A Language on the Move: Gujarati as an Internal Agency for Formations and Transformations of Identity of an Indian Regional Culture

 

Speaker :Dr. Sitanshu Yashaschandra, eminent Gujarati poet, playwright, translator and academic; recipient of  the Sahitya Akademi  Award (1987) for his significant opus, Jatayu, and the Padma Shri (2006) 

 

Chair: Shri Soli J. Sorabjee, President, IIC

 

There are many ways in which one could try to understand the structurality and dynamics of India of our times. One way is to focus on one of its regions and to look at its local genesis and regional identity. The ‘linguistic re-organization of the States’ in India led to the formation of new States which were defined by the language that the majority of each region declared as its own. This lecture examines the ontological and epistemological status of one such language, Gujarati, in its actual and enriching context and in its historical relationships with other languages of India, which was somewhat clouded over in the heat of the formation days 

 

 

Dr. Kavita A Sharma, President, South Asian University; Ambassador Ms Lesego Ethel Motsumi, Ambassador of Botswana to India; and Dr. Nina Dey Gupta, Senior Associate Professor  formerly at the  University of Delhi will discuss, Freedom and Empowerment: The Ethiopian Women’s Struggle by Gennet  Zewide  (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2014) 

 

Chair: Prof. Rajen Harshe, Dept of International Relations, South Asian University   

By Pt. Shubhendra Rao, senior artist and disciple of Pt. Ravi Shankar

 

Accompanied by Shailendra Mishra on tabla

 

Concert organised in memory of the late Amar Mishra

 

Conservation of Monuments in Uttarakhand

Speaker: Dr. Syed Jamal Hasan, Director, Explorations, Archaeological Survey of India

 

Chair: Dr. R.C. Agrawal

Moderator: Shri Ashok Vajpayee

 

 

Pran Nevile pays tribute to the eminent lyricists and poets for their outstanding contribution to Indian popular music followed by a concert by Simrat Chhabra 

 

 

Speaker: Dr. Anthony Seeger is a distinguished Professor of Ethnomusicology, Emeritus, at UCLA and Director Emeritus of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings at the Smithsonian Institution, where he is currently a Research Associate 

 

Chair: Dr. Shubha Chaudhuri

 

 Dr. Seeger will describe the role of music in communications between humans, animals, and spirits in the Brazilian Amazon and discuss the challenges those idea pose for the emerging field of eco-musicology.  His presentation is based on decades of research in Brazil and will be illustrated with photographs and videos.

 

Light of the World – Nur Jahan in Legend and History

Speaker: Dr. Ruby Lal, Dept. of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University, Atlanta USA

 

Chair: Ms Namita Gokhale (tbc)

 

The written and visual sources for Nur Jahan’s sovereignty, life and times, are opulent. Foremost among the Persian records is the memoir of her husband – Emperor, the Jahangirnama, in which she merges in unprecedented terms: sensitive consort, skilled politician, aesthetic woman. This lecture brings together the ‘facts’ of the historical record with the legends of the public imagination in order to capture Nur’s life in a more rounded fashion

(49 min; 2013; dvd; English subtitles)

Director: Zorawar Shukla 

 

Followed by a discussion

 

Sulh-e-Kul investigates the allure of the most important Muslim site of pilgrimage in South Asia, Ajmer’s Dargah Sharif. The shrine is the tomb of the venerated Sufi Saint, Kwajha Gharib Nawaz (Patron of the Poor). For 800 years, it has been a place where all types of people, regardless of religion, caste or colour, have gathered to ask for wishes to be granted