‘Himachal’s Hindi stories echo across India, world’

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 29

The Himalaya Sahitya Sanskriti Manch and Ojas Centre for Art and Leadership Development organised a programme on “Contemporary Hindi literature and its Criticism” at Gaiety Theatre here today.

Dr Hemraj Kaushik’s book “Himachal ki Hindi Kahani ka Vikas evam Analyan” was released on the occasion. Dr Kaushik is instrumental in holding the National Book Fair here.

Delivering the keynote address, Devina Akshayvar said contemporary Hindi literature was incomplete without criticism and research. “The myth that Himachal Pradesh’s Hindi literature has been maintaining a distance from the national critical perspective due to the ignorance of public life and traditional culture of the state is now slowly breaking down, and storytellers like SR Harnot are being discussed at the national and international level,” he opined.

He said objectifying women was injustice to them as they play an important role in saving the environment and preserving the local culture. He lamented the absence of descriptions of famous Hindi poets and storytellers in general knowledge books in Himachal Pradesh which, he said, could not be justified at all.

He said it was unfortunate that poems and stories of the state’s writers were not part of the Hindi curriculum, while stories of Hindi storytellers translated into English were being taught in the curriculum, such as SR Harnot’s “Raining Tree”. “Translation acts as a bridge between different languages. Therefore, there should be a shared discussion on contemporary, chronology, criticism and research,” he said.

Writer Harnot, in his address, said in Himachal Pradesh, critical criticism of literature is not done. “Some writers have started taking pride in considering themselves Prem Chand, Guleri and Shukla. Criticism should be done on the basis of merits and demerits as per literary standards, otherwise justice will not be done to creative literature,” he remarked. Criticism should not be done merely in the praise of writing, but should be done in the literary perspective,” he added.

Rajan Tanwar looked at contemporary Hindi literature and criticism through his research paper, while Sangeeta Kaundal did analysis of the poems of some selected poets in her review of contemporary poems. Virendra Singh raised the topic of challenges related to research and criticism in Hindi literature.

Several writers, including Devendra Kumar Gupta, Jagdish Bali, Om Prakash, Daksh Shukla, Hitendra Sharma, Ajay Vichitrat, Anjali, Ayush, Jagdish Kashyap, Kaushalya Thakur, Asha Shaili and Dr Babita Thakur, participated in the discussion and expressed their views in the context of Hindi literature and criticism of Himachal Pradesh. Information was given about the literature festival organised during the book fair in which children, youth, budding women writers and senior writers expressed their views.

The programme was conducted by Dinesh Sharma.

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