Gurmukhi is eminently worth saving and presrving

Gurmukhi, which was once a popular language for the common people, has become difficult to understand by modern people.

I have to admit that I am not a fluent reader of Gurmukhi. I have gleaned most of my knowledge of it from listening almost obsessively to Kirtan. I love it more than any other music, especially when it is good, in the classical raagas it was intended to be sung in, and when it moves the soul and spirit.

It is a marriage of meaning, of words, and music.
Nothing is better.

It has helped me swim across what Guru Nanak calls agan saagar (the ocean of fire) that life frequently becomes. I have also listened to it most of my life (got the habit from my parents) to acquaint myself with Gurmukhi and the meaning of the shabads. 

The electronic version of the SGGS is an excellent tool to discover the meanings of the shabads. I would advise all young Sikhs to resort to it. 

It is a sad fact that languages have their own lives: they are born, evolve, fade and die. Just think of authors like Shakespeare or Chaucer who are only read by scholars and academicians now.

But some of our literature and spiritual texts are so valuable, so eternally relevant, contain such a wealth of wisdom, tools and techniques for humankind to live meaningful and rich lives, that the old wine has to be reconstituted and its relevance made apparent.

Efforts to rekindle the language for the younger generations are laudable and to be supported in every way.

Gurmukhi is eminently worth saving and preserving.

There is absolutely nothing like understanding the words of our gurus in the very language they were written in.

They have a depth of feeling and lyricism that no translation, including my own, may attempt to approximate.

We also need interpreters and trans-creators so that such wealth is not lost to future generations.

The ‘gems, rubies, pearls, gold in our minds are made available if we obey even one thing our Guru tells us,’ Guru Nanak says in his Japji. This is what I hope, perhaps vainly, to do with my historical novels with Sikh subjects.

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