Episode no.72
This interview with writer and poet Mukesh Alam was published on 2 September 2022. A book of his was also published some time ago. Talking about the alteration of words while doing this translation, Mukesh Alam said that of course you respect your mother tongue but you should not disrespect the other language. Talking about the Punjabi alphabet, he discussed in detail how nowadays the meanings of words or letters have been changed or some letters are not preferred or how words are mispronounced. Talking about himself, he said that he studied in English medium and was a medical student and nowadays he is running a medicine shop. Mukesh Alam said that his interest and awareness was towards language from the beginning. After reading many books, he started poetry and then started writing poetry in Urdu as well. He says that reading books like stories, novels, poems and essays are very important to become a writer. He said that nowadays people prefer to sing or write what is accepted by the crowd. He said that when he started poetry, he wrote poems based on five elements like soil, water, air, sky and fire which became popular in Punjab after being published in a magazine. During the interview, he also shared his Punjabi and Urdu poems, ghazals and shayari with the audience. Finally, while sharing an experience, he said that there is more awareness about Urdu in villages than in cities.
~kulwinder kaur bajwa