By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Guwahati: Ibrahim Ali is the lone warrior in his field. He fights all alone for his love and he will dedicate his life this way. His love is a language, one of the sweetest – Urdu.
He is one of the prime reasons why many students and professionals come to learn Urdu at Guwahati’s Mother Ayesha High School.
Urdu teacher Ibrahim Ali with his students at school.
Urging the parents to make their kids learn Urdu to creating easier ways to teach students attract their minds, he does everything.
Even the head mistress of the school is eager to learn Urdu from him.
“Our school offers Urdu as an elective subject for the students to learn. Besides we have facilities for others to learn the language. We are thankful to Ibrahim sir for his enormous efforts to teach the students. Even I will appear in the exams next time for the Urdu course,” Nazmin Islam told TwoCircles.net.
An Urdu learning programme under National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language under the union ministry of human resource development was started in Mother Ayesha School in 2007. And since then it’s no looking back for Ibrahim Ali.
“We are grateful to the National Council for Urdu language for their initiative to start the programme here. Initially, there were lesser number of students in the centre but gradually the number is increasing. This time so far 39 students have approached to take the course,” Ali said.
Last year 99 percent of the total students have cleared the examination. The students comprise of lawyers, doctors and other professionals.
Ali in his late 50s takes all the pain to teach the students in scientific method to help the students to remember easily. He has even drawn the Urdu alphabets along with the pronunciations in English and Hindi.
“It will help the students of both English and Hindi medium. They will feel like reading Hindi or English only and eventually it will be easier for them to learn Urdu,” he said.
He believes Urdu is one of the sweetest languages and it makes one armed with communication skills to interact with people from other zones.
“The language is so sweet. Most of our veteran and famous lyricists and musicians starting from Gulzar sahab and others, they have used most of it. I often urge the parents to make their kids learn Urdu. The interest has increased over the years,” Ali said.
Besides, there are number of Hindu students who also learn Urdu from Ali. “Come on! Urdu is just a language and religion has nothing to do with it. I don’t teach religious text but the language Urdu. There is a wrong notion among the people regarding that but it’s a language and every one can come and learn it,” he added.
Even before the beginning of the course at Mother Ayesha School, Ali used to teach students at their home. The lack of interest of the students and people in general regarding the language is due to poor quality of the teachers here.
“There are a few Urdu teachers here. Moreover, they are not well equipped with English or Hindi which creates the problem. It has to be taught as an interesting way,” Ali opined.
People from different parts of the region especially from Cacher and Manipur have expressed their willingness to learn the language.
“I would like to be admitted here to learn Urdu. It’s a fantastic language and I would like to avail the facility to learn it from Ali sir,” said Sharfaraz Khan, a journalist.