Pakistani star Ali Zafar hosted a dinner in honour of Indian legend Javed Akhtar, 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Monday.

Muneeza Hashmi, Adeel Hashmi and Actress Resham also attended the dinner 

Ali Zafar paid tribute to Javed Akhtar, describing him as a loving person.

Earlier, the noted poet, lyricist and scriptwriter showed up at the 7th Faiz Festival in Lahore where Akhtar received a warm welcome.

Apart from his love for the great Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the 78-year-old actor spoke largely about language at the event. 

He said: “Faiz Ahmad Faiz is widely followed and read in India. His works had some magic. They are published and read not just in Urdu, but also in Devnagri. His fans are not limited to Pakistan or India.

 “Some so-called messiahs of language on our side, either it’s for Urdu or some other language, they say remove this particular word because it is not ours. You keep removing, the language will keep getting poorer.

“Script is not language and there are several words that we use in our daily life that are either Turkish, Punjabi, or even Japanese for that matter.

“A language is never made in a day; new words get added to it over the years. Our entire cultural history is in our language. You can’t suffocate a culture by banning words. A man has several identities but the most important one is language. When you cut off from a language, you do so from an entire culture, your identity, and roots.

Several videos made rounds on social media where celebrities spent the evening entertaining the poet with live music and poetry. 

He said he will pay a weeklong visit to Lahore next time.