As part of his visit to the Hindi Urdu Flagship, Bollywood lyricist and script writer Ali Husain Mir sat down with HUF associate director Syed Akbar Hyder and former HUF director Herman van Olphen to discuss his background in Urdu and the state of the language in modern India. The interview should provide good listening comprehension practice for intermediate Hindi-Urdu students.
Mir is the author of Anthems of Resistance, the definitive book on the All India Progressive Writers’ Movement; he is also an acclaimed lyricist and script-writer for Hindi and Urdu films (Iqbal, Dor). Mir’s oeuvre engages issues of religious minorities and secularism in South Asia.
In addition to this interview, Mir also gave a lecture to the HUF community on the evolving role of Urdu in Bollywood cinema. You can watch the Bollywood seminar here.