We had all gathered in front of the Lahore Press Club, on the foot of the Shimla Hill, and we were Dehaar). We were almost a hundred people – men, women and children who wanted to implement Punjabi as a compulsory course from primary school onwards.
Punjabi is otherwise the tenth most commonly spoken the language on Earth, and it is the third or fourth most spoken language in countries like India and Canada. Nevertheless, it is a dying language because across the diaspora, more and more Punjabis are choosing to speak, read, write and promote Urdu, Hindi, English or French instead of their own mother tongue.
I was sitting in one of the classrooms of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) this weekend. The yellow and green room, with white lights and furniture, reminded me American universities. But after every few minutes, I was in disbelief. The language being spoken in the classroom was Punjabi and we had all gathered for the first International Punjabi Conference. |
| Poet Amarjit Chandan and writer Gurmeet Kaur |
