‘PREM AUR SHRINGAR’ IS THE MAIN THEME OF ACHARYA VIJAY GUNJAN’S POETRY: Dr. ANIL SULABH

‘PREM AUR SHRINGAR’ IS THE MAIN THEME OF ACHARYA VIJAY GUNJAN’S POETRY: Dr. ANIL SULABH

5-AUG-ENG 4

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

PATNA---------------------A master of prosody and popular poet, Acharya Vijay Gunjan is a very bright star of the lyrical stream in Hindi poetry literature. His command over doha and Navgeet is praiseworthy, worth listening and worth seeing. Though Acharya Gunjan's poetic scope is vast, but the main theme of his creations is love and romance just like the sweetness of songs. It is these love and romance that have been affecting the human mind at a deep level for millennia, which give life its essence and life. If these were not there, life would not have existed on earth.

These things were said by the conference president Dr Anil Sulabh while presiding over the inaugural issue and birth anniversary celebration of the solo poetry recitation series 'Main aur meri kavita' which started today at Bihar Hindi Sahitya Sammelan on Monday.

The function was inaugurated by Justice Mandhata Singh, former judge of Patna High Court. Justice Singh also felicitated today's poet Acharya Vijay Gunjan and poet-journalist Bindeshwar Prasad Gupta by presenting them with Ang-Vastram on their 70th birthday.

Today, the birth anniversaries of four great Hindi scholars, Prime Minister Rajarshi Purushottam Das Tandon, founder of All India Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, national poet Maithili Sharan Gupt, first free verse poet and pioneer of Bihar movement Babu Mahesh Narayan and praiseworthy Hindi propagator Babu Gangasharan Singh were celebrated and tributes were paid while remembering their great contributions.

Remembering Tandon ji, Dr. Sulabh said that Tandon ji was a pioneer saint of the generation of sacrificial ascetics who fought for India's independence. This sage-like intellectual who sacrificed everything for the nation and the national language did not hesitate to fight even with Nehru for Hindi. Tandon ji used all his powers to ensure that the language of the Union Government of India should be 'Hindi' and the script should be 'Devanagari'. His contribution in the promotion of Hindi has been incomparable.

He said that Babu Mahesh Narayan, who first blew the trumpet for the great struggle to have the name of 'Bihar' marked on the map of India, was not only a symbol of the awakening of 'Bihari identity', but was also a great cultural warrior, a great journalist and the first poet of free verse in Hindi literature. Mahesh Babu's poetic work 'Swapna-Bhang' was published three decades before the publication of Mahapraan Nirala's 'Juhi ki Kali'.

Welcoming the guests, the Vice President of the conference Dr. Shankar Prasad said that poet Maithilisharan Gupt, honoured with the title of 'Rashtra Kavi' by the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and decorated with the Padma Bhushan award of the Government of India, is the first great poet of Khariboli Hindi. Among the great poets of the country who made a great contribution in shaping the form of modern Hindi, Gupta ji is in the front row. Gupta ji was in favour of naming the newly developed Khariboli as 'Bharati' instead of 'Hindi'. He believed that since it is the language of 'India', it should be named 'Bharati'. He said that from the time of the establishment of Sahitya Sammelan, Bihar's proud men Desh Ratna Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Babu Ganga Sharan Singh had joined the movement of Hindi promotion. As Hindi promoters of the Sammelan, both these great men did invaluable work with full devotion and faith in the promotion of the language and script in many non-Hindi speaking areas including South India and Bengal.

Dr. Jang Bahadur Pandey, former head of the Hindi department in Ranchi University, presented a quick review of the poems read by Acharya Gunjan. Senior poet Dr. Ratneshwar Singh, vice-president of the Sammelan Dr. Madhu Verma, senior poetess Aradhana Prasad, Chanda Mishra etc. also expressed their views. Poet Bindeshwar Gupta, who was felicitated on his birthday, also recited his compositions. The stage was managed by poetess Abhilasha Kumari and the vote of thanks was given by Krishna Ranjan Singh.

On this occasion poet Arjun Prasad Singh, Indu Bhushan Sahay, Praveer Kumar Pankaj, Ashwini Kaviraj, Geeta Gupta, Mohini Priya, Sohini Priya, Shobhakant Jha, Sachchidanand Sharma, Dr. Prem Prakash, Pramod Arya, Vivek Kumar, Gaurav Abhishek, Suraj Kumar, Nandan Kumar Meet, Kumari Maneka, Dolly Kumari and other intellectuals were present.