By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Dehradun, 26 Apr: ‘Elysian’, the Literary Society of the Department of English, Doon University, hosted a two-day “Meet the Author” event on 22 and 23 April, thus completing its fifth and sixth sessions on two consecutive days.
Present was Dr Sanjeev Chopra on the first and Ajay Jugran on the second. Chopra is a retired IAS officer of the 1985 batch from Kapurthala, Punjab, and a resident of Dehradun. He is a former Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration and the current patron of the prestigious International Literary Festival: Valley of Words. Ajay Jugran, a lawyer by profession is a poet-writer who takes keen interest in the art of storytelling. He has advised clients from more than thirty countries and is heading the Him Jagriti NGO concerned with health and education in remote hill areas.
Dr Chetana Pokhriyal, Dr Richa Joshi Pandey, Dr Gazala Khan and Dr Aditi Bisht along with the PhD scholars were also present at the event as they joined in the active discussion on the book written by the respective authors. The two-day event was hosted by Khushi Yadav with Niyati Kothiyal as the moderator for the first day and Vatsal Naithani and Nayonika Chakrabarty as moderators for the second day.
On the first day, Niyati Kothiyal introduced Dr Chopra to the students and told them about his achievements and endeavours. The session was an educational discussion on the book, ‘We The People of The States of Bharat’, by Dr Chopra. He shared the driving force of the creation of his novel as he explained the story of how national borders were determined and princely states integrated into the Indian dominion. He has covered the reorganisation of States till recent times when Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, and Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir were made Union territories.
Dr Chopra explained how, when the Britishers took over India, they didn’t see the people as different territories or languages but rather as a vast land, inculcating the spirit of oneness within the nation. He spoke on how “there is a truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” when the discussion on different narratives comes to light. The importance of different narratives and points of view became one of the key topics of the session. He explained the history of Sikkim while giving references to other fantastic works such as Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim by Sunanda K Dutta-Ray and Andrew Duff’s Sikkim: Requiem. He mentioned how a story when told from different perspectives brings out distinct narratives. He said, “When you read a book of this nature knowing how narratives are built is important.”
He also shed light on the dynamics of history. He mentioned about how the view on history has changed along the passage of time. Dr Chopra also shared his views on politics saying, “Politics is all about the art of adjustment”. He enlightened the audience with an interesting incident about the Nizam of Hyderabad.
The second day was moderated by Vatsal and Nayonika by introducing Jugran along with his school teachers who graced the event with their presence. The session was an insightful discussion on the book, “The Bridge on the River Song and other short stories from Garhwal”. The book was a product of the writer’s immerne interest for stories, experiences and memories from Garhwal. He shared with the audience how “he didn’t consume stories but stories consumed him”. On being asked about the nudge that made him write the collection of stories, Jugran shared that he only “possessed the beginning of the stories and then the stories flowed through his pen.”
Jugran, very candidly, shared how as a professional in law he has to write “without emotions and feelings”. “I have the habit of sitting and writing for hours but that writing is very practical, for law purposes. I wanted to write but with emotions,” said Jugran when being asked about the experience of being a lawyer who writes. He also shared how his narrative style is adopted by his mother who “develops stories from nowhere”. “The stories developed from nowhere are the best stories,” said Jugran as his final statement on being asked about his narrative technique.
Mr Sajwan, Ajay Jugran’s school principal, shared how Jugran was “a chap who was a history buff and always writing stories”. The session was filled with childhood anecdotes, and experiences of the author and audience from Dehradun and beyond.
The two-day event came to an end with a lot of questions from the audience being satisfactorily answered. The vote of thanks was proposed by Sanyam Bisht.
