A state level workshop on creative writing was organised last week at Dum Dum Motijheel College, Kolkata. The workshop was conducted in its second campus for postgraduate English. A K, Mukherjee who was formerly the controller of examinations for West Bengal State University had inaugurated the workshop and focused on the necessity of such workshops in colleges and universities. According to him, creative writing enriches the academic environment and efforts of learners are most important in promoting the creative temper.
The workshop was envisaged to inspire 'intellectuality' in the overall thinking process. The students seemed elated to be engaged in a research dialogue and in turn they were enriched by the deliberations of the renowned academicians present in the programme. Dr Subrata Panda, a veteran academician anchored the discussion by elaborating the methodology of research at the post graduate level. He stressed on the need for full time courses on creative writing.
Young researchers participated in the discourse by presenting their papers. Dr Jaydeep Sarangi in the capacity of Chief Guest lauded the presentations. Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee, head of the post graduate department of English along with Dr Kamal Sarkar had helped the student participants with their presentations.
Dr Bhattacharjee encouraged them by promising to publish a book on Indian English writers by accommodating the best papers selected from the thirty five papers that were presented in the programme. Dr Jaydeep Sarangi delivered a talk on the importance of creative writing in India and stressed that India is unique in terms of its cultural and linguistic mosaic. Our myths, legends and long history, he said, help the writers to develop their creative aroma. In his words, "Multiculturalism is a great help for the writers. This century is the century of the Asians who write back in confidence. College and University students are creating brilliant works in English. Creative writing should be prioritised in the universities. Writing is a commitment and translation is the heart of India. Translation is return to the mother."
Dr Sneha Kar Chaudhuri, a young and talented academician from the English faculty of West Bengal State University highlighted the creative and critical aspects of human thinking and imagination. Incidentally, Kar's book is going to be published soon by an overseas publisher and she is an editor cum translator by profession. She has presented a substantial number of papers in the US, Spain and UK.
According to Kar, Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee's writings are a telling example of the creative aspects of an academician. "If we look at the academic career of Dr Bhattacharjee we find a balancing of the polarities of fiction, poetry and critical writing. He is a true example of what Arnold refers to as the 'man of culture' and his corpus of works combines both 'tradition' and 'individual talent' in the Eliotesque sense," she reiterated.
There should be more courses on creative writing in the various college and university syllabi to encourage students to explore both the creative and the critical.
Two books were launched on the occasion and both the books were written by two eminent academicians. Dr Pradeepta Gupta Roy, an eminent scholar, who has published seventy three papers in several international journals of physics, had his first authorial debut with Chetanar Rang (Colour of Consciousness) which was launched in the programme. In this book he researched on the contribution of 18th Century Bengali intellectuals and their focus on science and literature. He focused on the Renaissance milieu which flourished through these great men who popularised the teaching of science through the mother tongue. Dr Jaydeep Sarangi's tenth poetic volume 'letters in lower case' was the second book that was launched. This was essentially a collection of poems that were scripted on all issues of modern life and society. Each poem can be called a poetic experimentation.
The day long programme ended with a recitation of Dr Bhattacharjee's poems. The significance of 'resistance' to the traditional poetic narrative in some of his poems was also analyzed.
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