Chandigarh, Prof. Manjeet Singh,19th Oct :Today, a function was held in the ICSSR Complex, Panjab University, Chandigarh for the release of a book ‘Poetry, Politics and Culture: Essays on Indian Texts and Contexts’ written by Prof. Akshaya Kumar, Department of English.
Initiating the discussion, renowned Hindi critic Namvar Singh said that it is first ever attempt to combine Hindi, Punjabi and English poetry, and weave them together through the subaltern theoretical framework. Quoting Raghubir Sahai’s poetry, he emphasized that politics and poetry has to be kept separate, though every poetry has a subtle political message. Prof. S.S. Noor, Vice President Sahitya Akademi, a renowned Punjabi critic right at the outset congratulated the author of the book for providing a rich shared ground to poetry in different languages. Prof. Noor particularly appreciated the discursive methodology applied by the author to understand the spirit of the poetry in all the three languages and make bridges between them. A chapter on women poetry pointed out that there is a need to address the issues beyond immediate experiences in the lived world. Here Prof. Noor gave the example of such a poetry written by Amrita Pritam. Prof. GJV Prasad of Jwaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi while appreciating the efforts by Dr. Akashaya Kumar commented that the book is ‘wonderful, a great start’ and I congratulate him for his efforts. Indian English Poetry cannot be English, it has to be located in Indian social milieu, said Prof. Prasad. It is here that this book fills the gap between the three different cultural experiences reflected in three respective languages, that is, English, Hindi and Punjabi. From the floor Prof. Shelly Walia, Department of English, Prof. B.S. Brar, Department of Political Science, Dr. Gurmeet Singh, Department of Hindi and Prof. H.S. Mehta participated in the discussion on the book.
Earlier, the welcome address was delivered by Prof. Pushpinder Syal, Department of English. The session was chaired by Prof. N.K. Oberoi, former Professor of English, Panjab University, Chandigarh. The first session ended with the release of the book by Prof. Namvar Singh along with Prof. Randhir Singh and presentation of mementos to the discussants as also to the poets from all the three languages. The function was jointly organized by the Haryana Sahitya Akademi, ICSSR and Routledge India, the publisher of the book
The function concluded with the poetry recitation by Surjit Patar, Manglesh Dabral, Asad Zaidi, Viren Dangwal, Nirupama Dutt and Madan Veera.