Welcome to Hyderabad Literary Festival 2010

If I am not wrong, the last time Hyderabad played host to such a multitude of writers was when the ACLALS (Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies) Seminar / Conference on Post-Colonial Literature was held here. In the year 2004, if memory serves me right.

I was there at the event and though I don't remember much about it, I remember meeting Mr. Keki Daruwalla and showing him my poetry. And I also remember trying to talk to Hoshang Ji :-)

2004 seems eons ago and in my case, much ink has flowed since then. And now again Hyderabad will play host to some of India's most notable writers -- writing in our richly vibrant, regional languages and English.

At the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2010, (December 10-12) organized by Muse India and OUCIP.

Registration is a must to be at the HLF 2010 and is just Rs. 500 (inclusive of luncheons and refreshments) for all three days. Which in other words is as pleasantly inexpensive as our own Irani Chai, in my humble opinion.

So go here and register before Dec 5th, or risk missing out on literary history in the making, here in Hyderabad itself!

Shamanisms and the Mother cult

By my own account I am not a very religious person. For as long
as I remember, I have never believed in rituals and orthodoxy
and nowadays, I am of the firm opinion that it’s important
for a poet to be a skeptic and iconoclast – if required of
his / her own beliefs.

But somehow (maybe because I don’t know any better) I have
always believed in the Mother cult that is in many ways
central to Hinduism. The cult that glorifies, venerates
and worships Shakti in her various forms and
Avataras – as Durga, Parvati, Ambika, Manasi, Tarani and
so on.

Does one belief lead to and feed another? Does my
relatively early exposure to the Mother cult (while
growing up in Orissa – where Durga Puja is an
overwhelmingly colourful festival of pomp and pageantry;
where almost every third temple is devoted to a
goddess – Maa Tarini, Maa Birija, Maa Samaleswari,
Maa Sankata Tarini, Maa Singhavasini, Maa Tara Tarani
and so on) explain my fascination with everything to
do with Shiva?

I really do not know.

But yes, somehow the very mention and memory of “Maa”
evokes a very blissful and humbling feeling in me. And
conjures the image of an all-understanding, fiercely
protective mother, in whose presence one relatively feels
non-existent in terms of ego and totally a wide-eyed child.
An image of goodness that will triumph over evil, come
what may, because that’s the way things are destined to be.

Need I say that I feel overwhelmed by the same childish
wide-eyed wonder and feeling of smallness when I experience
the grandeur (and mystique) of nature? Or when a poem comes
unbidden, with more meaning than I can understand, words
falling into place like some shaman’s chant?

I really do not know. But these are good problems to
have; these are deep waters worth contemplating.

One man’s prayer my be plain gobbledygook to the other,
but here’s a lovely link to a prayer / chant / bhajan / song
that has given me goose pimples from the very day I heard it.

And I will say the same thing yet again before I conclude
this post, there’s more meaning than I can understand
in Ai giri nandini,
I don’t claim to understand it all, but it’s a good
problem to have :-)