"Regional" languages aren't regional they are national: Gulzar

Eminent lyricist-filmmaker Gulzar feels it is unfair to sideline several languages in the country as "regional" as all of them are national and deserve equal respect.
Gulzar says currently the best work on poetry is coming from North East, a region often ignored by people.
"If any dynamic work is happening in poetry it is in North East. We haven't paid attention there. 'Badi zinda shayari hai jo waha se aa rahi hai' (vibrant poetry is coming out from there).
"Nothing much is happening in the big languages. But a lot is happening in the languages we call 'regional'," Gulzar said.

"There is nothing like regional language, all are our national language. Oriya, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and other such languages are there with us which you can't term 'regional' and sideline. These are all national language."
The "Mirzya" writer was in conversation with diplomat- turned-author Pavan Varma at the seventh edition of 'Tata Literature Live' festival, here.

The 82-year-old writer was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement and Poet Laureate at the festival. Gulzar revealed he is working on a new project called 'A poem A day' where he has translated poems in different Indian languages.
The writer said a lot has changed the way we use several languages today, including English which we have Indianised.

"The way in which English is used here, it doesn't feel like a foreign language anymore. It has become Indianised. We don't write like Pandit Nehru anymore. Today it feels like our language.
"You can't understand the face of Indian poetry by looking or reading a poem in just one language. So through this (his project) it was a learning experience for me too."
Varma said many languages are "academically dying" today. He said people can easily read Urdu poetry, which are being written in Roman scripts.
Gulzar, to this said, Urdu was born here and is still spoken and heard but not read that much.

"Urdu is heard, spoken but not seen much. The problem is, the Urdu script. Urdu, which didn't have a nation earlier, is today the language of a nation called Pakistan. It wasn't the case earlier.
"If we keep our prejudices aside, you'll know Urdu yaha ki paidaish hai. It was born here. The sounds 'th' 'tha' 'da' 'ga' 'da' are neither in Persian nor Arabic. It was taken from the languages here. These sounds in Urdu have come from the dialects here. It began from here," he said.