Kadambari Ani Lokshahi

When I first read this long essay by Manager Pandey in Pahal, I was deeply impressed by its central ideas and content.

I have not read a great deal of writing in Hindi. By comparison, I have read considerably more in English, a language that is foreign to me. Perhaps this is also a consequence of having lived, in one way or another, within the environment of the English language throughout my life. My education and professional commitments, along with the inherent compulsions associated with them, required me to do so—or perhaps I simply made the most of those circumstances.

Nevertheless, my ability to understand Hindi and to speak and write it at a basic level has remained comparable to what is generally accessible to Marathi speakers.

Over the past six or seven decades, Hindi cinema has taken the Hindi language across India. It has also reached ordinary people in numerous African countries and in countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Despite enduring the subtle but painful experience of being looked down upon and dismissed as inferior by the elite for a long time, commercial Hindi cinema has accomplished a remarkable cultural achievement in the modern era. The fact that the elite have now begun to recognise this contribution is, at least, a matter of some satisfaction.