ARTEAST FESTIVAL 2019: 14 TO 16 MARCH 2019

 

INTER/SECTIONS FROM 11:00 TO 13:30 IN SEMINAR ROOMS I TO III, KAMALADEVI COMPLEX

Brahmaputra – Explorer Odyssey

One of the most compelling questions that obsessed 19th century European explorers were sources of rivers. In India it was the Brahmaputra- though a lot of Tibet was mapped, a riddle had remained unsolved about the course of the river Tsangpo originating at 24000 feet running east for 1000 miles entering an impenetrable gorge and within a span of just 150 miles plunging 9000 feet to take a sharp turn and enter India. It took an illiterate tailor from Darjeeling with a  prodigious memory to eventually solve this riddle

 

Panelists: Parimal Bhattacharya, Associate Professor, Department of English, Maulana Azad College, Kolkata, and a bilingual writer, most recently, of Dodopakhider Gaan (Ababhash, 2019) and No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight: Memories of a Hill Town (Speaking Tiger, 2017); Samrat Choudhury, also known as Samrat X, author and journalist; and Harish Kapadia, distinguished Himalayan Mountaineer, author and long-time editor of Himalayan Journal

 

Moderated by Kishalay Bhattacharjee 

 

FROM 15:00 TO 15:45 IN SEMINAR ROOMS I TO III, KAMALADEVI COMPLEX

On the Brahmaputra Tea Trail 

In 1823 the first Assam tea was sent to England for public sale that led to the Brahmaputra Valley becoming the Empire’s favourite garden. The tea that Europe woke up to sailed down the Brahmaputra. The story of tea is not just the romance of the wild bush but how it significantly contributed to Britain’s economy

 

Dhurbajit Chaliha, a tea planter from Assam journeys down the river’s tea story and shows how to brew leaves for the perfect cup

 

FROM 16:00 TO 18:00 IN SEMINAR ROOMS I TO III, KAMALADEVI COMPLEX

Imagining a New Commons: Ganga and Brahmaputra

Is there a river-imagination? If so, then the Brahmaputra-imagination unfolds a creative universe that challenges the imagination of the Ganga- the symbol and idea of India, the ‘mainstream’, the ‘holy’, ‘Hindu’ or even perhaps the notion of ‘salvation’. The imagination of Brahmaputra is a cosmos, a shared space, and a constitution. It spans many civilisations and defies the idea of the “holy” with its experience of the sacred. It links the local, national and transnational. The Brahmaputra with its many names is an invitation to perpetrate a new thinking, a new imagination while renewing classical modes of thought. It captures the so-called Indian syncretism in a new way, moving beyond the Ganga-Jamuni tradition. Both Ganga and Brahmaputra flow from the same mountain ranges and merge downstream to meet the sea. It is one and at the same time different

 

Panelists: Shiv Vishvanathan, Social Scientist, Professor at Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat and Director, Centre for the Study of Knowledge Systems, O.P Jindal Global University ; Uma Dasgupta; Ian Baker; and Claude Arpi

 

Moderated by Sumana Roy, poet and author of How I Became a Tree (Aleph, 2017) and Missing (Aleph, 2018) who writes from Siliguri, a small town in sub-Himalayan Bengal

 

AT 18:30 IN C.D. DESHMUKH AUDITORIUM

Yes, The River Knows… 

Concert presented by Chaar Yaar  - Madan Gopal Singh (vocalist & poet); Deepak Castelino (guitar & banjo); Pritam Ghosal (sarod); and Amjad Khan (percussion)

 

The imagination of Brahmaputra and Ganga is a unique kind of syncretism. Chaar Yaar brings to ArtEast a fusion of different genres of music to celebrate this new conversation