Goa Art/Lit Fest
The literati of Goa had an edifying time
at Goa Art and Literary Festival early this month. The collaborative event hosted and directed
by ICG, had an impressive line-up of writers, performers and artists. The event
is past but the discourse shall continue awhile.
The keynote address by Mitra Phukan, writer,
translator and vocalist from Assam on comparative cultures of Goa and Assam,
set the tone for the cultural/ ethnic/literary debates for the festival. She
appreciated the inclusiveness of Goan culture and said that, “Culture, specifically
the positive aspects of culture, is a soft power and a nation’s ambassador. It
is the best defence, in the long run, against the forces of destruction. Art,
literature, dance, music, and all the other ways in which humankind expresses
emotions and thoughts are the moral compass that guide the people of a troubled
land, and show the way forward. Classical literature is firmly rooted in
values, the enduring moral values without which humanity itself would spiral
down to barbarism, flounder and perish. The
human mind is capable of rising to the greatest heights of creativity, beauty,
compassion and love. It is also capable of sinking to the lowest depths of
cruelty, depravity and ugliness. By celebrating the beauty of human creation,
in an atmosphere of amity and understanding, we begin to appreciate its
richness. That is why it is important to hold festivals, musical, literary,
art, culinary, so that the beauties of the human mind are foregrounded, obliterating the
horrors, of which it is also, tragically, equally capable.”
The contingent of poets held centre
stage one evening of the festival. Chris Mooney Singh an Irish –Australian poet
and Sikh by choice, stood out with his flowing salt and pepper beard and red
brown headwear. His rendition of ‘Ghazal of Belonging’ still reverberates in my
mind. His poems are a reflection of the Indian
Panorama –
“Families
of Dravidians intermarried with Aryans,
Families
of Arabs, Afghans, Turks, Tartars,
Families
of Moguls, families of White men
Families
of Ram, Shiv, Kali-Durga,
Families of Guru Nanak, Mahavir and Buddha
Arvind
Krishna Mehrotra read out his translation of Songs of Kabir:
To
tonsured monks and dreadlocked Rastas
To idol worshippers and idol smashers,
To fasting Jains and feasting Shaivites,
To Vedic pundits and Faber poets,
The weaver Kabir sends one message:
The noose of death hangs over all.
Only Rama's name can save you.
Say it NOW.
To idol worshippers and idol smashers,
To fasting Jains and feasting Shaivites,
To Vedic pundits and Faber poets,
The weaver Kabir sends one message:
The noose of death hangs over all.
Only Rama's name can save you.
Say it NOW.
The
engaging debate on reinvention of the epics, more so from a feminist point of
view, involved many writers and readers. Visiting mythology writers like
Pratibha Ray, Krishna Udayasankar, Samhita Arni, Shubha Vilas, provoked readers
with their alternate perspectives of recreating the mythic tales through the
voices of Sita and Draupadi. My session with Krishna Udayasankar was
invigorating with her avant garde approach of terming her Aryavarta
Chronicles as Mytho-history. Her quest is history as she turns the
metaphor of mythology and reconstructs the reality of those times. Her stories
derive not so much from faith as from science and logic. The land of Aryavarta
is populated by commoners, nobles and forest dwellers, undergoing a
socio-economic technological shift. The human characters divested of
supernatural powers lead their lives and make decisions based on human trial
and error paradigms. The very turn of event which humiliates and disrobes
Draupadi is the moment when Krishna empowers her in her book ‘Kauravas’. She is
a protagonist as much as Govinda Shauri (Krishna) in her recreation of the
epic. The strains are similar to Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, a reworking of
the Odyssey, in which Penelope and her hanged handmaidens tell their story
which tradition did not allow them to do
in the original work.
Desi
Writers Lounge from Pakistan spiced up the fest with a satirical/humorous
performance of the British playright Mark Ravenhill’s play ‘Yesterday an Incident
Occurred’ and readings from their biannual literary edition ‘Papercuts’. Their
presentation on the online forum of ‘Crowd Funding’ was very informative and
enlightening for entrepreneurs and cultural creatives alike. Translations and
multilingual books evoked much interesting exchange between writers and
translators like Musharaf Farooqi, Neeraja Matoo, Gulzar Sahib…… Arvind Mehotra summed the
discussion very well when he said, ‘Translation of the original text is like digging
a tunnel from two ends. If your authentic, sincere attempt makes you meet
somewhere in the middle of the tunnel, you have been successful, but if you
don’t then we have two works of writing the original and the translation’
Artists
like Amruta Patil, Michelle Farooqi, left an indelible mark on the audience
with their works. Himanshu Suri , the Rapper enthralled guests in the evening
live performance, and Kiren Rai, the Tarot master garnered quite a following
for herself after her Tarot Reading session. Jerry Pinto hosted the poetry
readings and was his spirited self throughout and made the dance floor come
alive in the evenings.
I
can’t seem to stop, and the write-up may appear as if I am name dropping , but
there were so many luminaries who shone at the fest…. Well more in my next
…………………
|
Mitra Phukan – Keynote address on the
Essence of Cultures
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra : Translations and
Songs of Kabir
Chris Mooney Singh : ‘Ghazal of
Belonging’
