Sanjiv Saraf, Founder and chairman, Polyplex Corporation
Tell me two songs you can think of,” asks a very soft-spoken Sanjiv Saraf over a call from Dubai. ‘Pal pal dil ke paas’ from Blackmail, and ‘Lag ja gale’ from Woh Kaun Thi, I say.
“You see, the word ‘dil’ is Urdu. In Hindi, it’ll be hriday. In the second song, mulaaqaat is Urdu, haseen raat is also Urdu. Subah is Urdu, shaam is Urdu. You won’t hear songs with Hindi lyrics using hriday, pratahkaal for morning, sandhyakaal for evening instead.” He adds, “Urdu has always been and is our own language.”
For Saraf, 64, Urdu has been at the centre of his attention in the past decade, through Rekhta Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation established by him to help preserve and promote Urdu literature.
(This story appears in the 10 March, 2023 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)