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| (From top) Soumitra Chatterjee, Arpita Chatterjee and Vice-President Hamid Ansari with Rituparna Sengupta at the programme to celebrate Agyeya’s birth centenary at National Library on Wednesday. Pictures by Rashbehari Das |
Agyeya’s memorable words found many famous voices at the Bhasha Bhavan auditorium in National Library on Wednesday at the inauguration of a three-day programme to celebrate his birth centenary.
Vice-President Hamid Ansari was the chief guest and governor M.K. Narayanan the guest of honour at the programme, organised by Prabha Khaitan Foundation in collaboration with Sahitya Akademi and The Raza Foundation.
Over 50 scholars and senior journalists will take part in panel discussions and poetry recitations in the memory of the Hindi literature icon, who was born Sachidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan.
At the inauguration, actress and MLA Debasree Roy donned a new hat, singing the welcome song, Aguner parashmoni, after the lamp-lighting ceremony.
The highlight of the programme was the poetry recitation by actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta and Arpita Chatterjee.
The shadow on the bend of the river, the English translation of Agyeya’s Nadi ke bank par chhaya was recited by Rituparna.
Soumitra and Arpita recited Nadir dweep and Rheen, Bengali translations of two of Agyeya’s works, respectively.
The governor later said: “I agree with Kapila Vatsyayan (Agyeya’s wife) that there cannot be a better person than Vice-President Hamid Ansari to inaugurate the event, given that he himself is a great scholar and writer.”
Ansari talked about Agyeya’s contributions, with reference to four main issues highlighted by his works.
Sunil Gangopadhyay walked down memory lane: “I had come across Agyeya only twice. He had taken me by surprise by speaking flawless Bengali. It was just perfect, and all he said was that during his stay in Calcutta, the language came to him all but naturally.”
For Ashok Vajpeyi of The Raza Foundation, Agyeya was not just a poet who expressed what he thought, but one who made his readers feel the same through his words. “Aise lekhak ko nayak sahityakar kehte hai! (Such an author is called a superstar litterateur!)”
Apne Apne Agyeya, a book edited by Om Thanvi, was released by the Vice-President and the governor on the occasion.
Poet Kedarnath Singh, Hari Mohan Bangur and Sundeep Bhutoria of Prabha Khaitan Foundation, and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim were also present at the inauguration.