Arts and Literature
An Evening Devoted to Litera ‘A room without books is like a body without a soul.’
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iterature and books have always played an important role in our lives. Books teach us many things that we cannot learn from our surroundings. Visual media – videos and films – have mostly surpassed book reading in recent years, and we rarely have time to read in our busy life, but we know that technology will never be able to replace the sense of accomplishment that comes from reading books. Books became popular again during the COVID period. While confined, authors completed unfinished work and readers purchased books to pass the time. The Indian Literary and Art Society of Australia (ILASA Inc) conducted a literary event at Epping Leisure and Learning Centre on Saturday, May 14th, 2022, to honour
authors and their publications. The event began with the lighting of the lamp by dignitaries – Consul General of India Mr Manish Gupta, Hornsby Mayor Phillip Ruddock, Melissa Montiero, and Mr Nafas Ambalvi – an award winning Urdu poet from India – followed by Dr Tanima Banerji’s dance on Nobel Prize winner poet R N Tagore. Following the dance performance, Rekha Rajvanshi, the founder & director of ILASA, spoke about the organization’s goals, past activities and future plans. Three multilingual books, written by Australian Indian authors were launched. ‘Dastak’ a Hindi poetry book of 10 poets worldwide was launched first. The work of Sydney poet Vivek Asri was included in the book, which was produced and ed-
ited by the Indian writer and poet Nupur Jaiswal, who was present at the occasion. Nupur and Vivek recited poems from the book. The second book was Harmohan Walia’s Punjabi poetry collection ‘Phalsapha-E-Zindagi’ (Philosophy of Life), which he attended virtually due to health issues. He read his poetry from the collection after the launch. Dr Shailja Chaturvedi’s book ‘The Global Citizens of India’ meant for global citizens of India who are born and brought up outside India but have roots in India. Readers will know more about India and go deeper into its social, cultural, scientific and spiritual heritage. Phillip Ruddock spoke about Dr Chaturvedi’s book and said that cultural diversity of Australia is one of our greatest strengths. All people who migrate to Australia bring with them some of their own culture, language and religious traditions and collectively, these diverse backgrounds have enriched our nation. Melissa Monteiro (CEO CMRC) presented to the dignitaries one of her Amazon’s bestseller books ‘The Girl From Mumbai – A Migrant Story.’ Melissa’s extraordinary career in the community sector in India and Australia over the last 30 years is chronicled in this book. She told the audience about her childhood memories and how she survived being stranded in the Narmada Valley and how she has helped hundreds of families, partnerships, collaborations, awards & achievements of the last three decades. Sydney’s own multi-talented Avijit Sarkar, a well-known musician, painter, cartoonist, writer, and vocalist, received the ILASA Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the arts and literature. Listening to a special guest Shayar from India, Dr. Nafas Ambalvi’s mean-
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JUNE I 2022
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