City writers bag Sahitya Akademi awards

SD Sharma

Chandigarh, May 28

“The city is abundant in literary potential with poets, prose writers and novelists  retaining their creative impulse and contributing to the contemporary literary scene,” said VP Singh Badnore, UT Administrator and Punjab Governor, during the largely attended 10th annual award ceremony of the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi (CSA) at the Government Museum and Art Gallery hall in Sector 10, here, on Monday.

Sharing his ardent love for literature, he said being a proud descendant of the Mira Bai’s dynasty, he had also authored a book on the history and culture of Badnore in Rajasthan.

Badnore had also initiated the conduct of the Military Literary Festival in the city and assured all help to CSA chairman Madhav Kaushik for  reviving  the ‘Chandigarh Festival of Letters’.

“Ever since my arrival here and attending such functions, my library has swelled manifold,” he said in a lighter vein while lauding the efforts of the CSA and complimented city authors who have won the prestigious CSA awards.

The authors who were bestowed with the ‘Award of Recognition’, carrying a citation, shawl and a cash prize of Rs 51,000 each, included  Manmohan (Punjabi) Santosh Dhiman (Hindi), Shelly  Walia (English), Shankar Jha (Sanskrit) and Madhukar Arya (Urdu).

The ‘Best Book of the Year’ award’ carrying a citation shawl and cash prize of  Rs 25,000 was given to eight authors — Dheera Khandelwal (Hindi poetry)  Pratima Srivastva ( English novel), Jang Bahadur Goyal (Punjabi translation), Om Prakash Sondhi (Hindi novel), Mayank Mishra (Hindi story), Pramila Gupta (Hindi translation) Subhash Sharma (Punjabi drama) and Goverdhan Gabbi (Punjabi story).

Madhav Kaushik expressed gratitude to the guests, awardees and writers while CSA secretary Jaspal Singh introduced the awardees and anchored the programmme.

Manmohan Singh, an IPS Officer of the 1988 batch holding a doctoral degree, has sculpted 24 literary books, including 11 of poetry, while his novel ‘Nirvaan’ won national Sahitya Akademi award.

Dheera Khandelwal, IAS, a senior Haryana bureaucrat, has authored five books while three more are in the offing. Sculpting poetry in suitable paradigm of words is my obsession, she said.

Jang  Bahadur Goyal, IAS (retd), enjoys experimenting with literary genres, especially translation of works 

of social cultural relevance of Indian and foreign writers.

Another poet Goverdhan Gabbi, a civil engineer by profession, has penned books on prose and poetry and feels that his passion of poetry rejuvenates him for improving his professional skills too.