December 1-2, 2007

Inaugural Session

The session was chaired by Mr. Dwarika Shrestha,

President, Nepal Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature, Nepal Chapter.

The Chief Guest was Hon. Mr. Pradeep Gyawali, Minister of Culture, Civil Aviation & Tourism.

The Guests of Honour were Dr. Ms. Kheya Bhattacharya, DMC, Embassy of India, Kathmandu, and Ms. Ajeet Cour, President FOSWAL.

The delegates were welcomed by Asso. Prof. Dambar Bir Thapa, Secretary General, Nepal Chapter.

Dr. Thapa spoke of the process of registration of the Nepal Chapter as a wing of FOSWAL in 2006. He added that the writers were now organised as a special registered body and would be organising several other literary activities in the next year which would include publications   as well as poetry reading interactions.

The introductory address was delivered by Dr. Ram Dayal Rakesh. Dr. Rakesh stated that the writers in Nepal were fourtunate to have been provided the opportunity to present their fiction writings in their own respective languages to the eminent fiction writers from India. The conference would provide people having their roots in Bengali, Tamil, Oodiya, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Nepali, Maithili, and Newari cultures  opportunities for communication with each other, which would help to forge intercultural friendships.

Hon. Mr. Pradeep Gyawali, Minister of Culture, Civil Aviation & Tourism, while welcoming the delegates expressed his best wishes for the success of the conference. He stated that “Through fiction people have represented their friends and foes, and more so relived their moments of sorrows. Depicted as folklores in ancient time, fiction emerged along with the renaissance in the new and conscious era as novel and realistic story writing discipline in an innovative mode, and consequently, it played an important role in the democratic revolution to develop new consciousness and produce new actors”.

“Nepal and India since time immemorial are tied with literature and culture. The contemporary fiction writing should on the one hand emphasize swiftness, simplicity and understanding in style and skills, while on the other it should free itself from fantasy or abstractness to be able to explore the peoples tears and pleasures, their dreams and imaginations, ease human relations”.

He concluded by stating that the Conference had been held in a timely manner when Nepal was moving ahead on the road to Peace and Democracy. He added that Nepal had demonstrated to the global community that the people could be united to usher in a movement for peace.

Ms. Ajeet Cour in her Inaugural Address stated that the purpose of the seminar was to use literature as a strategy to cross the shadow lines of the nation, and to forge friendships and connections that go beyond the borders. She stressed that the national languages should not be treated as sacred, single languages, because countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Nepal did have more than one language.

If the idea, she emphasized, was to ‘reach out’ and hold hands intellectually, then there was a need to think more rationally and generously and extend the translations to regional languages too, in each of these countries.  The process may take years, she added, but should be the ultimate dream of all creative people who are endeavouring to initiate interactions among creative writing and intellectual thought in the SAARC Region.

Dr. Ms. Kheya Bhattacharya welcoming the delegates participating in the conference stated that it was an encouraging sight to witness that Indo-Nepal fiction writing was being presented and deliberated upon in a serious manner. In her opinion , such interactions need to be strengthened by both the governments of India and Nepal for creating a better understanding through an increased awareness of each other’s literature.

Mr. Dwarika Shrestha  presented the concluding remarks and the vote of thanks was delivered by Ms. Geeta Keshary.

Session I

The fiction reading session commenced with a reading by Ms. Ajeet Cour from one of her stories. She narrates the story of a peasant named Mangal Singh, who is confronted by a newcomer who arrives at the village – an old man carrying a gathari, a loose overhanging bag, upon his shoulders. Such a sight of a newcomer arriving in the village used to produce curiosity in the past; now, however, it produces only dread. Mangal Singh wonders if the old man’s gathari contains guns and bombs, and becomes terribly suspicious of the identity of the newcomer. Is he a terrorist? Is he a man fleeing the police? Who is he?

As the story unfolds the listeners realize that the old man with gathari is no other than God – or Rab in Punjabi – who is carrying stars, dewdrops, chirrup of birds and laughter of small children in his overhanging bag. “I am feeling so tired and defeated,” the God thus tells Mangal Singh, “People have subdivided the land that I had created by making artificial borders. And now they are beginning to buy and sell the water I made. There is so much pain and unhappiness around. I am trying to save a few things of beauty – stars, laughs, dewdrops and so on – before they are taken away and turned into commodities like everything else.” This is obviously not a realistic story. In real life God does not come to our houses or fields carrying a gathari upon his shoulders. The realistic frame of the narrative, in other words, is transformed by fantasy. At the same time, however, the story presents a powerful political statement and makes a strong critique of greed and violence that has turned many places around the world – whether they are some village of Punjab or Nepal or some marketplace at Iraq or Kosovo – into fields of terror.

