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I speak Urdu quite a lot, too, and I read a lot of Persian.

I feel French is very close to Urdu. Both languages are beautiful. Sadly, their beauty is lost in translation.

I can't understand Urdu, Bahasa or Russian, but when the Pakistani Faiz, the Indonesian Rendra and the Russian Rosdentvensky declaim, I can feel the living throb of rhythm and music, the warmth and passion of their poetry, as do the hundreds, not a mere roomful, of poetry lovers in the audience.

I wrote those poems for myself, as a way of being a soldier here in this country. I didn't know the poems would travel. I didn't go to Lebanon until two years ago, but people told me that many Arabs had memorized these poems and translated them into Arabic.

It's hard to write haiku. I write long, silly Indian poems.

There must of course be a relationship between translating and making poems of your own, but what it is I just don't know.

Urdu can not die out because it has very strong roots in Persia. The language itself is not only just the language of the Muslims, but it's also the language of the Hindus.

I am most familiar with the Gujarati language.

A few words of Hindi appear here or there, but it's all Urdu. I feel that if the popular culture, which is what Hindi films are, uses Urdu, it's not going to diminish.

I am for poetry that is admired by peasant and aristocrat alike.