Richa Chadha: For India to find its soul, we should revisit our revolutionary Hindi writers” – bollywood

“It is not that Hindi literature hasn’t found a popular space in Indian books or literature. We may feel so because in Delhi and Mumbai, the bookshops mostly have English books but this is an unfortunate side effect of a policy started by the British,” says Richa Chadha, adding that they also wanted us to use forks and knives instead of eating by hands. “They thought they were trying to civilise us but in turn, that has cost us confidence in our culture. I feel that for India to find its soul, we should revisit our core which are our revolutionary Hindi writers,” she shares.

That’s why this Hindi Diwas, Chadha will be promoting Hindi poets and authors on her social media handles. She feels revisiting some of our “revolutionary and amazing writers” from the past, would create curiosity among those who haven’t had the chance to read them and it could also get people interested in what cool stuff has already been written.

“No one is asking people to go and read new books because reading books itself seems like a dying habit. Everyone is on their phone or watching some rubbish on TV. I think it is essential for people who work in the Hindi film industry, especially in front of the camera, to be well-versed in Hindi. I have always believed so and said it many times. In the last 15-20 years, I think there was a trend to dis our own language. People were not able to read the Hindi script, even though most film stars grew up in Mumbai and they have learnt to read and write Marathi, which is a compulsory language in schools. Both Marathi and Hindi have the same Devnagari script.”