Kalinga Literary Festival Reflects National Mood on Love and Global Mood on Nationalism

 

-Mother Language is the start of Literature, paves way for peace and harmony

-Laghu Prem Katha is the new trend in contemporary literature

-Kalinga Lit Fest has reached rural and remote districts of Odisha

Highlights

  1. Kalinga Literary Youth Award conferred upon 30 Promising Poets and Authors from 30 districts of Odisha
  2. Ravish Kumar and his team popularizes Laghu Prem Katha (Laprek), a new literary movement
  3. Piyush Mishra’s session was Entertaining and Inspiring. He read extensively from his new book on Bhagat Singh to a full audience.
  4. The Mystic Kalinga session saw leading young poets of Bhubaneswar Poetry Club reading multilingual poems.

Famous Quotes

Bhalchandra Nemade: Poet is a more creative and clever person than any politician and this is how it should be. (कवि राजनीतिक लोगों से ज्यादा चतुर होता है, हर हाल में होना भी चाहिए).

Kedarnath Singh: Speaking one’s own language is the start of literature and can pave way for peace and harmony (अपनी भाषा में बोलना साहित्य की शुरुआत है और यहीं से शांति आती है)

Ravish Kumar: “My visit to KLF has made me fall in love with Bhubaneswar, Ishq Mein Bhubaneswar Hona”. India is the First country in the world that has “Anti-Romeo squads”

Tarun Vijay: Literature has to change with society, or else it becomes propaganda. I call upon our literary creators to also focus on the life and experience of soldiers. We need literature of the soldiers (sainik sahitya). The literature has to show path to society to solve problems.

Sagar Sarhadi: Internet has taken away cinema from us. People have no patience to watch meaningful films.

 

Bhubaneswar: The second day of Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) saw great discussions, debates and disagreements on issues of love, dance, exclusion and nationalism. The sessions built on the first day’s focus on peace, harmony, lived experience and feminism in literature.

The inauguration session of the second days was graced by leading names like Kedarnath Singh, Tarun Vijay, Ashok Maheswari, Bijayananda Singh and Zameer Uddin Shah. Kalinga Literary Youth Award was conferred upon thirty promising writers of Odisha. These awardees who have been working to promote Odia language, poetry and literature were chosen from 30 different districts of Odisha. This initiative of the KLF was greatly appreciated by Kedarnath Singh and he said that “greatest contribution any literary festivals can make is to encourage the youth to pursue literature”.

After the inauguration there were sessions on Akbar, Indian cinema, short love stories, resurgence of nationalism, exclusion, poetry and popular lyrics. The Mystic Kalinga session saw poets reciting poetry.

The session on Akbar was moderated by Vineet Kumar who hosted the conversation with Shazi Zaman. KLF Director Kamala Kanta Dash who introduced the book located the writing being highly relevant to the understanding of peace and harmony.

The session on Indian cinema was graced by Sagar Sarhadi, Soumendra Padhi, Monedeepa Sahoo, Baqir Shameem, was moderated by Santanu Ganguly. Sagar Sarhadi of the Silsila and Baazar fame rued that films are dying because no one has attention span to watch. He also argued that internet has in a way destroyed quality of movies. The panel contended that films are increasingly required to reflect the grassroots reality as cinemas has transformative role to play.

The session on short love stories was graced by Ravish Kumar, Vineet Kumar and Grindranath Jha. The session was named as Laprek, which is a short name of Laghu Prem Katha, a literary movement started by these panellists in strong support of Shri Satyanand Nirupam and Rajkamal Publications. The entertaining session was full of one liners and witty comments by the panellists. Ravish Kumar read excerpts from his book ‘Ishq Ka Sahar Hona’, Grindranath read from his book ‘Ishq Mein Mati Sona’, Vineet Kumar from ‘Ishq Koi News Nahin’. Ravish Kumar who is the mentor to this movement termed this as the ‘Low Budegt Prem Katha’. Speaking about his first visit to Odisha, Ravish Kumar announced that he has fallen in love with Bhubaneswar. He named his KLF visit as Ishq Mein Bhubaneswar Hona.

The session on Odissi, the way ahead had speakers like Aruna Mohanty, Subas Pani, Meera Das, Ileana Citaristi and the session was moderated by Kedar Mishra. The session had a great discussion on the present and future of Odissi dance and how literature and dance can complement each other

 

The session on nationalism saw great debate and disagreement on the term and use of nationalism. The panel saw Tarun Vijay, Sandeep Mohapatra, Haraprasad Das, Zameer Uddin Shah and Kamala Kanta Dash engaging with the glocal developments in nationalism including that of Trump and Brexit phenomenon. The session was moderated by Suhasini Haider. The sessions on exclusion discussed the space for disadvantaged in literature. Satyananda Nirupam moderated the discussion on exclusion between Ashwini Kumar Pankaj and Manohar Mouli Biswas.

Piyush Mishra’s new book on Bhagat Singh ‘Gagan Damama Bajyo’, was released by renowned poet Kedarnath Singh, publisher Ashok Maheshwari and editor Satyanand Nirupam. Mr. Mishra read out from his book, the book which has brought back focus on legendary Bhagat Singh’s life. Mishra in his own inimitable style. Asking to relook at the human side of the legend who made supreme sacrifice for the nation, he stressed that we need to see his life from a perspective of love as there can be no revolution without love. (हमने भगत सिंह को एक खांचे में बांध दिया है- क्रांति. लेकिन ऐसा करते हुए कभी नहीं सोचा- बिना इश्क के क्रांति भी नहीं होती).

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan who inaugurated the fourth edition of KLF appreciated the approach Kalinga Literary Festival which this year expanded to create Kalinga Art Festival and Mystic Kalinga. Mr. Pr

Comments are closed.