The culture of a community is expressed in its voice.  The voice of South Asia is old and layered.  Though colored by numerous hues of accents, beliefs and mannerisms, the voice sustains itself as a living tradition of the humanity, which is unique in the world.  This tradition lives in through the legends and stories, grandma tales, lullabies, inspirational songs, romantic ballads and social choirs, scattered throughout the expanse of South Asia.  A farmer sings while harvesting his crops and a warrior sings preparing to go to a battle.  Many songs are old.  They are lyrical and most often their authors are unknown.  Including these and adding the energetic songs that caused people to rise up for freedom constitute the “Voice of the People” from South Asia.

The organization South Asian Poets of New England http://southasiapoets.wixsite.com/sapne schedules its Fall quarterly meeting to explore the “voice” as carried over by the immigrant community in New England.  The goal is to reflect on the calls that trained us for our life in society and to explore a mechanism to document it for the future of the immigrant community.  Being old in tradition, the message of South Asia could be considered as the message of the world.  Through exploring South Asia, we get a view of human thinking as it has manifested around the world.  The call of hope, aspiration and freedom is not confined to any locality or any community.  The message of South Asia is expected to be the universal message of human civilization in its dignity, honor and conduct through mutual respect. 

Through this note, I take the opportunity to call upon all to participate in the poets’ meeting this Saturday, November 5, 2016, at 2 PM, scheduled at Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, MA.  The address is 1874 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA.  http://www.carylibrary.org/getting-here

The meeting is scheduled in the Large Meeting Room in the Lower Level.   Please contact Bijoy Misra at misra.bijoy@gmail.com for participation.

The following poets will read in respective languages as indicated.  The format would be to present a classical poem from the language in choice and then offer a translation.  This is to be followed by an author written poem in the line of the thoughts presented.  The process would be a continuing project in order to create good translations and develop into a voice in the new land of settlement.  The poets’ list is:

Neena Wahi  - Hindi, Sajed Kamal – Bengali, Rosie Kamal – English,  R. Balachandra – Kannada,  Bijoy Misra – Oriya, Rahul Ray – Bengali , Swapna Ray – Bengali, Chandu Shah – Gujarati,  Muneebur Rahman – Kashmiri, Dharmvir Sharma – Punjabi, Maya De – Bengali,  Alok De – Bengali, Amandeep Singh - Punjabi, Pallika Kanani – Gujarati, Preetpal Singh – Gujarati, Sanjeev Tripathi – Hindi,  Maneesh Srivastava – Hindi,  Rajesh Tyagi – Hindi, Amit Khare – Hindi.

Dr. R. Balachandra, Professor Emeritus from Northeastern University will preside over the meeting.  The event is sponsored by India Discovery Center, http://www.indiadiscoverycenter.org 

The flier for the event is attached. Hope you can join.

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