Reading literature is a solitary activity but to develop a love of literature the culture of a place matters a great deal. And what better sight than a university with young and enthusiastic students browsing books, discussing the relevance of classics and discovering their own literary tastes. This week Aligarh Muslim University’s University Literary and Debating Club organised the fourth edition of AMU LitFest. The distinctive aspect of AMU LitFest is that it is solely organised by young, mostly undergraduate, students of the University. All possible decisions, from drawing the guest list to the topics of different sessions, are taken by students drawn from different faculties. In fact students pursuing different courses of study – arts, sciences, social sciences, engineering, medicine and law – come together to discover their common love for literature and cultural events. It is a quintessentially a university experience where students learn not only from classroom teaching but by doing things.
There was a perfect blend of the political and the poetic at this year’s AMU LitFest. The events included lectures on the shrinking of liberal space in present times and the necessity of speaking by eminent liberal thinkers like Sankarshan Thakur and Apoorvanand. Sociologist Satish Deshpande spoke on the curse of caste in India and Nadim Asrar, not known for mincing words, dwelt on campus politics and AMU’s not too enviable record at it. Other interesting events focused on the actual experience of literature, Hindi, English and Urdu. Neelesh Misra cast a spell on a big audience in Kennedy Auditorium by his inimitable storytelling while Chandrahas Choudhury’s reading of an interesting excerpt from his novel Clouds was also well received. In another session Impresario Asia, a group of young literature enthusiasts, created magic by their impeccable reading of the letters of Ghalib and Faiz.
It was the panels on very interesting topics and the questions asked by students of the panellists which were the highlights of the festival. There was an interesting panel discussion on the question of populism in the age of conspicuous consumption. In another discussion there was a very animated debate on whether literature imitates life or life imitates literature.
It was really refreshing to see a thought-provoking discussion on the present and future prospects of Urdu, a language which faces government apathy in the country of its birth. Sanjeev Saraf, founder of Rekhta Foundation which has popularised Urdu internationally in a very short period, was very optimistic about the future of Urdu in the country. Both Saraf and Khalid Alvi, the other panellist, were of the view that there is a phenomenal growth of readers reading Urdu in Devanagari script and a good number is also trying to learn the Urdu script. As if to vindicate the enthusiasm of the two learned speakers, Urdu poetry became a big draw at the LitFest with many young poets from the University reciting their poems in elegant Urdu.
Another panel, probably the first of its kind at any literary festival, engaged with ‘disabled literature’. The politics of disability, the representation of disability in literature and the role of language in marginalizing the disabled were very well brought out by Jyothsna Phanijha and Bhoopathi P. Both the panellists, who also read their poetry on the subject of disability, highlighted different forms of discrimination that the disabled people face in India.
What are the gains of a literary festival? Is nuance sacrificed in public discussions? Maybe. Still a festival leaves many ideas in the air. There is no harm if literature is packaged as a fashionable product, especially literature in languages other than English, if it gains new readers. AMU LitFest did that without splurging any obscene money on the event.
It was a pity that many guests, whose names were very warmly advertised by the organisers, decided to skip the event at the last minute, giving the young students many anxious moments. But then is not disappointment also an important theme in literature, especially Urdu poetry?
