Saying ‘Hi’ to Hindi in style!

-Capital celebrates its first Hindi Mahotsav’16

Recently, Delhi witnessed, very first Hindi Mahotsav, which celebrated the multifaceted Hindi, the language of more than 300 million people around the world. The one-day festival, at Oxford Bookstore, Connaught Place, New Delhi, witnessed participation from eminent senior writers, critics and experts who were indulged in various discussions throughout the course of event on the best of Hindi language, literature and media. In today’s social scenario the public discourse of Hindi is not restricted to literature. It extends to the social and political sciences, media, broadcasting, folk culture, and popular culture. The festival aims to curate the best of these streams embedded in the consciousness of Hindi and to celebrate its spirit. Hindi Mahotsav has been jointly curated and conceptualised by Vani Foundation and Oxford Bookstore.

“Celebrating languages is a social activity. I am thrilled that so many publishers, authors, poets and theatre personalities have come together to celebrate their mother tongue. This is a welcome move in our capital,” quoted Arun Maheshwari, chairman, Vani Foundation.

“I envision Hindi Mahotsav to be the most dynamic representative platform for Hindi language, literature and performing arts in the 21st century,” said Aditi Maheshwari Goyal, the curator of Hindi Mahotsav.

The festival has received support from Sahitya Akademi, and is the only Hindi literature festival with the support of major Hindi publishers – Vani Prakashan, Harper Collins Hindi, Rajpal and Sons, and Bhartiya Jnanpith. The speakers at the festival included esteemed poets and literary critics- Ashok Vajpeyi, Sheen Kaaf Nizaam, distinguished writer Surendra Mohan Pathak, Indian theatre veterans Devendra Raj ‘Ankur’, Asghar Wajahat and Sudhanva Deshpande, Padma Shri Award winner Malini Awasthi, virtuoso poet Leeladhar Mandloi, the face of news broadcasting in India Richa Anirudh, people’s favourite R J Raunac, lead lyricist of Advaita band, Ujjwal Nagar, renowned film director Anusha Rizvi, youth politics representative Ragini Nayak, and senior media critic and writer Anant Vijay to name a few of the illustrious guests.