“She was a very beautiful girl. Everyday from the same station, she would ride the same train as the one I used to take to reach the university. I liked her very much but did not dare talk to her ; I felt as if I was a dumb man before her, never able to speak even a single word and all I could say was through my eyes,” Prof Hiroji Kataoka, a Japanese scholar of Urdu visiting Karachi, was narrating blushingly some interesting events of his life in reply to my question that how he became interested in Urdu.

“I had taken admission to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies to study Urdu but, frankly speaking, it did not interest me much and I even once failed to qualify for the next class, that was my second semester,” said Prof Kataoka, ostensibly combing his grey hair with his fingers but actually trying to recall the events that took place some 38 years back. “Once, lost in my thoughts about the girl, I entered the class. I was a little late and Professor Suzuki Takishi, also known as Japan's Baba-i-Urdu, was taking class.” Here Prof Kataoka elaborated how hard Prof Suzuki Takishi worked to popularise Urdu in Japan and how he compiled a Japanese-Urdu dictionary and how he worked till his last on another dictionary, a gigantic one, but could not finish it, though he had almost reached the final stages of its compilation.

Picking up the thread again, Prof Kataoka said, “That day Prof Takishi was teaching a short story Sufaid Phool, written by Krishan Chandre. The story had striking similarities with mine. It was about a young man who had fallen in love with a girl but since he was dumb, he could never say a single word to express his sentiments before the girl and all he could say was through his eyes and gestures. The class ended but the story had not finished. Out of curiosity, I got hold of a dictionary and with its help read the entire story before the rest of the class did as I just could not wait for the next session. The story had a tragic end but it enabled me to see how Urdu literature related to me and that it did have a universal appeal”. He stopped to look at me and added candidly, laughing all along, “From then on, I became deeply involved in my studies and a student who once failed to clear the exams became a teacher of Urdu at the same university.”

Born in Saitama district of Tokyo in 1941, Prof Kataoka is a frequent visitor to Pakistan and the land and the people do not seem stranger to him. In fact he had stayed in Karachi for his two-year diploma in Urdu from the University of Karachi in the early seventies. Having done his Master's in Urdu from Tokyo, Prof Hiroji Kataoka joined Osaka University in 1974 and taught Urdu language and literature there before joining Daito Bunka University's faculty of international relations in 1986, a prestigious institution where he is serving now as the head of the Urdu department. Here students opting for South Asian studies must learn either Urdu or Hindi and learning the language includes visiting the country where the language is spoken. With groups of such students, Prof Kataoka has visited Pakistan seven times, taking the students to the universities of Karachi and Punjab and other places of academic or historical interest, exposing them to have first-hand experience and inculcating in them the understanding of Pakistani culture and languages.

“During one such visit, I took the students to the historical Rohtas Fort,” he says, recollecting some fond memories of study tours to Pakistan. “One of the students asked me to have his photograph taken against the backdrop of the fort and the beautiful scenery. I took the picture and taking the camera back from me the student said 'Sir, I cannot speak Urdu well. Neither am I a good student, but one day I will show this photograph of mine to my children and they would say, Wow ! Daddy went to Pakistan, so shall we do one day,' and I said to myself 'These are the saplings that I am planting and one day they will turn into fully grown shady trees'. Such feelings make my soul swing.”

But this time around he had a stopover in Karachi on his way to India where he is going to address a number of research seminars. Taking advantage of his stay in Karachi, he is conducting some interviews for a survey which is a part of a huge research project that deals with migration and problems of émigrés.

During his long love affair with Urdu, spread over 40 years, including 34 years of teaching and research, he became increasingly engaged with Urdu. As he is a humble soul and tends to underrate his achievements, one should not take his words about his own works on face value Prof Kataoka has translated 'Dewan-i-Ghalib', Iqbal's 'Baang-i-Dara' and Faiz's almost entire poetry into Japanese in addition to over 60 research papers on the Urdu language, Urdu literature and Pakistani culture.

Talking about the activities organised by the students of Urdu at Daito Bunka University's faculty of international relations, he said “The students organise an Urdu mushaira every year. Ten years ago I floated the idea and since then the annual mushaira has become a tradition. The function is attended by a large number of Pakistanis, too, and people come to Tokyo from places as far as Osaka. It is a great morale booster for our students. Such gatherings are a replica of Pakistani mushairas, with traditional 'wah wah', and give a wonderful opportunity to our students to develop a penchant for Urdu and Pakistani culture.

“The teaching of Urdu in Japan began with the establishment of Tokyo School of Foreign Studies, in 1908,” Prof Kataoka told me when I showed interest in the history of teaching of Urdu in Japan. “In the beginning it was named 'the department of Hindustani language' as the name was in vogue for Urdu in those days. In 1949, the School was upgraded to the status of a university and the department was bifurcated into Urdu and Hindi.

“The interesting thing is that,” he said. “Urdu was introduced to Japan in 1663 when a ship came to Nagasaki from Vietnam. The captain of that ship was a 'Moor', or Muslim. Prof Nagashima has discovered a polyglot of five languages compiled in Nagasaki in the year 1796. The polyglot gives the synonyms of a 'Moorish' language with Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese and Portuguese. That 'Moorish' language is in fact Persian. As many Persian words are included in Urdu, this polyglot becomes the first and oldest reference of Urdu in Japan, though it is difficult to say precisely when Urdu had its first contact with Japan,” says the learned man.

“How do you feel about Urdu and Pakistan after all these long years?” I asked. “During the last 40 years, I have never been detached from Urdu even for a single day. The fact is that Urdu has become a part of my personality. Now it is in my blood with all its tastes and flavours. That's the reason I am very happy when I hear good news from Pakistan, and if it is bad, I am saddened,” he continues with a faraway look in his eyes, “I am a Japanese but I feel that somehow I have not remained Japanese completely. My soul is in Japan and my heart is in Pakistan. What shall I do now when, in the words of Ibn-i-Insha, Ab umr ki naqdi khatm hui? There is only one reply that comes from my heart Urdu, Urdu aur bas Urdu”.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com