Our guest on The Wire Talks is Ashok Vajpeyi, a Hindi-language poet, essayist,, who published over 20 books of poetries. A Sahitya Akademi Award winner; he was the former chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi India's National Academy of Arts, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, 2008–2011. In this episode of The Wire Talks in conversation with our host Sidharth Bhatia, he spoke the Hindi language, and the challenges and victories of this language. He says, “Hindi is one of the most hospitable languages.” When asked if there is a readership when popular South Indian languages are translated into Hindi, he claims the readership in Hindi is limited. The Hindi literary world’s reaction to Geetanjali Shree’s victory, he mentions it was welcoming, but the negative reviews did exist. In addition to it, he shared about the challenges faced by beyond the borders created novel in the country, as government creates unavoidable hurdles. He speaks about being in favour of the Education Minister who recently gave a statement that there is no national language in India, which is a pluralist country. He feels the government should give equal opportunity to the regional languages as it gives to English. He added, “Language is more ancient than state,” says Ashok Vajpeyi. Listen to his opinions in this fresh episode of The Wire Talks here. Follow Sidharth Bhatia on Twitter and Instagram @bombaywallah and https://instagram.com/bombaywallah You can listen to this show on The Wire's website, the IVM Podcasts website, app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.