Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 6: ‘Shikkha-Matta’, a book in Dogri containing children stories, written by Rajeshwar Singh ‘Raju’, was released today by Dogri Sanstha, Jammu.
Prof R D Sharma, Vice Chancellor of Jammu University, was chief guest in the function, which was presided over by Prof Lalit Magotra, president of Dogri Sanstha. Dr Arvinder Singh Amn, Additional Secretary of J & K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, was the special guest and Anjali Sharma, Director, All India Radio, Jammu, was the guest of honour. The function was attended by a large number of writers, theatre artistes and prominent persons from all fields of art and culture.
Prof R D Sharma highlighted the importance of children literature in general and for Dogri in particular. He said that children literature is the best mean of attracting our younger generation to Dogri language and literature, which is otherwise getting alienated from their mother tongue and cultural heritage.
Prof Lalit Magotra traced the world history of children literature and emphasized the importance which stalwarts of world literature gave to children literature. He delineated the basic tenets and characteristics by which children literature inculcates the qualities of inquiry and quest among the young minds and ignites love for literature in them. He said, “the released book makes a very interesting reading for youngsters, which is a great strength of this book.
Dr Arvinder Singh Amn spoke on the paucity of children literature and considered it as one of the causes of our younger generation drifting away from literature.
Anjali Sharma spoke at length on the multidimensional personality of Rajeshwar Raju and said that he is a versatile writer who has contributed immensely to the fields of short story writing, playwriting, Radio playwriting and poetry etc.
Dr Nirmal Vinod, general secretary of Dogri Sanstha, conducted the programme. Being a scholar of Dogri and Hindi, he came up with many references from literature to assess and evaluate the released book.
Sheetal Kumari, a research scholar of Post Graduate Department of Dogri, JU, presented a critical analysis of the released book.
Rajeshwar Singh ‘Raju’, the author of the book, talked about his inspiration for writing the book and narrated his experiences while writing it.
The vote of thanks was presented by Dr Chanchal Bhasin, secretary of Dogri Sanstha.
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