Inspired by what Rekhta has done for

in India, Sohail Abid has set up a platform to digitise works by legendary poets like Bulle Shah and Baba Farid

He was a teen when software engineer Sohail Abid stumbled on a series of beautifully illustrated volumes of Punjabi Sufi poetry in his father’s library at their Islamabad home. These were the works of four legendary Punjabi Sufi poets — Bulle Shah, Shah Hussain , Baba Farid and Sultan Bahu.Abid, a Punjabi whose grandparents lived on the outskirts of Patiala before Partition, recalls being stunned by the richness of these texts. Here was earthiness and elegance fusing with ease in Baba Farid’s ode to simple living: Fareeda rotti meree kaath kee, laavan meree bhukh (My bread is made of wood and hunger is my appetiser).There was a reason why this literature came as a revelation for Abid. “We, in Pakistan, don’t generally see Punjabi in printed form. It is not taught in schools, and rarely written even on signboards. Speaking Punjabi is considered ‘coarse’, the language of the ill-mannered. And here was this poetry, so deep and beautiful,” the 37-year-old says. In a blog, he recalls the word most associated with a Punjabi speaker — pendu (idiot).At home, his parents would speak to each other in Punjabi but in Urdu with the children. But over the years, the fragrance of that poetry remained, and Abid’s fascination for Punjabi grew. He is today something of a digital evangelist for Punjabi in Pakistan and his latest venture — folkpunjab.org — is a platform where he hopes to find a bigger audiences, on both sides of the border.The site is inspired, Abid says, by the success of Rekhta, the Indian digital platform to promote Urdu by archiving, transliterating and translating its poetry for access to all.Just over a month old, folkpunjab has so far curated and digitised the works of 25 poets and the list is set to grow, Abid promises. It is open to all genres of poetry and every kind of poet — 12th century ascetic-poet Baba Farid, leftist and revolutionary Pash as well as feminist poet Anjum Qureshi, among others.On the website, these poems are offered in three scripts: Roman for those who follow Punjabi but know none of its traditional scripts, Shahmukhi written in the same Perso-Arabic Nastaliq script as Urdu, and Gurmukhi, the script used in India. Abid’s plan is to finally offer a dictionary available at a click.Tracing the modern history of Punjabi in Pakistan, Abid points out that after Partition the language suffered in the young country’s quest for a strong national identity and narrative, which was expressed through Urdu. In the ’50s and ’60s speaking or writing in Punjabi was not encouraged because it was thought this would undermine the unifying force of Urdu. This meant that the language and all avenues for its use, music, films, and theatre became untouchable.But people started realising soon that marginalising Punjabi left them with an artificial identity, Abid says. By the ’70s and ’80s, there was rediscovery of Punjabi language and culture. “By the ’90s, this trend was consolidated,” Abid said.The cultural scene around Punjabi is vibrant today, especially in Lahore , says Abid. There are Punjabi poetry reading groups, literary magazines and books in the language, and trailblazing theatre groups like Ajoka have an acclaimed repertoire of Punjabi plays. There are two Punjabi literature festivals, and a streetside celebration of Heer, Waris Shah ’s epic love poem.While Urdu dominates the landscape, technology has made it possible for languages to push beyond politicial and social barriers. Abid’s work does that too.“Every poem is being tagged with the themes, say, rebellion or heartbreak,” he says. “Also, every poem and verse added to the website passes through a system which generates a vocabulary. This will automatically build a dictionary of Punjabi poetry. Each word on a poem page, like at Rekhta, will be clickable bringing instant translation.”