By Hassan Zia Rizvi, TwoCircles.net,
Lucknow: The 2-day literary festival organized by Lucknow Society at Convention Centre of Lucknow made a unique mark.
On the 1st February the festival was inaugurated by Governor of Uttarakhand, Luv Bhargava, Janardan Waghmare and Gopaldas Neeraj.
‘Lucknow observer,’ first interactive news magazine of Lucknow, penned by Shamim Arzoo and Atif Hanif of Lucknow society along with ‘Discovering Lucknow’ was launched by Mukhtarul Amin, Asif Mirza and Governor of Uttarakhand.
The festival had all the recipes of literature and culture with distinct emphasis on all kinds of languages and their literature.
English language books like Bina Ramani’s ‘Bird in a Banyan Tree’, Mini Menon’s ‘Riding the Wave- Seven Leaders of Change’, Nikita Singh’s ’25 Strokes of Kindness, Pranesh Prasad’s ‘A Half-Baked Life,’ among other were released during the festival.
Books of writers like Pornpen Hatrakool from Thailand, Satya Verghese from Bulgaria were also launched.
The launching of Hindi books started with the paper presentation: Hindi and Japan by Ms. Tomoko Kukuchi of Japan. Pankaj Prasun’s ‘Janhit Mein Jari’, Jitendra Singh’s ‘Sahil Taley’, Kamlesh Tripathi and Sujata Tripathi’s ‘Aadab Lucknow’ and Janardhan Waghmare’s ‘Dalit Sahitya Ki Prishtbhumi’ etc. were also launched here.
On 2nd February several Urdu books, namely M J Warsi’s ‘Mithilanchal Urdu’, Jawaid Danish’s ‘Chalis Bab Ek Chor’ Rakshanda Jalil’s ‘New Urdu Writings’, Shafey Kidwai’s ‘Urdu Literarure and Journalism,’ and ‘Exploring Geeta in Urdu Poetry’ by Anwar Jalalpuri, amongst others were launched.
The remarkable events of the festival like Kavi Sammelan and Mushaira sailed into the hearts of audience through the river of known poets like Gulzar Dehelvi, Rahat Indori, Nirmal Darshan, Jawaid Danish, Anwar Jalapuri, Hasan Kazmi, Gopal Das Neeraj and Sehba Ali and others, captivated and amazed the audience of Lucknow that included several delegates from abroad.
Raza Neeam of Pakistan read from his works on Sa’adat Hasan Manto.
A Documentary on Majaz Lucknow, an initiative by Zee Salam in which role of Majaz played by famous actor Danish hussain, was screened. Another documentary on Majaz directed by Arvind Pandey and produced by Anshumali Tandon was also screened as tribute to the poet.
There were also discussions on topics like “Munshi Nawal Kishore- epitiome of Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb of Lucknow,” “Impacts of Social Media on Society,” “Sanskrit-Adhunik Bhartiya Bhasha,” and “Should Women be the Political Heads Everywhere.”
A session on “India’s Invisible Mothers,” in association with the INGO Save the Children was also organized.
Litterateurs, poets, writers and actors like Mahmood Farooqui, Darain Shahidi, Danish Hussain, Shabana Azmi, Roop Rekha Verma, Asgar Wajahat, Nighat Gandhi, Sudeep Nagarkar, Mehru Jafer, Sudhir Kakkar, Mini Menon, Sharib Rudaulvi, Veena Talwar, among others participated in the program.
Besides, a discussion on Bridging US and India relations, was sponsored by SPAN magazine, in which Athar Husain and Sulaiman Akhtar participated.
A disciple of Pandit Birju Maharaj from USA Natalia Hilder performed Kathak Dance on the first day of the festival, while Darain Shahidi (Journalist) and Danish Hussain narrated stories (Dastangoi) on second day.