Prof. Pushpesh Pant dealt at length with the issue of borders, which he underlined could not divide the hearts and minds of people. He was of the view that when there is a better understanding and awareness of each other’s realities then there is an improved climate for trust, tolerance and friendship.

He spoke of his own experience of how he had come into contact with Nepali culture while growing up in the Gadwal area and reminisced about the way he learnt of various customs and traditions of the people of Nepal.

Session II

The session commenced with a paper presentation by

Dr. Govinda Raj Bhattarai. Govinda Raj Bhattarai’s paper titled “Trends and techniques in modern Nepali fiction,” for example, traced how Nepali fiction began with Girish Ballav Joshi’s Birasikka, and after evolving through the overlapping periods of realism, historical realism, psychological realism, and modernism, has culminated in the current period that might be called postmodern. This latest phase includes practitioners such as Dhruva Chandra Gautam, Krishna Dharawasi, Terakha, and Manoj Babu Mishra among others.

Dr. Bhattarai also spoke of the new directions in translation. He said that , “One of the major trends of Nepali fiction is a change of direction in translation. Every year growing a number of books are being translated especially into English. This has helped to introduce Nepali writing into the wider world.

Translating is a not a one way process in Nepali. Many works of fiction from Hindi and Bengali literature were introduced to Nepali readers through translation. In recent years some important anthologies have been translated from Pakistani as well as Indian literature mostly Hindi.

Women’s writing has become more distinct and powerful, the topics and themes most of the writing is new—they touch upon the marginal people, their culture and political awareness. Electronic culture has started dominating the scene. Many works have started depicting diasporic life and its problems.

Prof. Narmadeshwore Pradhan in the paper titled “THEMES AND TRENDS IN NEPALBHASA FICTION”

focused on trends and techniques of Nepalbhasa fiction. Nepalbhasa belongs to Sino-Tibetan family of languages. It has a long tradition of age and merit. Its written history is more than a thousand years. Its literary history begins from 1518. Prior to it, its written works were Shastras in the fields like medicine, law, history, astrology, rituals and dictionary. They were constructive and written to give lessons and knowledge, not to exercise creative art.

Nepalbhasha is rich both in oral and written narrative prose. It has folk narratives of immemorial past orally transmitted from generation to generation. Tantrakhyan of 1518, is the first written narrative in Nepalbhasa in the style of Panchatantra. The ancient narrative prose is mostly didactic and religious. Some secular narratives are for entertaining purpose. The contents of most narrative prose are not original but borrowed mostly from Sanskrit classics. Some narratives like Swayambhu Purana, Swasthanibratha Katha, Pasupati Purana are original, indigenous and native.

Dr. Pradhan concluded his paper with : Each moment of time is getting more and wider, newer and complex. Only with wider, and newer vision, writers can cope with this time. The writers with old consciousness and with the outworn tools at their disposal can not feel the dynamics of the moving time. The writers should make their horizon broader enough to feel the vastness of each moment. They must create new words, new idioms, new structure, new symbols and new images capable enough to communicate it. A dynamic story writer should know how to defamiliarse a technique that is already familiar and deconstruct the trend that is already habitual. Only then the story writer can keep his story moving on with the time.

Ajeet Cour said she was born in Lahore, and that considers herself half Pakistani due to location of her birth. A number of Nepali writers reiterated similar themes and spoke of their connection to India, some of them – like Banira Giri – were born in India while others had received education in Darjeeling, in Calcutta, in Delhi and in other parts of India.

While some of the border narratives were personal, others were fictional: Himanshu Joshi read a moving story titled “Chasma” representing a letter written by a little boy at Norway to his grandfather in India. Another interesting story which was read during the seminar was titled “No man’s land”: a story about a dead body lying in a no man’s land between India and Nepal.

Mr. Ram Sarup Ankhi’s story “Safed Kaburati” (white pigeon) brought the narratives of madness and borders tied together. As Dr. Uprety writes, “You can call it a moment of illumination, or a moment of epiphany as James Joyce – another writer caught up between the cultural borders of Irish and English literatures – described it once. The people with whom I was rubbing my shoulders were practical people, people having families and social responsibilities; at the same time, however, they had seeds of creative madness within themselves. It was this madness that had led them to create worlds of fiction: they had created villages, houses, lush green fields, dewdrops, men, women and children, and love and death by writing black words upon white pages. Also, it was a madness that had made possible for them to fly across the borders – like the pigeons in Ankhiji’s story – and allowed them to cross the shadow lines of nations and cultures. Neither politicians, nor theoreticians should tell such “mad” birds towards which horizon they should fly; they choose their own horizons and create their own skies.

