Founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942 to propagate Hindustani (simple Hindi in Devnagri and Urdu in its own script), the historic Hindustani Prachar Sabha near Charni Road railway station conducts a six-month Urdu learning course at its premises. Most of the students are non-Muslim adults seeking knowledge about Urdu mainly to understand its poetry better.”I found the course quite fascinating as it helped me learn the language and encouraged me to learn it more,” says Bollywood lyricist Prashant Shankar Pawar.
Editor of Sabha’s mouthpiece who also teaches Urdu, Shirin Dalvi is happy that her students, most of them non-Muslims, are deeply interested in learning the the language. tnn