Hyderabadi Literary Fest begins

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad’s tryst with arts and culture continues. This time, it is the pen that promises to claim the honours with regional and national writers converging on the serene Taramati Baradari cultural centre here on Monday for the second edition of the Hyderabad Literary Festival. The fest, a multilingual one, will see Telugu, Hindi and Urdu writings getting considerable space alongside celebrated works in English.The aim remains to promote regional works as much as English, and this was made clear in the inaugural address by Pawan K Varma, Indian Ambassador to Bhutan, who has authored a series of books on contemporary India.“Language is not merely a means of communication. It is a window to your culture, to the identity of who you are. Without language a person is rootless.Literary fests such as this should actively promote regional writers too and not just English,” said Varma.Noted lyricist Gulzar, who graced the occasion, spoke of how English had today resulted in alienating different sections of the society and the need to undo it by returning to our culture and the writings that characterised them. Secretary, Department of Tourism, Chandana Khan, who was also present at the inaugural, echoed their views.Germany has been selected as the Featured Nation at this festival, which is being jointly organised by Muse India, an e-journal and the State Tourism Department.The three-day event is being supported by the German Centre (Goethe Zentrum), apa r t f rom Al l i anc e Francaise, the Osmania University Centre for International Programmes and The New Indian Express among others.There was a sizeable presence of Telugu writers too at the event.Muse India gave away awards in two categories. The Young Writer Award 2011 for Poetry was given to Anindita Sengupta’s City of Water, Sahitya Akademi, 2010, and the Translation Award 2011 was given to Ranjit Hoskote for his translation of I,Lalla, The Poems of Lal Ded, Penguin, 2011.Pawan Varma’s first fictional work, When Loss is Gain, was also launched at a function in the evening.