I have read the poetry of many foreign countries in the world, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Latin American, etc, as well as the poetry in many Indian languages e.g. Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Kashmiri, etc. I can venture to say that no poetry in the world expresses the voice of the human heart so powerfully, and with such sophistication ( andaaz-e-bayaan ) as Urdu poetry does. In that sense I regard Urdu poetry as the greatest poetry in the world. What a tragedy that there were, and still are, some bigoted, inane people in India who sought to suppress this great language Urdu in the land of its own birth.