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Conduct of Literary Festivals in India!
Literature festivals are galore now a days. Every city is organizing a national or international literary festival religiously every year. Jaipur literary festival is most famous of Indian literary festivals. Hyderabad, Chennai (conducted by The Hindu) and others, Bangalore like many cities are posting their places in the literary festival map of India.
Many organizers are congratulating themselves when the celebrity authors, poets, novelists and the like creators have accepted their invitation to be part of the festival and grace the festival with their presence and exchange ideas to benefit other delegates and also the children to imbibe literary spirit in them.
Thus many literary festivals are ending up re-advertising the already "famous" litterateurs. And just as current literary creativity is beneficial to the creators more in the form of money, name and fame, and less to readers, the festivals are also conducted in the same spirit
And always the debate goes on, which work is good and which is not. Opinions are diverse and differ in this regard. All of us as readers, critics, authors, poets and the like creators have our own ideology and liking. And all our deliberations will be guided by our limited and biased impressions.
Literary appreciation has became democratic in the sense of the praise of majority individuals constituting the readers, critics, creators etc., Literary appreciation is rarely unbiased. It is not confined to judge the literary merit but only the ideology or isms it preaches or contains is given preference and importance. Thus, as for 60 years, Telugu literary scene is ruled by leftist ideology and no other genre is allowed to flourish under the hawk eyes of hardcore ideology-infested critics and poets, present Indian literary scene seems similar. Any other form of creativity inspired by other ideologies or cultures are condemned sans courtesy or civilization, leave alone sensitivity or sensibility. Love poetry is the most suffered genre during this dark period of Telugu literature.
Similar black clouds are hovering on Indian literary scene now. Western influence in the form of ideologies, cultures, isms and opinions is dominating Indian literary creativity and criticism. Ancient Indian genres which gave theories of language acquisition and communication to various literary subtleties like qualities of kaavyas, alamkaaras, dhwani, etc., are completely ignored during these deliberations. All speakers and participants feel elite and modern and many times do not even remember ancient Indian contribution to literature and many related genres.
In India like other fields, which is Indian is neither known nor remembered also during literary gatherings.
This is not a healthy state of affairs. All literature, current or ancient shall have to get its reference and importance if aesthetic exchanges are to take place and also to enjoy and define various literary genres. Classifications and appreciations can also take place making use of wealth of ancient Indian literature and literary aspects.
Wish literary festivals which give importance to ancient Indian literature and literary aspects will also be conducted in India.
17-Jan-2014
More by :
Dr. Varanasi Ramabrahmam
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