The seminars and literary meets organised on the second day of Viswa Malayala Mahotsavam witnessed discussions on Malayalam language, its future and scope of evolution.
In an author-interaction session held at the Olympia Chamber at Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium here on Wednesday morning, poet Indira Parthasarathy commented that a “lot of money was involved in the classical language status.”
“How do you decide the criteria for giving classical status to a language? Sanskrit or Latin or Greek have not been given this status by any organisation. If the status has to be given at all, why doesn’t Malayalam or Telugu qualify? When the Sahitya Akademi said that 1,000 years of continuous existence would be deemed as a criteria, Tamilians were unhappy. They wanted to make it 2,000 so that only Tamil would qualify.”
The session was attended by poet Sharmila Ray, who is also an associate professor and head of the Department of History at City College, Kolkata. She spoke on the import of gender on poetic language and said she saw herself as a writer and much less as a woman writer.
“Writing is my response to the outer world. For me, smell and colour and music and such elements make up a huge painting. Words are one tool that I pick to express this image in my mind. I believe if I take out the ‘she’ who is the narrator in my poems, they might as well be about anyone else,” she said.
In the afternoon session, Nigerian author Ben Okri took part in a conversation with Minister of State and author Shashi Tharoor. The writers discussed the capability of ‘the language of the colonialists to appropriate African or Indian reality.’
“Its not English that is killing regional languages. It is we who should not let our languages die. And it is possible not only through speaking but also helping the language evolve,” said Okri.
The author also attended a literary meet at Kanakakkunnu Palace. Culture Minister K C Joseph gave away prizes to the winners of the state-level painting competition held as part of the festival. He released 20 books published by the Institute of Children’s Literature. Malayalam writer and National Book Trust Chairman A Sethumadhavan attended.