Lucknow, June 10: Eminent lyricist, poet and filmmaker Gulzar was felicitated with the Sahitya Shiromani award at the 17th annual Hindi Urdu Sahitya Awards, organised at the Ganna Kisan Sansthan auditorium on Saturday evening. Alongwith Gulzar, several other renowned poets of Hindi and Urdu were also felicitated by the governors of Jharkhand and Haryana, Syed Sibte Razi and AR Kidwai.

Speaking on the occasion, Gulzar said that although people fear that Urdu is dying out, yet the hindi films, which represent the society, use some 80 per cent urdu in their language. “The script may be roman or devnagri, but then, the language is urdu. So the script may be endangered, but certainly not the language,” said Gulzar. Others who were also felicitated on the occasion included Dr Nirmal Darshan, Salim Arif, Dr Virendra Narain Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, Yaad Dehalvi and Dr Arjun Chauhan amongst others.

The felicitation ceremony was followed by a kavi sammelan mushaira, where Dr Darshan won applause for ‘mujhko pehle saza di gayi, phir adalat laya gaya’. Hasan Kazmi presented Gaon laute shaher se toh saadgi achchi lagi, while Dr Rahat Indori recited Janaze par mere likh dena mohabbat karne wala ja raha hai.

Lucknow’s very own Khusbir Singh ‘Shaad’ presented Hawa ke par katarna ab zaruri ho gaya hai, while Bashir Faruqui recited Jin makanon mein shareefon ki rahaish thi kabhi, waqt badla woh dabangon ke thikane nikle.