ILF Samanvay : The Indian Languages Festival
9 years ago
Folks in Delhi – Mark your calendars! ILF Samanvay is happening from 26th-29th November, 2015. ILF Samanvay is an annual Indian Languages Festival hosted by the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. This festival aims to create a vibrant space for various Indian languages and cultures to come together, without compromising their uniqueness. The theme for ILF Samanvay 2015 is Insider/Outsider: Writing India’s Dreams and Realities. In this fifth edition, the festival attempts to address significant questions concerning who is an insider and who is an outsider with respect to our languages as well as those idioms beyond the verbal.
We are happy to announce that Pratham Books is the outreach partner for this year’s festival. Pratham Books has taken the lead in promoting books and reading among children through creating an Outreach for children in many major literature festivals across the country. The purpose of this Outreach program organised by Pratham Books is to bring the joys of literature and language to the children of Delhi. We hope this interaction will spark off an interest in expressing ideas creatively and will open windows to new ways of seeing things.
For the outreach programme, we are partnering with 5 schools and the resource people who will bring these sessions alive are :
- Ashok Vajpeyi – Ashok Vajpeyi is a Hindi poet-critic, translator, editor, culture-activist, and a former civil servant. He has served as the chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi; and authored thirteen books of poetry, seven of criticism in Hindi and three books on art in English. He has translated the works of four major poets of Poland, Czeslaw Milosz, W. Szymborska, Z. Herbert and T. Rozewicz into Hindi. He has been decorated by the President of Republic of Poland by the outstanding national award ‘The Officer’s Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland’, and the French Govt. by the award of ‘Officier De L’Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres’.
- Dharmakirti Sumant – Dharmakirti Sumant is one of the foremost playwrights of the new Marathi experimental theatre. He has been awarded with the Sahitya Academy Youth Award for his book Pani, which includes two plays Pani and Charoo Aro Etyadi. He received the Jayvant Dalvi Award for his play Geli Ekvis Varshe. He was also the recipient of Vinod Doshi Fellowship for his writings in 2009. Some of his other major plays include Logging Out, Something Stupid Like I love You, Amhala Amche, Kholamba, Zade Lavnara Manoos and Natak Nako. Sumant has also written an eight part series Jadyabaddalchi Vyavcchedak Lakshne in the magazine Priya Rasik by Popular Publications.
- Vijay Dhasmana – Vijay Dhasmana works in the field of forest conservation and ecological gardening, with special emphasis on the flora of Aravali range. His role was pivotal in the rewilding of the Aravali Biodiversity Park, Gurgaon; and creating Wild flower trail in the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, Uttarkhand to showcase the wild flora of the sanctuary. He is also the Ecological Gardening Consultant to Friends for Change Programme of Walt Disney which plans to create 10 native plant gardens in NCR every year. He is also working for the restocking of wilderness areas in Delhi NCR with native flora species such as Boswellia serrata, Ehretia leavis, Butea monosperma, and others through Seed balls.
- Subhro Bandopadhyay – Subhro Bandopadhyay is the author of four full-length poetry books and a biography of Pablo Neruda written in Bengali. He received the 2013 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for his poetry collection Boudho Lekhomala o Onyanyo Shraman. He received the Antonio Machado Poetry Fellowship from the Government of Spain in 2008 and the Poetas de Otros Mundos award in 2014 from Fondo Poético Internacional. He has published several poetry collections in Spain and has been invited to distinguished poetry festivals including the Medellin International Poetry Festival, Colombia and Expoesía, Spain. He teaches Spanish at Instituto Cervantes, New Delhi.
- Dolonchampa Chakraborty – Dolonchampa Chakraborty has been actively involved in the dissemination of Bengali language beyond the borders of Indian subcontinent as an active translator, editor and interpreter. She recently translated a short story titled Black Magic by Sahitya Academy awardee, Amar Mitra. Her poetry anthology, Eve, Ekti Daalimekheter Bigyapon was published during the 2015 Calcutta Book fair. She is currently the Executive Editor of online Bengali literary magazine, www.bookpocket.net which is trying to unite Bengali speaking diaspora of divided Bengal. Currently she is working on the writings of the Border poets from around the world.
- Ameen Haque – A storyteller, story coach and consultant, Ameen Haque is also the founder of StoryWallahs, a company that trains people in the art of storytelling. Today’s world revolves around stories and Ameen has coached leaders, teachers and children alike to be powerful storytellers. Formerly a Vice President at Ogilvy & Mather, Ameen has over 20 years of experience in advertising, theatre & consulting. These stints have exposed him to stories, human behaviour, team dynamics and strategy; themes that have influenced and informed his storytelling.
Visit the ILF Samanvay website for more details about the festival.
Image Source : ILF Samanvay
