GUWAHATI, June 12 - Selection of words and their usage have to be a very careful process in expression as it can make or mar a person. This was the opinion of Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi awardee Mamang Dai when she spoke at a webinar titled �Meet the Author� organised by Royal Global University (RGU) on June 11, said a press release.
In her inimitable quiet style, Dai referred to the unprecedented times she is experiencing because of COVID-19, saying that staying indoors has never been a problem because she writes the old fashioned way. Drawing inspiration from life, her surroundings and her inculcated innate creativity, she gave the metaphor of a stone thrown into water creating ripples, which become stories and poems.
She emphasised that selection and usage of words have to be a very careful process in expression as they could make or mar a person. There are different genres of writing available in the world which permit all sections of society to express themselves in their mother tongues or any other languages, she further said.
Dai, who is from the state of the rising sun in India � Arunachal Pradesh, called upon writers from her state to write in any language they wish because the process must go on for literature to live through ages.
Katha Award winner Dr Dhruba Hazarika who set aside his inhibitions on his first webinar, agreed that these COVID times are indeed innovative times. Speaking on creative writing, Dr Hazarika, a founder member of the�North East Writers� Forum, shared his journey of the amalgamation of his administrative duties and being a fervent note writer, adding that he essayed his journeys and thoughts which culminated into books for posterity. He compared true writing to true love which talks about the intellect and not dialect. Writing is a collective journey of thoughts, memories, and experiences or may even be a cue. To delve into historical fiction writing, one has to do hardcore research to develop characters and plots. He also mused on the fact that success is a very elusive term, seldom received as its tentacles vary from person to person.
The novel coronavirus is a great teacher with a criminal bent of mentality, teaching all alike on the nuances of life one often took for granted, said Dr Hazarika, who takes inspiration from life and Nature to continue his journey through the alleys of words.
RGU Vice Chancellor Prof SP Singh said reading is important because it develops the mind to understand and perceive situations and stalemates in life to create viabilities for solutions. Teaching children to read helps them develop their language skills and to listen. Reading exposes a child to impossibilities of life, its various impediments and how best to overcome them. Distractions will always dissuade a person but how best he comes out of those situations victorious is what reading teaches, he added. He further stressed that �A book is a friend for life� and how best one stays connected to the fictitious and real world, �Maketh a Man�.
Prof Krishna Barua of Royal School of Languages along with over 400 faculty, staff and students of RGU as well as from across India took part in the webinar, the release added.
