THE original word we used at home back then was aftar or aftaar and not iftar as is in vogue these days. It was as though the formula that prevented us from addressing our daily dose of news as akhbar and not ikhbar applied to aftar. Aftar. Fulfilling.

In those times of utter bliss where the cholesterol-watching doctors and the army of sincere nutritionists didn’t quite have the presence they have today there were no ‘ifs’ about it. It sounds all the more grand in comparison to its rather modest and softer latter-day alternative, iftari.

Those were the times when the salt would not be passed around at the table unless and until the ‘needy’ agreed to modify nimak to namak in his or her speech as we — a small protective group of us— sought to get our pronunciation right in defiance of the all-corrupting world around us.

It is unclear when aftar became iftar. Or maybe iftari did exist in the free world outside the home that was bound by its own smells, peculiar phrases and exclusive brand of humour. We were quite intent on sticking with aftar derived from the word ‘aftartoo’ in the prayer the faithful say when breaking their fast. It can be said with confidence that this was much before the media channels took over the job of setting our linguistic emphasis right, often doing it in a most arbitrary, almost imperialistic fashion without any upcountry participation.

You will never settle for one pronunciation, and there is no reason why you should actually.

From memory, iftari has been around for far longer than has been aspataal or iskool, the local variants of the original hospital or school, two foreign secular institutions to have survived our campaign for purity, which requires the substitution of these imported words with a set of other foreign sounds and vocabulary.

The new stresses promoted by the brains behind the forever running scrolls on television screens were necessary. Those who owned and knew the language could not withstand the wide-mouthed haspatal or sakool or sacreen as against iskreen or sapprite in place of isprite.

The debate will continue. You will never settle for one pronunciation, and there is no reason why you should actually. However, the ‘I’ sound will likely appear at the beginning of more and more words in the Urdu tickers of English words run on channels as the experts — call them media imperialists when you find them at their most intrusive — down by the sea persist with their voluntary services to a national cause of their choice.

There are other centres, of course, which are forcefully trying to get our verbal expression right, eg schools. Some have been as eager to get the English accent right just as some others have been influenced by the trend of ridding the students of the desi cadence and providing them with a — genuine — Arabic accent.

Indeed, this process, among other things, led to the rehabilitation of some words in their original form. Like Mall (road) which was revived after having earlier been rechristened as ‘Maal’. Or Hall Road which had long been masquerading as ‘Haal’ before being restored by an increasingly English-medium populace.

There are many English inflections that would still sound off to those who have learnt their ABC under the old school teacher in the habit of breaking words into smaller units for clarity. Like ‘photo-graph-er’ who has now been neatly welded into the smooth yet more dramatic photographer. Or the latest crispier version of ‘oppor-tunity’ which has been liberated from the mundane existence it once was reduced to inside our Urdu-medium classrooms.

In times where people here are exposed to so many varied influences these changes are but understandable, our personal acceptance or liking or otherwise for a term notwithstanding. What is a little puzzling is the high intensity with which we greet or oppose certain terms, our response often informed by the frustration that has come to characterise all discussion and debate in this country.

Recently, there was a news item according to which a local cleric in Gujrat — simply an office-bearer of a religion-based organisation — had called for the ultimate punishment for those failing to respect Ramazan, meaning those who were found eating in public during roza hours. The gentleman had been sufficiently upset by those who violate the spirit of the holy month to actually demand death for them. The seriousness of his purpose was clear since the letter in which he asked for the extreme step was reportedly addressed to the top policeman of the area.

The message drew instant criticism from many on the social media, and the commentators appeared keen to use the instance to highlight extremist tendencies. But if the severity of this reaction was valid or understandable how would we explain when the same or similar intensity is on display in our arguments over other, one would imagine, less controversial issues?

For many years now, so many Pakistani minds are locked in debating what is the best spelling — Ramazan, Ramzan, Ramadhan or Ramadan? The crucial question has been whether those who called it sawm were more likely to be placed amongst the company of the pure as opposed to those content with keeping the old roza.

Seriously? Does the matter dictate an argument as intense and full of anger and, indeed, acrimonious as the one that has been unfolding without end here for so many years now? Or is it a kind of escape in itself, the current heated debate — more a protest and a lament than anything else — keeping us away and secure from other, more pertinent, questions?

It does not take a genius to realise that these stresses result from our exposure to the purer versions of the faithful we have had an opportunity to mingle with over the last half a century. It is an import that makes us feel genuine. The loudness, both for and against, is purely ours.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017