BHUBANESWAR: Limericks, the short, pithy and witty form of poetry is in vogue nowadays, catapulted further by the social media boom. On the second day of the eleventh edition of the Odisha Literary Festival 2023 in Bhubaneswar, the audience were acquainted with this fun poetry-writing style by writer and researcher Aparna Ray and cartoonist and poet Hpraz Srivastava.
The session titled Short and Stylish: Loving your Limericks, was chaired by Bibek Debroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, economist and author. The trio discussed the art of writing limericks and how it has evolved to become more Indianised over the years.
Rhyme is an integral part of writing limericks, and, “The art of rhyming is old, it can be found in the works of Jayadeva and the Gita Govinda,” opined Debroy, who has written The Book of Limericks, while his other works have always been rooted in the Indian classics.
However, he added that limericks are very much English in nature, and don’t come intrinsically to the Indian audience as a form of poetry.
Students flaunt their skills
This entertaining session was followed by a limerick-writing competition between six students from three Bhubaneswar schools, namely, Mothers Public School, SAI International School and KiiT International School, which was judged by the panelists. Trisha Rath, Class XI, KIIT International School won the competition, while Tarun Tapan Bhuyan, Class X, SAI International School emerged as the runner-up. The winner and the runner-up were felicitated and given cash rewards of Rs 21,000 and Rs 15,000, respectively, from The New Indian Express.
A limerick by Tarun Tapan Bhuyan
There was a young lady from Dallas,
Her tongue was quite callous,
She talked to a room,
Which was filled with gloom,
So they sent her off to Buckingham Palace