NARRATIVE REPORT
FOR THE SAHITYA AKADEMI-OPEN SPACE
LITERARY SEMINAR-CUM-UTSAV
THE IMAGE OF THE WRITER IN LITERATURE
PUNE, FEB 11TH AND 12TH, 2007

The two-day literary seminar cum utsav in Pune on February 11 and 12, 2007, explored the image of the writer in literature and the role and social responsibility of the writer in modern times. The seminar was jointly organized by Sahitya Akademi and Open Space, the civil society outreach initiative of the Centre for Communication and Development Studies.

The event was organised by Priya Sarukkai Chabria, poet, novelist and writer, who edits the Talking Poetry micro-site on <openspaceindia.org> The micro-site has been running for about 12 months now and has poems donated by major Indian poets and contributions from younger voices and poets from outside the country as well.

Collaborating with the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, for this literary-seminar-cum-utsav was the culmination of two-and-a-half years of sustained literary activity for Open Space. Open Space has been running literary sessions since May 2004 with readings, discussion groups and poetry appreciation programmes. We have also published two anthologies of poems from the poetry section of our website.

The seminar was designed such that there were papers and presentations by scholars and writers in the morning, followed by readings by poets in the evenings. The morning sessions (two of about 70 minutes each on each day) combined personal perspectives and experience with more academic positions on the image of the writer. Each session ended with an open discussion between audience and panelists. Evening sessions (about 2 hours each day) presented the works of the writers and interaction between readers and writers.

The evening sessions were also the occasion to launch new books. The first evening session started with the launch of the new Open Space poetry anthology Fifty Poets, Fifty Poems and the second evening saw the launch of three volumes of the Sahitya Akademi’s new series on contemporary Indian plays in English.

The invited panelists and writers were a judicious mix of local people and those from other parts of the country, including two writers from the north-east. Papers presented by invited panelists and writers included:

Day 1: Morning session:
The Writer and Subversive Narratives
Chair:   GJV Prasad

‘Inside out, narrators in the Indian epics’ by Dr Arshia Sattar, Sanskrit scholar and translator
Arshia Sattar has a PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Her translations of the Sanskrit Kathasaritsagara and Valmiki Ramayana have been published by Penguin. She teaches courses on classical Indian literatures for various American universities and has recently begun teaching traditional narratives for screenwriting programmes. She is a Programme Consultant for arts and culture at Open Space.

‘Myth, Memory and Meaning’ by Mamang Dai
Mamang Dai is a journalist who has written for The Sentinel and The Telegraph and is currently writing for the Hindustan Times. A former member of the Indian Administrative Service, she left the service to pursue a career in writing, traveled extensively and has numerous articles, poems and short stories published in various journals. She is the author of Arunachal Pradesh – The Hidden Land and the recipient of the state’s first annual Verrier Elwin Award, 2003 for the book. Her first collection of poems River Poems has drawn much critical acclaim.

‘The poet as subverter’ by Keki Daruwalla
Keki Daruwalla is a leading figure in Indian poetry in English today and a mentor to a new generation of poets in India. He is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1984) and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1987) for Asia. He published his first collection of poetry, Under Orion, in 1970 and now has nine collections of poetry to his name. Keki Daruwalla’s collected poems were published by Penguin in 2006, as well as a travelogue, Riding the Himalayas. Keki Daruwalla has published three collections of short stories, the most recent being A House in Ranikhet.

Day 1: Morning session
The Writer and Personae
Chair:   Arshia Sattar

‘Women’s writing: A publisher's viewpoint’ by Urvashi Butalia
Urvashi Butalia is a feminist and a historian whose areas of research are Partition and oral histories. She was the Director and co-founder of Kali for Women, India’s first feminist publishing house. She now runs Zubaan, a press which focuses on women’s writing. Her own publications include the highly-acclaimed The Other Side of Silence ; Voices from the Partition of India and Speaking Peace; Women’s voices from Kashmir. Zubaanhas recently published her translation of Baby Haldar’s A Life Less Ordinary. Zubaan is an imprint of Kali.

