Dalit writer Kali to attend Jaipur lit fest for fifth time

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 20

As noted Dalit writer Des Raj Kali heads to the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) starting next week, it will be for the fifth time that he will be a panellist for discussions 

in the event.

Kali will be one of the 350 speakers at about 200 sessions to be held in the five-day festival to be attended by over 4 lakh visitors from across the country and abroad.

The first session that Kali will be a part of has been titled ‘The Dark of the Dawn: Bhor ke Andhere Mein’ which will be based on the transformative Dalit literature. It will feature iconic writers and journalists who have struggled extreme poverty, prejudice and illiteracy to become highly regarded litterateurs. The panel will include Sheoraj Singh Bechain from the University of Delhi, Bengali writer Manoranjan Byapari and critic Harish Trivedi, besides Kali, who has penned over 12 novels, 100 short stories and essays in Punjabi.

The second session which Kali will be a part of is ‘Reclaiming the mother tongue’. Kanishk Tharoor, author and son of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, will be a part of this discussion.

Kali says: “When I last attended the JLF, I was in the panel with Shashi Tharoor over ‘swachhata’ issue in the country. It is a sheer chance that it will be his son this time.”

Sharing about issues that he will harp on, Kali said: “In the session based on the Dalit literature, I will be delving on the works of medieval era Punjabi Dalit poets Gulabdass and Peero Preman and Wazir Singh and Nurang Devi. In the second session about mother tongue, my focus will be on vibrant and rich Punjabi literature that even has impressions about Buddhist tradition through Shivaism and Vaishnavism, in a period just ahead of the Saint Kabir’s era. I have been studying this traditional literature for the past 10 years.”

Having penned Punjabi novels ‘Chanan di Leek’, ‘Kath-Kali’, ‘Faqiri’ and ‘Nar Natak’ and currently working on his five-volume series ‘Thumri’, Kali has carved a niche for himself by his works in the past two decades. He has earlier attended the JLF in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2016.

Fact file

Having penned Punjabi novels ‘Chanan di Leek’, ‘Kath-Kali’, ‘Faqiri’ and ‘Nar Natak’ and currently working on his five-volume series ‘Thumri’, Des Raj Kali has carved a niche for himself by his works in the past two decades. He has earlier attended the JLF in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2016.