Festival of Indian languages

Noted poet, Hindi essayist as well as literary-cultural critic, Ashok Vaypeyi kickstarted the fourth edition of Samanvay, the Indian Languages Festival with an inaugural lecture on 'Literature and our Contemporary Times'
Vajpeyi, pointed out to a class of Indians who are refusing to use these languages as a way of moving ahead, while talking about diminishing Indian languages at the four-day festival, which opened here late last evening.
"According to a report by UNESCO, everyday, a language is dying somewhere. There is new class which has been given birth in India which is pretentious...Their one specialty is that they're continually moving away from their mother tongue," he said.

The creative director of the festival Satyanand Nirupam and Giriraj Kiradoo spoke about 'Bhashantar Deshantar: Translation Transnation' the theme of this year's festival, which focuses on Indian languages which have a transnational presence.
"The theme of this year's festival is an extension of our past three editions. In the last connection we had spoken about connections between languages, this from where we decided to talk about the translation cutting across nations," said Kiradoo, founder-editor of the bilingual journal 'Pratilipi'.
Nirupam said that this year's edition would feature writers from India's close neighbours who have shared a common language for decades.

"We've invited writers from all over the country and this year, we have gone an extra mile and invited writers Bangla, Nepalese and Tamil writers from our neighbouring countries Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka.

"It's heartening to see authors from India and our neighbours sharing the same stage to discuss Bangla, Nepalese and Tamil literature," said Nirupam, editorial director, Rajkamal Prakashan Group.
Tributes to literary giants Khushwant Singh, U R Ananthamurthy, Rajendra Yadav, Nabarun Bhattacharya and Bipan Chandra were paid on day one of the festival.
Excerpts from popular works of the writers were read out to celebrate the legacy they have left in their wake.

The evening ended on a high musical note with Rajasthani folk singer Mir Mukhtiyar Ali enthralling the audiences.
Over the course of four-days, the festival hosted by the India Habitat Centre is set to feature over 90 speakers and performers in 20 languages and dialects across 21 sessions, with focus on Indian languages that have a transnational presence like Bangla, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, English, Hindi, Konkani, Malayalam, Punjabi and Sanskrit.