ee desh ma sanima (cinema) hai, log ch***ye bante rahenge”

Boasts a Bollywood hating Ramadhir Singh in Gangs of Wasseypur 2. I took him too seriously for a moment. But, is it really so Ramadhir?? Has not Bollywood given us anything worthy??

Look at the poster above, it is the famous film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, we read it fluently don’t we??

That’s what Bollywood has been promoting since its inception. An all new Indian script called Romanaagarii Script. For those who didn’t get me yet, it is a kind of hindi/native language written in Roman script. Eg : Samajh me aya??

I had always conversed in Hinglish/Benglish scripts since I started texting short messages back in school. It used to be kind of an agreed code language between fellow teenager friends. ‘Coded’ coz we didn’t want our parents to read but understand our messages.

Then one day my dad missed one of my calls and replied me with a sms which said “Amra vhalo achi (we are fine). How are you?” Damn!! I was like, how could Dad write like that? It felt as if the generation gap had narrowed by more than a kilometer :D

Recently I came across an article in The Telegraph which reported about this strange new language evolving in India; or as we call it… Youngistaan!!! It was a totally technical report on how this language is more tough to ‘decode’ and consumes more brain functionality than regular scripted Hindi or English. Hence, I did my regular Google search.  

Indeed, a professor Virendra Pal Singh by name is working on a Romanaagrii script based on English (Roman), Devanagari script and ASCII, which is another created script for programming. Virendra knows Hindi, Sanskrit, Gujrati, Punjabi, English, Arabic, French and Spanish and is a master of computer science from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

He has developed a concept of Simple, Alphabetic and Rational Approach to Literacy (SARAL) and innovated SARAL fonts for writing several languages.

So, this code language of our teenage is official now. Mr. Virendra’s website infact promises a 9 lesson tutorial of Romanagarii writing.

No doubt this new style of writing one’s native language in English script is a mass phenomenon among the young Indians who memorized English alphabets long before they understood it came from England; and grew up with the digital revolution. IMs, SMSs, Facebook posts, tweets, everywhere Hindi and other local languages are being fluently used in English scripts.

But, this thing has a drawback too; it becomes cumbersome when the message is too long. It is best for short messages.

As languages like Bengali, Asomese, Oriya, all evolved separately from the same Devanagari script, the day aint far when a new nation called Youngistaan will emerge with a new global language called Romanaagarii.  

And if so, we will again find it easier to read The Bhagavad Gita like this… ;-)

Jo Hua Hai, Accha Hua Hai,

Jo Ho Raha Hai, Accha Ho Raha Hai.

Jo Hone Wala Hai, Accha Hi Hoga.

Tumhara Kya Kho Gaya Hai – Jo Tum Ro Rahe Ho?

Tum Kya Leke Aye The – Jo Tumhara Kho Gaya?

Kya Tumne Wo Shristhi Kiya Tha – Jo Ab Nahi Hai?

Tumne Jo Liya Hai, Yahi Se Liya Hai.

Jo Diya Hai, Yahi Pe Diya Hai.

Aaj Jo Tumhara Hai,

Kal Wo Kisi Aur Ka Tha

Parso Kisi Aur Ka Ho Jayega

Pariwartan Hi Iss Sansar Ka Dharm Hai.  

Yeh Dil Maange More ?? Visit : www.saralhindi.com.