SAARC literature
 Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL), the Apex body of
SAARC, held the annual SAARC Festival of Literature in Lucknow, India,
from March 16 to 19.
FOSWAL, the brain-child of Ajeet Cour, continues to be nursed by her
and her daughter Arpana Cour. It was during the turbulent times of 1986,
just one year after the formation of SAARC, that Ajeet Cour had launched
the idea of Cultural Connectivity for Peace in the SAARC region.
Ajeet Cour is a well known Panjabi writer of novels, short stories
and drama who is also a translator. Arpana Cour, a co-sponsor of the
Literary Festival, is a highly acclaimed painter, a true artist, who
could empathize with her surroundings and the culture, and her paintings
support many cultural projects.
This year too, writers and scholars, artists and intellectuals,
academicians and media persons, performing and visual artists,
folklorists and historians of the unique civilization of the region,
theatre artists and cultural activists, peace and gender activists, and
the creative-intellectual fraternity in general from nine countries :
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka gathered in Lucknow as one family.
The theme was 'Environment : Our Earth : Our Only Home', while the
sub-themes included 'Environment and Women' and 'Environment in
Literature'. It was in 1987 that a Conference of Indian and Pakistani
writers was held, and the first SAARC Writers conference was held in
April 2000, and FOSWAL was made a SAARC Apex Body.
 Ajeet Cour had written, "Thus I launched my mad dream of catching
that elusive golden sparrow called Peace through cultural and literary
exchanges in the region".
Twenty-six years later, in Lucknow, it was no longer a mad dream and
the golden sparrow did not appear to be so elusive. Here we were able to
breakdown most of the barriers we had erected by ourselves. The physical
and geographical barriers cannot keep writers and poets apart and the
modern day transport and communication facilities have helped immensely
in this regard. It is only the human barriers we have to breakdown now.
One of the major barriers has been language, even though most
delegates at the conference were able to communicate in Hindi, it was
still not common enough to unite everyone. Once again it was English
that has to be used as the link language, as the bridge across all
language barriers. Fortunately almost all delegates were able to
communicate in English.
As U.R. Ananthmurthy had written in the SAARC journal 'Beyond
Borders', "Plurality of languages, cultures and religions has not in the
past threatened the unity of our country. ...the literature in our
bhashas, with their history as well as their potential, has contributed
to our sense of a Nation with a difference." This statement could apply
not only to India, but to all SAARC countries, and we should consider
all of us as One Nation.
The poets who recited their poetry rendered them in English
translations too.
It was a great experience to see young poets reciting their work in
their own language, and sometimes their professors, who had translated
the poems into English, would come up to read the poems themselves. The
relationship between these young poets and their Gurus was so naturally
close, and the respect the students had for the teachers, was also
heartening, because today this culture is seen only among musicians and
dancers.
The cultural events never had any barriers, even the one act play by
the Punjabi performing artiste Neeta Mahendra. The Maldivian delegate,
Ibrahim Waheed, who could speak not only Dhivehi, but also Sinhala,
English, Tamil and Hindi, had commented after the show that for the
first time he could understand Punjabi. Neeta showed how a good
theatrical performance could breakdown barriers of language.
Parvathy Baul from West Bengal, managed to bring all of us closer to
each other, closer to the culture, art and music in our countries, by
her one-girl dance and orchestra, using just the single string 'Ektar'
and the little drum 'Drugger', while her voice enraptured all.
The 'Whirling dervishes' or the 'Malangs' of Shah Hussain's Mazzar
from Pakistan, kept us glued to our seats, with their whirling and
swirling and their movements of their heads with their long hair, and
the drummer whirling round and round with two drums around his neck.
Prof. Tissa Kariyawasam, our scholar on traditional dance forms found
similarities with some of our own folk dances.
We had our own poet, Samantha Herath, who sang a few of our own
verses in Sinhala, which even if he had not translated into English the
audience really appreciated. Another golden voice was that of Mustafa
Zaman Abbasi, from Bangladesh, who is a popular singer, in addition to
being a writer and poet. He has published 50 research papers on
traditional music and culture.
Sri Lanka was represented by our well known diplomat, Nihal Rodrigo
who was also the Secretary General of SAARC at one time. The others
were, Jayasumana Dissanayake, Kanthi Wijetunge and self.
The symbol on the festival logo was of a leaf and a pen. It was the
leaf of our sacred Bo tree. The Peepal.
The sacred Ashvattha, worshiped for the past 5000 years, from the
time of the Indus civilization as we see in the clay tablet found at
Harappa. Ficus religiosa has been worshiped by all communities, in every
country the tree is found.
This logo tells us that the pen too is sacred, that the use of the
pen is a sacred act, and brings us the message that what we write should
be sacred too.
This is an opportunity for writers of the world to unite, and united
we could change the world to be a better place, not only for humanity,
but for all life forms.
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