Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Playwright, poet and critic Nand Kishore Acharya said we all were inheritors of a multifaceted heritage and every language had a rich literary heritage of its own.
“Vedic period literature, from Mahabharata to contemporary literature, is our heritage. As important as Vyas and Kalidas are for us, equally important are Ashvaghosha,” he added.
Acharya was speaking on Literary Heritage of India at Ravindra Convention Centre in the city on Saturday – the third day of four-day international literature festival Unmesha organised by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, in association with MP Culture Department.
Poets from different countries recited poems at a session on Poetry Sans Borders, which was presided over by Anne Tannum (Ireland). She said a poem was like a vehicle, which could be moved across borders. “We all have borders in our life, which cannot be crossed,” she said.
She shared her thoughts through her poem, Cycling in Chennai. Bhuchung D Sonam (Tibet), Dhunpal Raj Heeramum (Mauritius), Badri Narayan (India), Ibrahim Waheed (Maldives), Tanure Ojaide (Nigeria) and Sudeep Sen (India) presented their compositions.
Heeramum recited poems in Hindi on fast food, Covid time, a tale for children from parents. Ibrahim recited a poem he wrote 45 years back. Sudeep talked about his book Anthropocene and poems called setting his home in Delhi.
Besides, 134 litterateurs discussed Storytelling Traditions in India, Promoting Indian Language Literature in Foreign Languages, Role of Journalism in India’s Independence, Poetry Readings on India @75, Fantasy & Science fiction, The Saga of Indian Folklore, Contemporary Literary Trends etc.
The speakers included Raghuveer Chowdhary, Badri Narayan, Harish Trivedi, Arun Kamal, Damodar Mavjo, Kesari Lal Verma, Ram Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharya, Tapan Bandopadhyay, Veena Thakur, Yashodhara Mishra and Sadhna Shankar.
