HT Correspondent
DIBRUGARH, Feb 5: The second edition of Dibrugarh University Literature Festival (DU Litfest) started on Wednesday with much fanfare in the presence of writers coming from across the globe.
The writers, including novelists, poets, story writers, critics, essayists, and travelogue writers representing over 25 countries from Asia, Africa, and Europe.
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The four-day festival will see around 120 best of brains in literature exchanging their ideas and experiences in the four-day event.
This first-of-its-kind convergence of global authors in eastern Assam started last year in a joint effort between Foundation for Culture, Arts & Literature (FOCAL) and Dibrugarh University.
Addressing the inaugural function held at Rang Ghar auditorium, 84-year-old explorer-writer Tete-Michel Kpomassie narrated his life journey as to how he landed up in Greenland, far away from his homeland in Togo, West Africa. In his eight-year-long journey, he took up various types of work in several European countries while remaining focused on his goal of reaching Greenland. He wrote his life adventure including his experience of living with indigenous people in Greenland in his book “An African in Greenland”.
Explaining his own mistake about ‘igloo’, which in Greenland local terms simply means house and not just house built with ice as he had understood, he cautioned travellers about different contexts of words in different places.
Earlier, in his welcome address, Dibrugarh University vice-chancellor Prof Jiten Hazarika expressed gratitude to FOCAL and its trustees, including renowned writers, filmmakers and retired bureaucrats, for taking the initiative to organise the literary extravaganza in Dibrugarh University.
He also expressed happiness over the festival coinciding with the diamond jubilee year of the university and reflecting the spirit of National Education Policy 2020 with increased focus on art and culture.
He also mentioned that this year itself the university was also awarded Multidisciplinary Education and Research University (MERU) recognition under Pradhan Mantri Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (PM-USHA).
The university also organised record number of national and international conferences this year, said the vice-chancellor while urging the students and scholars to take full advantage of these events to gain academic excellence.
Sahitya Akademi Award winner and former professor of Dibrugarh University Nagen Saikia in his address briefed on utmost importance of understanding the temporal existence of human lives.
He referred to classic drama “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett to explain his point of how God in various prominent religious remains an invisible character.
Saikia also drove home the point that “inner human being is still working” amid the drastic materialistic changes in the outer world.
VB Pyarelal, one of the managing trustees of FOCAL and a former bureaucrat, urged the students and scholars of the university to reap the maximum benefits from the festival by ensuring their participation in the over 50 sessions planned in the four-day event.
FOCAL trustees – renowned filmmaker and Padma Bhushan awardee Jahnu Baruah, eminent writer Dhruba Hazarika, and festival chief coordinator Rahul Jain – and university Registrar Paramananda Sonowal were also present on the occasion.
Later in the day, seven literary sessions were held simultaneously in five different venues with participation of litterateurs from different genres. The sessions started with “It’s Time for Africa: Perspective on the continent, people and literature” at Rang Ghar auditorium.
It may be mentioned here that Africa being the festival theme, several writers from African nations have been participating in the over 50 literary sessions scheduled in the four-day literary extravaganza.
A documentary on Africa prepared by students and teachers of Dibrugarh University showing different aspects of the continent from rich culture to technological advancements also marked the occasion.
A scintillating cultural performance by over a dozen African students studying in the prestigious university enthralled the audience, culminating the inaugural function.
