The stage is set for all litterateurs, artistes, books and art lovers to come together for the annual literary and cultural jamboree – Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) 2015.
Eminent personalities like Javed Akhtar, Tom Alter and others graced the inaugural event at a star hotel on a pleasant Friday evening. The event, one could say, was flagged off with a wonderful ‘Dastan-E-Chouboli’, an 80-minute ‘Dastangoi’ (art of storytelling) performance by Rana Pratap and Rajesh Kumar, which was directed by noted Urdu litterateur Mahmood Farooqui.
Lyricist Javed Akhtar, who addressed the gathering, said that art and tradition were among the things that were left behind, which had created a huge cultural void. Emphasising the importance of learning one’s mother tongue or regional language, he said, “It is a vehicle that carries culture and identity, and is very important.”
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Talking about Urdu, which is the language in focus at the HLF-2015, Mr. Akhtar mentioned that it was absurd to link any language to religion. “Also, Urdu and Hindi come from the same source, but there is one distinction about the former. In other languages, be it English, or any other, poetry that came initially from them was about religion,” he pointed out.
“But in Urdu, it was always secular and liberal from the beginning. In fact, poets of the 17{+t}{+h}, 18{+t}{+h}and 19{+t}{+h}century have written poetry which would have created ‘hungama’ today,” asserted Mr. Akhtar.
The noted Bollywood scriptwriter-lyricist also said that Urdu was the living proof of the composite history of the nation. Apart from Mr. Akhtar and other personalities, Anna Tryc-Bromley, director, Polish Institute, New Delhi and State Minister for Panchayat Raj and IT, K.T. Rama Rao were also present at the ceremony. The lit fest will be held from 10 a.m. onwards on the sprawling lawns of the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet.
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