In olden days, a wedding in a Sindhi home would mean a buzzing neighbourhood. The male clan would deal with the logistics of a wedding, distributing wedding cards, booking tickets for relatives traveling from far and wide, making arrangements for their stay, booking Maharaj or cook/s to cater to family/relatives, friends etc. The female clan (from the family as well as from the neighborhood) on the other hand would take charge of stocking spices, grains, pulses etc. Almost a fortnight before marriage eve, ladies in the family and around would wind up the daily chores and come together to make…
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We are now at the 13th letter of Sindhi alphabet, the AlifBe and the consonant is جهہ as in Jhelum or Jhansi. It is written as ‘Jh‘ in Roman and as झ in Devanagari. Points to note: Some of you who are learning AlifBe with me have asked why the letters appear to be different when used in words as compare to when written individually. Please note that many Sindhi letters are formed differently depending upon their individual position in a word. For instance, just check how جهہ is written varyingly depending on its position in any word. Since this…
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The 12th consonant in Sindhi Alif Be is ڄ, a unique one, because it is used in very few languages, one of it being Sindhi (Saraiki is another language where this is used). In Roman Sindhi it is written as J^ and as ॼ in Devanagari. ڄ is a Voiced (vocal chords vibrate when you utter this) Palatal (middle of the tongue touches hard palate) Implosive ( you breathe in instead of breathing out while uttering this). You can check this link to know how ڄ is pronounced! There are limited number of Sindhi words starting with this letter. Some…
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The 11 th letter/consonant of AlifBe series is ج which is J in Roman Sindhi and ज in Devanagari. J as in Jowar, Japan, Java etc. This consonant belongs to third basic shape group. To know more about the 1st and second shape groups you can check this recap post! My hunt for a Sindhi dish starting with letter J led me to Johar/Jwar Ji tikki and when I was discussing it with Ma and Papa (MIL and FIL) I realised that it is indeed very unique. Not sure about the Zen X generation but Millennial Sindhi kids may nod…
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In my first post of AlifBe series I have mentioned that the 52 letters of Sindhi Alphabet, known as AlifBe or Alaph Ambhu, could be divided into sixteen basic shape groups. A short recap: ا (अ/A) is the only letter in first shape group! ا as in ‘Attack’ or ا as in Atte Ja Ladoon The following 9 letters come under the second basic shape group characterised by a boat shaped base with varying numbers and positions of dots. Also kindly note that different literary authorities follow a slightly different sequence of these letters. ب (ब/B) as in Baby or as…
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Moving alphabetically in AlifBe of Sindhi Food series, we are now at the 9th consonant! Before talking about the AlifBe letter of today or the corresponding dish, let me share some memories with you! In 2011 and 2012 I got some back to back opportunities to meet the celebrity chefs like Chef Vikas Khanna, Chef Kunal Kapoor and Chef Ajay Chopra for various events during, as well as after the MasterChef India season 2. And that’s when I got a chance to meet and interact with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor too. Then there was a Food bloggers’ day celebrated in 2012…
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We are now at the 8th letter in The AlifBe (Sindhi Script) series! AlifBe of Sindhi Food is a series of blog posts where I proceed alphabetically, as per Sindhi Alphabet ( AlifBe) and I share a corresponding Sindhi Vegetarian dish, the name of which starts with the same letter of the ‘alphabet’. So not only we learn a new letter every time, but also the pronunciation of each consonant, recipe of a dish and some interesting facts too. I also share short videos about the formation of each consonant i.e how to write it in Sindhi. And if you…


