The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur’s (IITK) Akshar 2023 – An IIT Kanpur Literary Festival celebrated the Birth Centenary Festival of Smt. Gaura Pant ‘Shivani’ who was undoubtedly one of the greatest female writers in Hindi on 17 October 2023.

The event was graced by the presence of Shri. Muktesh Pant, IIT Kanpur alumnus and son of the great author, and his wife Smt.Vinita Pant; Smt. Ira Pandey, daughter of Shivani, her husband Shri Amitabha Pandey and son Aditya Pandey. Several batchmates of Shri Muktesh Pant and former distinguished alumni of IIT Kanpur, notably Shri Sudhakar Kesavan and family, Shri Anupam Khanna, Shri Varun Sinha, Rajesh Nandan Pandey and a few others also graced the occasion and shared their collective memories of Shivani.

The event opened with a welcome note from the Officiating Director, Prof. S Ganesh who welcomed all on the momentous occasion and praised the efforts of the Shivani Centre and Rajbhasha Prakoshth in bringing forth the role of literature and Indian languages in our lives and the efforts in bringing together the role of technology in enriching the user’s interaction with Hindi and other Indian languages. Shri Muktesh Pant then addressed the gathering recollecting his memories about his mother, Shivani, his days in the IIT Kanpur campus and some of the collective memories of his colleagues with his mother Shivani.

Later, Muktesh Pant was joined by Smt. Ira Pandey, his sister and Shri Pushpesh Pant, acclaimed food historian and critic. They discussed about the life and works of Shivani, under the program titled, ‘Humari Diddi’ as Shivani was fondly called by her family members. They recalled fascinating stories of Shivani’s life in Shanti Niketan under Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, and her growing prowess in writing due to her compassion and respect for everyone around her. They talked about Shivani as a very sharp observer of people around her and that her literature drew from the people’s lives around her like her story ‘Ek thi Ramratti’ which was based on her house help who is attached to the family.

The next event was lecture on the life and works of Shivani by Dr. Vaibhav Singh, a renowned writer of Hindi, who came from Delhi for this event. Vaibhav pointed some of the most interesting facets of Shivani’s writings and dwelt in detail about the several factors that resonated with her readers. He mentioned the context and reception of several of her famous stories like Krishnakali, Chaudah Fere, Lal Haveli and so on.

The lecture was followed by a small session led by Sudipti wherein the readers and fans of Shivani got together to share their experiences about reading Shivani’s countless stories and novels. They discussed the way in which Shivani touched their lives and provided them a sense of direction and motivation in their lives.

It was followed by a mesmerizing theatrical performance of acclaimed poet Suryakanth Tripathi ‘Nirala’’s long poem “Ram ki Shakti Pooja” enacted by Vyomesh Shukl’s Roopvani Theatre Group from Varanasi. Vyomesh a renowned poet himself orchestrated the performance and left the audience spellbound. This was the 92nd presentation of the Roopvani Group’s “Ram Ki Shakti Pooja’ which has been presented around the country. The second last performance of the day was “Sharad Ritu par Rabindra Sangeet ka Ek Guldasta” by Bodhi Group from IIT Kanpur. This band is composed of several faculty members and staff from the institute, some of whose names are Mahua Banerjee, Soumyen Guha, Chitralekha Bhattacharya, Sarani Saha, Saheli Datta, Sharmishtha Mitra, Maitreyi Chatterjee, Ananyd Das and accompanied by Violinist Devanand Pathak and Shri Harish Jha on Tabla.

The finale of the event was the Kavi Sammelan and Mushaira which was graced by some of the best poets and shayars of the country in Farhat Ehsaas, Shariq Kaifi, Bhavna Tiwari, Pankaj Chaturvedi, Vyomesh Shukla, Soumya Malvia, Avinash Mishra & Amritanshu Sharma. The poets mesmerized the audience with their souldful poems and ghazals and left them spell bound to the extent that they did not want to leave their seats even for a minute.

A note of thanks was delivered by Dr. Ark Verma who thanked the guests and audience for their continued presence and endorsement of the efforts of Shivani Centre and the Rajbhasha Prakoshth, the APPROACH CELL and Gaatha, and SIIC IIT Kanpur incubated company in coming together and making the event a grand success. He also requested the audience to continue supporting these efforts and join back again for the next iteration of Akshar in 2024.

The Mega Book Fair organized by Akshar -2023 also came to a close and was thronged by hundreds of visitors who purchased a large number of books in an effort to bring literature and culture back to their lives.