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Indian Languages in focus at ‘Samanvay’

Edition five of the IHC Indian Language Festival ‘Samanvay’ will begin here in November 26 with a unique dialogue of the country’s languages with a focus on Tamil, Bangla, Marathi and Dogri.

The four-day festival features a line-up that includes Booker nominated author Jeet Thayil, feminist Urvashi Butalia, professor Ayesha Kidwai, art critic Sadanand Menon, cartoonist E P Unny, translator Arunava Sinha, poet Sachin Ketkar and historian <g data-gr-id="35">A R</g> Venkatachalapathy among others.

The festival’s main theme for 2015 is “Insider/Outsider: Writing India’s Dreams and Realities” and would open with the well-known thinker, Prof Aijaz Ahmad presentation about “The Languages of a Union”.

“The languages that will be explored in detail at Samanvay 2015 are Tamil, Bangla, Marathi and Dogri,” organisers said in a statement.

A session has been planned to pay tributes to the late cartoonist R K Laxman with cartoonist Unny, Krishna Prasad, and cartoon researcher and writer, Christel Devadawson.

The second day of ‘Samanvay’ would focus on a thematic exploration of ‘Insider/Outsider’ in the contemporary socio-political and cultural context of India. Day 3 would feature sessions on the focal languages of Samanvay <g data-gr-id="28">2015,</g> while Day 4 will attempt to expand the theme with the futuristic vision which the festival embodies. Various workshops, volunteer sessions, conversations, book exhibitions and performances will also be an integral part of Samanvay 2015. .

According to Rakesh Kacker, Festival Director, Samanvay, “In an increasingly globalised world the alienation that writers often face for their lingual and cultural choices is now a much-hackneyed subject in the area of literary discourse. 

At Samanvay, we invite you to partake in discussions that would take this conversation one step forward.” Elaborating further, Rizio Yohannan Raj, creative director of the festival says, “Through multiple verbal as well as <g data-gr-id="33">transverbal</g> media, and various modes of translation, Samanvay interprets Indian languages beyond word-limits and explores socio-historical connections among the idioms of literature, visual arts, music, performance.” 

Conceived as an annual celebration of writing in Indian languages, the festival aims at generating dialogue across them and according to organizers has emerged as the only literature festival dedicated exclusively to Indian languages.
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