post news network, Bhubaneswar, May 17: Personalities from the field of art, literature, cinema, journalism, academics and other fields Sunday descended on the Hotel Mayfair in the city to take part in the 2nd Kalinga Literary Festival, which was held amid much fanfare.
Panel discussions were the main building blocks of the day-long event. Issues related to art, literature, language, cinema, journalism and others were discussed in detail. The event, organised by the Roots of Odisha Foundation (ROOF), a social organisation, was inaugurated at 10 am by the state tourism and culture minister Ashok Chandra Panda. Journalist Mark Tully, novelist Pratibha Ray, and director of the festival Rashmi Ranjan Parida were present on the stage among others during the inauguration.
Among the various sessions, those on language and cinema drew maximum crowd. In the session “Is Bhasa Sahitya endangered because of English literature?” the speakers, including poet Ashok Chakradhar, writers G Das, Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, Pranesh Prasad and moderator Deba Prasad Dash discussed the impact of English on regional languages.
Chakradhar, one of the prominent poets, writing in Hindi, said, “Languages are never anti-culture. Only some people with vested interest try to use language to divide people. Languages are meant to unite people. Meanwhile we need to conserve our ethnic languages by practicing it widely, otherwise they will die a premature death.”
Noted Oriya writer Debi Prasanna Pattanayak said, “English is not the only language through which we can flourish. China, Russia and other countries flourished despite sticking to their traditional languages. We must respect our mother tongue and practice it as much as possible to keep the tradition alive.”
Speakers taking part in panel discussion on cinema deliberated on whether the parallel cinema was being threatened by the 100crore club, representing the commercial films that did extremely well in the box office. The panel comprised of Hindi film actress Suhsma Seth, Bengali actress Roopa Ganguly, Oriya filmmaker Sabyasachi Mahapatra, actress Anu Chaudhury, Hindi film director Sharat Katariya, film critic Santanu Ganguly and was moderated by the leading Bollywood blogger Anna Vetticad.
Speaking on the occasion Roopa Ganguly said, “There was a time when parallel cinema and commercial cinema used to exist side by side, but now the thin line seems to be blurring, with many renowned directors such as Maniratnam, Aparna Sen etc making movies that are part of parallel cinema but more acceptable to the wider masses.” She however, pointed out that this trend was set by the late director Rituporno Ghosh, who did cast stars of commercial cinema to create a mass appeal of the ‘new wave’ movies.
Bollywood actress, Susma Seth said, “The 100crore club is just a category. The scope of cinema has widened enough in the past few years. Now any people with good idea and script can make movies that can potentially entertain the audience. Meanwhile parallel cinemas are not fading away. They have always existed and will flourish in the days to come.”
Several books and one CD were released on the ocassion. Anil Dhir’s Confluence, Adyasha Das’s Brass Flower, Ramakanta Das’s In Retrospect, Elora Rath’s I Never Expected Life Would Change So Much, Itishri Sarangi’s Plays and Life of Arthur Miller and Mrinal Chaterjee’s Jagate Thiba Jete Dina (CD) were released.
