SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, Mar 5: The city celebrated its move back to normalcy on Saturday with the beginning of the two-day Tata Steel Jharkhand Literary Meet. Notably, it has been two years since February 2020 when the city witnessed the last physical on the ground event. The festival returned after a gap of two years to Audrey House, on March 5 and will continue on March 6. India’s significant biographers in recent times and a host of poets, novelists and men and women from the arts are to converge at the Jharkhand Literary Meet (JLM).
The festival began with Jharkhand’s revered poet Mahadev Toppo inaugurating the festival alongside popular novelist and columnist Gurcharan Das, who was present on the occasion virtually. Thereafter a variety of programmes, featuring popular stand-up Abhijit Ganguly, the launch of Kunal Basu’s new novel, a session on cricket and cricket writing with former cricketer Kirti Azad and veteran journalist Pradeep Magazine, and eminent biographer/Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh’s book on Buddhism’s journey across the world through a poem are to be conducted.
During the inauguration, Toppo said, “With changing technology, readers of literature have increased despite the dip in sales of books. The changes brought on by technology have also changed how people think and work. As society changes, people evolve but still connect with literature.” Stating that even adivasi literature is worth understanding and getting to know, Toppo said that literature helps fill all kinds of gaps amid people of different cultures.
After the inauguration, a session with Mahadev Toppo, eminent writer and poet Chandramohan Kisku and renowned litterateur Pramod Jha was organized that was conducted by Vinay Bhushan. The conversation for the session was based on and around Toppo’s collection of poems named ‘Jangal Pahad Ke Path’.
Notably, the book describes in Toppo’s words, his emotions and thoughts on the issues in the society. The poems not only describe nature but express every sphere of life. They talk of anger amid people over issues and raise questions over them.
Tata Steel’s Vice-President Corporate Services Chanakya Chaudhary on the occasion said, “We are delighted to resume our literary journey after such challenging times. Tata Steel is excited to return to Ranchi with the 4th edition of the Jharkhand Literary Meet. The line-up is a sparkling one and ranges from pure literature to popular books and from classical arts to stand-up. There is a flavour of local tastes as well as a reflection of the city’s curiosity about what’s happening in the literary world.”
Festival director Malavika Banerjee said, “One of the unique features of our literature festival in Ranchi is that we can programme in many languages. There is Hindi and English, but alongside these, there is Santhali, Nagpuri, Khalifa, Bengali and a bit of Urdu as well. It is to Ranchi’s credit that we can celebrate all these languages on one platform.”
