I've already talked about the legacies of Arab and Persian cultures on desi culture, and though I'm not covering this in great detail like you would expect someone writing a book on the whole array of influences, I like to show some more of the interconnectedness of these cultures in some aesthetic light, particularly the Persian connection. Sometimes it amazes me to see how deeply Urdu derives from Farsi (Persian), with everyday words borrowed from Farsi used so often that we forget where they come from. But I really shouldn't be so surprised, as it is that Farsi was the language of the Mughal courts, and people with any type of status were supposed to be able to quote Persian poetry, especially in the courts of the Mughals. Not only that, but Urdu was born out of Farsi influences mixing with local desi languages, notably in Lucknow (which is a far ways away today from the post-Partition official residence of Urdu, in Pakistan). So Urdu speakers today use words borrowed from Farsi such as chashm, buzarg, gul, janaab, fizaa, behtar, bahaar, jang, khush, mehman, nawaaz, etc. In addition, the structure of Farsi grammar is similar to Urdu with some differences, such as placement of prepositions, but the sentence structure is still the same: subject-object-verb, which is a far cry from how Arabic structures itself (sentence structure of verb-subject-object, no definite markings of possession, complicated word structures based on the order of consonants and placement of vowels (the structure H-f-D ( ح - ف - ظ) meaning to "to protect" so: muHaafiD م ح ا ف ظ (guardian), HifaaDah ح ف ا ظ ة (protection), maHfuuD م ح ف و ظ (protected), etc)). In poetry, the Persians thought of beauty as symmetry, which is reflected in the quatrain styles of poetry (think of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which was in the quatrain (ruba'iyat) form), as well as in the charbaagh style of decoration, reflected in the layout of the gardens surrounding the Taj Mahal. In music, there is so much that has been brought over to Hindustan that has been mixed in with desi influences, particularly instruments such as the dafli (round frame drum), and the santur (zither). Mixed in with some Afghani influences, we also have the dhol (a type of drum used a lot in Panjabi music), the rabab (Afghan lute), and others. If you can understand Urdu, and you need some audio-visual proof of Persian influences on desi culture, watch the video below. This is actually an Afghani video, but it is in Farsi (as opposed to Pashto), and if you listen to the words, even if you don't understand it completely, you can pick out the words we share in Urdu.