‘Image of the writer in literature’ by Temsula Ao
Temsula Ao is Professor of English and Dean, School of Humanities and Education, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. She has also been Director, North East Zone Cultural Centre, Dimapur. She has published four books of poems, a book on Henry James as well as The Ao-Naga Oral Tradition. Her entry, 'Folklore of Nagaland' has been published in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife. Her most recent publication is a book of short stories called These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone (Zubaan-Penguin, 2006). She has contributed a number of articles on different aspects of Naga culture to various journals and her poems are represented in several anthologies.

‘Personae pursued in solitude’ by Priya Sarukkai Chabria
Priya Sarukkai Chabria is the editor of Talking Poetry on the website <openspaceindia.org> She is a poet and novelist. Her first novel, The Other Garden (1995) was published by Rupa & Co, and her new novel Or Else... is forthcoming from Zubaan (2007). Her collection of poems, Dialogue and Other Poems (2005) was published by the Sahitya Akademi. Her other published works appear in Adelphiana, Alphabet City, Atlas, L.A.B., Quarterly, South Asian Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Voices from the East and are archived at various sites.

Day 1: Evening session 
Launch of Open Spaces: Fifty Poets, Fifty Poems anthology followed by readings by anthology poets
Open Space launched its new anthology of poetry Open Spaces: Fifty Poets, Fifty Poems edited by Priya Sarukkai Chabria.
Poets represented in the anthology read their works at the launch.

Baby Halder in conversation with Urvashi Butalia

Day 2: Morning session
The Writer and the Modern World
Chair:   Keki N Daruwalla        

‘Real or absurd – The lines are blurred’ by Anju Makhija
Anju Makhija is a poet, playwright and translator. Her works include View from the Web a book of poems; All Together, a multi-media production that won an award at the National Educational Film Festival, California (’86). She has co-translated an anthology of partition poetry, Freedom & Fissures. Her plays include If Wishes Were Horses, The Last Train and Unspoken Dialogs. She won the first prize in the All India Poetry Competition organized by the British Council and the Poetry Society of India (’95). She also won the BBC World Poetry Award (’02). Her translation of 16th century Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif, Seeking the Beloved was recently published by Katha.

‘Leaving Babel At The Gates: Writers, Personas And Cyberspace’ by Sridala Swami
Sridala Swami, a film editor from FTII, Pune, has edited documentaries, short features and commercials. She has worked with the publishing house Katha, taught cinema and yoga and conducted film appreciation workshops. Her poetry has been published in the online journals, Nthposition,  Museindia, and in Chandrabhaga. Her first collection of poems, A Reluctant Survivor, is forthcoming from the Sahitya Akademi. Three books for children, Phani’s Funny Chappals, Kabadiwala and What Shall We Do For A Cradle? are due from Pratham in 2007.

Day 2: Morning session
The Writer and the Self
Chair:   Urvashi Butalia and Arshia Sattar

‘Writing the Self and the Other” by GJV Prasad
GJV Prasad discusses life and literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He writes fiction as well as poetry. His novel, A Clean Breast, was published (to critical acclaim, including being short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize for First Fiction in the Eurasia Region) in 1993 and his second novel, In the Name of God, is scheduled for publication this year. In Delhi without a Visa, his collection of poems, was published in 1996.        

‘A Way To Belong’ by Randhir Khare
Randhir Khare has published more than a dozen volumes of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and translations including the critically acclaimed The Singing Bow: Song Poems Of The Bhil. He teaches MA Literature at Nowrosjee Wadia College in Pune.

Day 2: Evening session

Launch of 3 volumes of Indian Contemporary Play series in English, edited by Alok Bhalla and Anju Makhija, published by Sahitya Akademi

Sahitya Akademi launched 3 volumes in its new series on contemporary Indian theatre in English, edited by Anju Makhija and Alok Bhalla.
The new volumes, included plays by Ramu Ramanathan, Vikram Kapadia, Ninaz Khodaiji, Cyrus Mistry and Partap Sharma. Readings by Anju Makhija. Keki Daruwalla and Randhir Khare followed.

Audience response to the presentations and the readings was good. Since the 11th was a Sunday, we had a larger audience on that day. The morning sessions saw about 80 people and the evening launch had about 70 people. Monday the 12th saw a smaller audience with about 50 people in the morning and about 35 people in the evening.