By LYDIA EARHART

lee003@latech.edu

 

The Focus on India exhibit featured a lecture on Indian literature March 30.

Deepika Bahri, director of Asian studies and an associate professor of English at Emory University-Atlanta, spoke on the different types of literature in India.

“Every language brings out its culture,” Bahri said.

“I knew coming to Tech [to speak about Indian literature] would be a wonderful opportunity to experience Louisiana.”

Bahri said within India other literature is flourishing, such as translation.

“India has a small localized audience,” Bahri said.

“It is still not a majority language, but it is being represented in a meaningful kind of way.”

Bahri said literature has a lot to commemorate.

“We have a great deal to celebrate, not only the sort relative to India,” Bahri said.

“Students confront the limits of what literature can do.”

Mayukh Das, a research assistant for the mathematics department, said he was interested in Indian literature.

“I grew up learning and appreciating Bengali literature, which has a big contribution towards the growth of the country’s culture and heritage,” Das said.

“I would say that I was keen to see how somebody could gist out a topic which is so vast in itself, in a talk spanning roughly an hour.”

Das said he and Bahri are from the same area.

“I could relate to her upbringing and outlook. I liked her choice of the topic on post colonial,” Das said.

“It was appropriate to the situation and the event. I learned some facts she presented that I should have known as a citizen of the country.

“I liked her style of presenting facts and data to support her reasoning behind the projection of uniformity of literature,” Das said.

Das said it is important to learn about any kind of literature.

“I feel that Indian literature is something which has evolved through ages and holds the flavor of a wine aged for centuries,” Das said.

“The English language writers in India have happened only in the last 50 years. My strong recommendation would be to read more translation work.”

Das said he enjoyed the speaker.

“[Bahari] instilled in me a feeling which I was proud to realize,” Das said.

“There is a possibility that with her able guidance some dedicated people would form a Web site where all forms of Indian literature — old, medieval, prehistoric, contemporary, translated, etc. — could be referred to in the future.”