The paper of Rajendra Vimal presented a study of the evolution of fiction written in Maithili languages. The writings in Maithili fiction included issues of  Gender, Globalisation, National identity as well as representation of the margins. The critical paper of Mr. Vimal focused on the historical and political context of fiction but did not provide an account of the contemporary issues.

The papers presented at the conference the groundwork for further analysis, and opened new vistas that might be followed in future. It would, for example, might be extremely productive to overlay the literary “roadmaps” upon each other, and to see how mutual influences cut across the terrains of Nepali, Nepal Bhasa, Maithili, and Hindi fiction. It would also be interesting to see how historical periods intersect into each other, and how literary fields overlap into each other’s borders, just as cultures do.

Session III

The third session was devoted to reading of Hindi short stories by the eminent delegates from India.

Prof. Asghar Wajahat read his stories : The Spirits of Shah Alam Camp and Sargam Cola.

Dr. Chandrakanta read from her story titled : The Voice.

Mr. Himanshu Joshi read an excerpt from his short story titled : This Time.

Mr. J.P. Das read an excerpt from his short story titled : Community.

Session IV

The Fourth session was devoted to readings of Nepali short stories by eminent Nepali writers.

In addition, a paper on Telugu short story titled TELUGU SHORT STORY : Perceptions, Perspectives and Performance was presented by Prof. Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad.

Modern Short story in Telugu began in the first decade of the 20^th century.

For the last two decades, Telugu short story has been forging ahead with rapid strides. Writers writing a ‘variety’ of regional language have come into deserved prominence. Globalisation, economic reforms also have its impact on Telugu fiction.

Among the many a few could be easily cited readily : besides the already prominent like Naveen, Mudiganti Sujata Reddy, Yashoda Reddy and Kasula Pratapa Reddy (CHAURASTA), several others made very significant contributions. They are Dr. Chandrasekhara Rao, Kaluva Mallayya, Peddinti Ashok Kumar, Aitha Chandrayya to name some. These writers have brought into the fore the  agony of the neglected region and the neglected among the pitiably poor in the rural areas.

Regional and even varieties of social class levels have come up in recent years. This is widening the horizons of the short story from the point of language and expression and different styles and preoccupations.

There is more to short story than mere reform or search for identity after fifty and odd years of self-government. As a genre of imaginative literature and creative self-expression, it has other functions too – like charting the unmapped regions of the mind with insight and imagination.

There appears now an urgent need today for short story writers for a widely intelligible variety of Telugu with mutual intelligibility in different area. Efforts must be made to evolve to the extent possible and necessary dialectically neutral, ‘standard’ language.

Session V

The Fifth session was chaired by Mr, Krishna Chandra Singh Pradhan.

The writers shared their experiences in writing both prose and poetry and also narrated some of the problems they faced.

Session VI

The Sixth Session was chaired by Prof. Sailendra Singh, Padam Kanya Campus, Kathmandu.

Discussions on the papers and the fiction writings continued with active participation of all the writers and scholars.

Concluding Session

The Concluding Session was chaired by H.E. Mr. Shiv Shanker Mukherjee, Ambassador of India, Kathmandu.

The Guests of honour were Hon. Pradeep Gyawali, Minister of Culture, Civil Aviation and Tourism,

Mr. Krishna Chandra Pradhan, Mr. Diamon Sham Sher Rana, Dr. Dhruba Chandra Gautam and Ms. Ajeet Cour.

H.E. Mr. Shiv Shanker Mukherjee congratulated the organisers for bringing together fiction writers form Nepal and India. He lauded the achievement of the Foundation and Literature of SAARC Writers and stated that Ms. Ajeet Cour had always tried to bring together the creative fraternity of South Asia for a common purpose and for the ultimate realization of cultural harmony.

He concluded by stating that the countries of the  region had common historical factors as well as experienced cultural commonalties. It was for these reasons that there was significant scope for hope and creativity through translation. Frequent Interactions of this nature would further open up creative cultural opportunities, he added.

The other speakers in the Session reiterated the need for greater mutual exchange of writings and literature through translations and transcreations for greater understanding of the creative contemporary literature of the region.

Ms. Ajeet Cour spoke of the forthcoming initiatives of FOSWAL through which translations of the SAARC Region would be given further impetus. She encouraged the young writers to send their poems, short stories and articles for inclusion on the website and the SAARC Journal-Beyond Borders, which were meant to provide opportunities for writers of the region to be known and understood on a global platform.

The Conference concluded with a vote of thanks by

Mr. Dwarika Shreshtha.