The inaugural address of Karan Singh,Rajya Sabha member and President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) at the Chandigarh Festival of Letters 2011 left nobody in the audience in any doubt as to why he is referred to as Indias poet,philosopher and politician. In a free-ranging talk,Dr Singh held forth on the importance of literary and linguistic evolution and referred to English as just another Indian language contributing equally to the richness of the Indian ethos. We have to preserve our literature and culture no matter what happens, he stressed. The keynote address on Language issues in India was delivered by Manushi Founder-Editor Madhu Kishwar at a session chaired by Prof Meera Mullick,who was formerly with the Department of English and Cultural Studies,Panjab University. Kishwar rued the fact that English has become our language of intimacy even though it is a language that a majority of Indians are not comfortable with. She stressed the necessity of communication skills that enhance rather than detract from the importance of ideas. The first day also saw sessions on creative writing and book readings by upcoming novelists Manjul Bajaj and Amandeep Sandhu,with former Chairperson CSA Prof Mehndiratta in the chair. Bajaj read out excerpts from her stories and poems ranging from the horror of honour killing to being stoned for adultery or being killed for going against the system. Sandhu confronted the ghosts and fears of the 1984 riots in his book titled Role of Honour. He also read out excerpts from his largely autobiographical first book Sepia-coloured Leaves. The Festival has been organised by the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi (CSA) in collaboration with Panjab University (PU). CSA Chairperson Prof Manju Jaidka said that as this is the centenary year of three stalwarts of Hindi writing,the second day of the Festival will primarily focus on Agyeya,Nagarjuna and Shamsher Bahadur through discourses by eminent academicians like Professors Nand Kishore Acharya and Lal Chand Gupt Mangal,as well as through paper presentations by PU dons. The second day will also see PU Vice-Chancellor Prof R C Sobti launch Four Centuries of Sikh Literature,penned by eminent historian Prof J S Grewal.
