The Center for Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad organized a literary meet as a part of its ongoing Silver Jubilee celebrations on Monday, 24th February, 2014 at the school of Humanities Auditorium, UoH. The inaugural session was chaired by Prof. Amitabha Dasgupta, Dean, School of Humanities. Introduction was given by Bivitha Easo, PhD scholar CCL, Prof. M.T Ansari, Director, CCL welcomed the gathering. The event was inaugurated by Prof. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad where he said that we have to cherish our language and literature and a centre like Comparative Literature can take lead in these regard. Abu Saleh, a research scholar in CCL proposed the vote of thanks.
The inaugural session was followed by poetry recitations and short story narrations from eminent poets and writers like Hoshang Merchant, Jameela Nishat, Sachidanand Chaturvedi and Tummala Ramakrishna in the first session, chaired by Prof. Shashi Mudiraj. While Hoshang Merchant in his most endearing manner read out some of his intense poems in English, Jameela Nishat graced the occasion by reciting her brilliant Urdu Nazams. Chaturvedi and Ramakrishna on the other hand engaged the audience with their narratives in their native bhashas- Hindi and Telugu.
The second session chaired by Prof. R. S Sarraju was captivating and hosted poets from Telugu, Urdu, Hindi and English. Sikhamani Sanjiva Rao, Muzaffar Ali Shahmiri, Harjinder Singh (Laltu) and Sridala Swami were the participants. The universal human expressions were talked about and at the same time the potency of universality of human expressions was questioned. Other debates like what gets translated and what does not, in English, the language of power was also touched upon. Amidst such debates poets like Laltu also proclaimed their political stance of writing in an Indian language.
The third session was chaired by Prof. Alladi Uma. The session had poets and writers in Telugu, English and Urdu like Volga, Subhadra Joopaka, M. Sridhar and Huma Kidwai. The fourth session was chaired by Dr. Usha Raman and comprised of notable writers and poets like Parma Shri Mujtaba Hussain, Khaleed Saeed, SKY Baba and Gogu Shyamala. The last session chaired by Prof. Mohan G. Ramanan, former Dean of School of Humanities was the most significant as it had the students reading out some of their poems and writings.
By Abu Saleh, Research Scholar in CCL