(From left) Amala Shankar, Mahasveta Devi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen
and Soi Samman winners Urmila Pawar and Shashi Deshpande at the inauguration of
the book fair at ICCR on Sunday. Picture by Sayantan Ghosh
“Soi Mela is a forum
for creative women in India. We highlight women’s writing, especially in regional
languages, as well as other forms of creativity like photography, painting and
sculpture,” said Nabaneeta Dev Sen, president of Soi, before the inauguration
on Sunday.
At her call, writers
flocked from across the country. Mridula Garg, who has liberated Hindi writing
from the shackles of romance and introduced irony and wry humour, came from
Delhi. From the south came Kannada writer Janaki Srinivasan Murthy who goes by
the penname of Vaidehi and poet Mamta Sagar. From neighbouring Odisha came
Jnanpith awardee Pratibha Ray, a strident voice against social injustice and
corruption. Representing the Northeast were Arupa Patangia Kalita who writes of
the downtrodden in Assamese, Thounaojam Chanu Ibemhal writing in Manipuri as
Memchoubi and Krairi Mog Choudhury of Tripura, who writes in her mother tongue
Mog other than in Bengali and English.
In the 13th year of the
women writers’ association and at the third Soi Mela, Dev Sen fulfilled what
she said was a dream of hers – hand over Soi Samman, carrying a prize value of
Rs 1 lakh. “It took us a while to get the money but when we did there was
enough to felicitate two.” The inaugural awards went to Shashi Deshpande and
Urmila Pawar.
Explaining the choice,
Dev Sen said that unlike other Indians writing in English with an eye on the
West, the Karnataka-born Deshpande wrote in English for Indians. Indeed, the
lady would later joke, “I don’t earn in dollars and pounds.” Praising the Soi
logo of a woman reading a book, she pointed out that in reading others’ works
started the process of writing. “The faint voice of Indian women is becoming
distinct over the past few decades. For years we were seen as outsiders,” said
the author of That Long Silence. “A society needs to listen to its
writers because we have something to say,” she added.
Introducing the Marathi
author of the poignant autobiography The Weave of My Life, Dev Sen
pointed out: “While the rest of us found support in our formative years, Urmila
came up from a place where society was trying to put her and her people down.”
Pawar’s words, simple
yet strident, held the mirror up to what it meant to be a Dalit. “Women of our
earlier generations have survived by picking up undigested seeds from cowdung
and making rotis of them. One found a human tooth amid the food she collected
from the leftover dumped at the streetside. Yet hunger made her carry on
eating. My father made my mother promise that she would educate her five
children even if he died. She kept her promise by weaving baskets which I sold
door to door. She could not fight the insults hurled at her, so she wept to let
people know what happened. Her tears were her weapon.” One had to be a Dalit to
know of the kind of sexual innuendoes that a woman would have to endure. “I
started writing pushed by this compulsion to protest the injustices I have seen
and felt.”
Hearing her on stage
was a grand old lady who has been fighting for a down-trodden tribe herself,
“head soi” Mahasveta Devi. “I can’t afford to think only of women.
I go to remote areas plagued by poverty and illiteracy. When you see children
going without food, your views change,” said the octogenarian. Keeping her
company on stage was 95-year-old dancer Amala Shankar.
The three-day event features author interactions, play reading, poetry
performances and storytelling — all by women.
A signature and a
girl’s female friend. The dual connotation of the word shoi in
Bengali found complete embodiment in and at the Soi Mela. The festival of
women’s literature in India brought together friends and colleagues from across
the country as well as their writings in the form of a book fair being held at
ICCR till Tuesday.
“Soi Mela is a forum
for creative women in India. We highlight women’s writing, especially in regional
languages, as well as other forms of creativity like photography, painting and
sculpture,” said Nabaneeta Dev Sen, president of Soi, before the inauguration
on Sunday.
At her call, writers
flocked from across the country. Mridula Garg, who has liberated Hindi writing
from the shackles of romance and introduced irony and wry humour, came from
Delhi. From the south came Kannada writer Janaki Srinivasan Murthy who goes by
the penname of Vaidehi and poet Mamta Sagar. From neighbouring Odisha came
Jnanpith awardee Pratibha Ray, a strident voice against social injustice and
corruption. Representing the Northeast were Arupa Patangia Kalita who writes of
the downtrodden in Assamese, Thounaojam Chanu Ibemhal writing in Manipuri as
Memchoubi and Krairi Mog Choudhury of Tripura, who writes in her mother tongue
Mog other than in Bengali and English.
In the 13th year of the
women writers’ association and at the third Soi Mela, Dev Sen fulfilled what
she said was a dream of hers – hand over Soi Samman, carrying a prize value of
Rs 1 lakh. “It took us a while to get the money but when we did there was
enough to felicitate two.” The inaugural awards went to Shashi Deshpande and
Urmila Pawar.
Explaining the choice,
Dev Sen said that unlike other Indians writing in English with an eye on the
West, the Karnataka-born Deshpande wrote in English for Indians. Indeed, the
lady would later joke, “I don’t earn in dollars and pounds.” Praising the Soi
logo of a woman reading a book, she pointed out that in reading others’ works
started the process of writing. “The faint voice of Indian women is becoming
distinct over the past few decades. For years we were seen as outsiders,” said
the author of That Long Silence. “A society needs to listen to its
writers because we have something to say,” she added.
Introducing the Marathi
author of the poignant autobiography The Weave of My Life, Dev Sen
pointed out: “While the rest of us found support in our formative years, Urmila
came up from a place where society was trying to put her and her people down.”
Pawar’s words, simple
yet strident, held the mirror up to what it meant to be a Dalit. “Women of our
earlier generations have survived by picking up undigested seeds from cowdung
and making rotis of them. One found a human tooth amid the food she collected
from the leftover dumped at the streetside. Yet hunger made her carry on
eating. My father made my mother promise that she would educate her five
children even if he died. She kept her promise by weaving baskets which I sold
door to door. She could not fight the insults hurled at her, so she wept to let
people know what happened. Her tears were her weapon.” One had to be a Dalit to
know of the kind of sexual innuendoes that a woman would have to endure. “I
started writing pushed by this compulsion to protest the injustices I have seen
and felt.”
Hearing her on stage
was a grand old lady who has been fighting for a down-trodden tribe herself,
“head soi” Mahasveta Devi. “I can’t afford to think only of women.
I go to remote areas plagued by poverty and illiteracy. When you see children
going without food, your views change,” said the octogenarian. Keeping her
company on stage was 95-year-old dancer Amala Shankar.
The three-day event features author interactions, play reading, poetry
performances and storytelling — all by women.
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