About

There is a treasure of stories written in Hindi and Urdu, both in India and Pakistan, by well known, lesser known and even unknown authors. Most of these stories are a mirror image of the prevailing circumstances of the people living in the two countries, which comprises of a common South Asian culture.

At a common man’s level, the spoken languages of Hindi and Urdu barely have any difference, except for  10% or even less of  words in sanskritised Hindi or persianised Urdu. The difference in scripts, create a barrier, disabling the Hindi or Urdu readers to read the stories written in the ‘other’ language. However, once that barrier is broken, it becomes fairly simple to realize how easy it is for them to not just understand but enjoy these stories.

In this blog, we attempt to transcribe the stories from Hindi or  Urdu, in the ‘other’ language. The readers would appreciate, there would be barely a handful of words that  need actual translation. Our common geographies, histories and cultural values, will enable readers to realize how common our stories are, across  the Hindi-Urdu divide.

We deliberately chose stories and not poetry, as poetry can still be shared through Mushairas, but stories remain untold.

We request our readers to suggest, if they know of  any short stories in either Hindi or Urdu which should be shared in the other language.

We wish our readers, a happy reading !

For suggestions and feedback, write to us at: musicmyth@gmail.com