Navrachana University, in lieu of the ongoing National Library Week organized an “Idea Fest” named-Vichar Vimarsh on 14th November in Navrachana University. It served as a platform for understudies to interact with eminent writes, thinkers, story tellers and others.
The event was organized to culminate new ideas and inspire students and inculcate new ideas and knowledge. The speakers graced the occasion included Padma Shree Sitanshu Yashaschandra- Famous Poet, Dramatist and Literary Theorist Amrut Deshmukh- “The Booklet Guy”, Neha Bahuguna- Performer, Poet and Oral storyteller; Seema Khanwalkar – Trained Semiotician, Sachin Ketkar-Bilingual Poet, Translator and Vishal Bhadani- Gujarati Creative Translator.
The event started with an insightful book talk which was followed by the Keynote Address delivered by Padmashree Sitanshu Yashaschandra. The second event of the day was by Seema Khanwalkar, on the topic “Visual Culture and Art” where she shared her personal experiences and insights on the topic which was interesting to listen to. She spoke with anecdotes from her life in the cooperate world which the attendees related to.
The fest was spread throughout the day into different sessions hosted in the Auditorium. Students, Scholars and Faculty members from various departments attended the event with enthusiasm. Amrut Deshmukh aka “The Booklet Guy”, speaking next at Vichar Vimarsh, spoke about his mission to cultivate the habit of reading amongst the youth of India which is popularized as “Make India Read”. His talk was very engaging and left inspired to try their hand at reading. The next session was of Sachin Ketkar on discussing the creative processes of reading.
A book talk was conducted by the students of Navrachana University which was chaired by Amrut Deshmukh. The books discussed were The Animal Farm, The thousand Splendid Suns and others. The chair shared his opinion about the talks after the talks, which was encouraging for the students.
The evening session began with Neha Bahuguna’s stellar stories which amazed the audience. She spoke about storytelling and scripting where she shared various insights from her life which inspires her and are notable. She stressed on the habit of writing and saving the literary culture.
Vishal Bhadani, the last speaker of the day spoke about Creative Translations; the interesting aspects of the same and how it has a great scope as a career. He ended the session by narrating one of his translated work.
Overall the event VicharVimarsh was a huge success, in terms of exchange of dialogues, discussions, engagement and enrichment of the audience. It unlocked many thoughts for the listeners and gave different perspectives towards literature. The motive of the event was achieved and ended leaving everyone contented.