Poetry recitation, plays mark Hindi Diwas

To commemorate the adoption of Hindi as official language of the Indian Union by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, 'Hindi Diwas' was celebrated in different schools, colleges and offices in Shimla as well as in Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) on Wednesday.

Besides various cultural programmes, Hindi poetry recital sessions, debates, essay-writing competitions, quiz sessions, plays and one-act plays were organized in St Bede's, RKMV, Kotshera and Sanjauli colleges, the university and various schools here. Hindi Week celebrations also started in different offices, including the accountant general's where debates, Hindi typing and other competitions will be held throughout the week from Wednesday.

Chief minister P K Dhumal, while honouring officials at the state-level Hindi Diwas celebrations for carrying out work in the language, said, "It is the responsibility of every individual to protect the cultural identities, including mother language." He declared that honorarium for litterateurs and writers would be increased from Rs 250 to Rs 1,000 in the state. The language and culture (LAC) department, in association with theatre organizations HCRFTA and Sankalp, staged the adaption of Mahasweta Devi's acclaimed novel 'Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa' at Gaiety Theatre. General secretary of Sankalp theatre organization Kedar Thakur said the play directed by Aayan Das Gupta "revolves around the feelings of a mother whose son has been involved in Naxalite movement and it is a tribute to motherhood and is being staged to celebrate the day of our mother tongue, Hindi.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Poetry-recitation-plays-mark-Hindi-Diwas/articleshow/9988473.cms

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Agrahyah Technologies launches India’s first audio-on demand platform

Agrahyah Technologies has launched aawaz.com, an audio on demand platform with professionally generated content in vernacular languages. With this, people can listen to podcasts, chat shows, interviews and also read articles and features. Aawaz.com is currently available in Hindi, and as both website and Android app.

Aawaz.com will also have ML (machine learning) and AI (artificial capabilities) based capabilities to recommend and personalize content based on user’s preferences. With the app, people can listen to over 150 hours of audio content which is scripted, recorded, and presented as podcasts and shows. Both audio and text content are spread across multiple genres including entertainment, lifestyle, health, fiction, literature, devotional, comedy, humor and more.

India’s on-demand audio or podcast as an industry is very nascent and Aawaz.com aims to be an early mover and learn and grow with a new generation of audience who are increasingly consuming passive content such as podcast while performing another task like driving or cooking.

With Aawaz.com, Agrahyah aims to take the lead in offering brands an innovative, ad free, and engaging platform while offering consumers an easy access to rich, culturally relevant content accessible through mobile and web. As a first of its kind platform in Hindi, Aawaz offers both audio content and text content bundled into one, and both of them are created professionally in-house by Agrahyah Technologies.

Speaking about the launch, Sreeraman Thiagarajan, cofounder of Agrahyah Technologies in a statement said, “Aawaz.com is our way of making the web useful to people by providing high quality and genuine content created by subject matter experts. While we are striving to make content useful, it is also entertaining.”

Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/agrahyah-technologies-launches-indias-first-audio-on-demand-platform/articleshow/67555585.cms

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Is podcast the latest trend amongst millennials in India

When an email from Apple landed in Mae Mariyam Thomas’s inbox last month, it felt like an affirmation of two leaps of faith she had taken. The first leap was in 2015 when she launched the country’s first indie music podcast, Maed in India, at a time when the concept of listening to a recorded audio series on the internet had not caught popular imagination. The second was her decision to start a podcasting company last year though the medium is yet to mature in India.

Thomas’s podcast, the Apple email said, was one of the top Indian podcasts of 2018. Also, the only other podcast her new company had produced — No Sugarcoat by Pooja Dhingra — had also made it to the Apple list. “I was like, ‘Whaaat’! I felt so honoured,” says Thomas, a former radio jockey who relocated to Mumbai after studying and working in the UK. More podcasts are now in the works, she told ET Magazine.

The year 2015 was also when the Indian market came to the notice of Audioboom, a UK-headquartered company that hosts, distributes and helps monetise podcasts.

While doing the podcast for the ICC during the Cricket World Cup, the company noticed a jump in listenership from India though it wasn’t even present there. “We realised there was a lot of potential,” says Audioboom’s India head Aman Goklani.

Since opening its India office in 2016, the company has worked with more than 70 Indian podcasters and its average monthly listens (the metric used in podcasting, like views in videos) have jumped to 15 lakh from under two lakh in 2016.

In the last six months, Audioboom has also helped several news organisations launch their podcasts. And advertisements, too, have begun trickling in.

“In a country like India, the potential for spoken audio content is huge. Things are not going to change overnight but it is headed in the right direction,” says Goklani, who believes there are strong undercurrents that will make the medium mainstream in five to 10 years.

Taking It Slow
Talking about the growth of podcasting in India is tricky. For some, the pace has been as frustrating as watching paint dry.

“The adoption rate of podcasts in India is much lower than it should be. The people with the muscle to educate users are not doing it,” says Chhavi Sachdev, an independent producer who has been making podcasts since 2008 and now conducts podcasting workshops.

The slow growth in India is in stark contrast to the US, where podcasting was a $314 million industry in 2017, or China, where the market size is an estimated $7 billion, thanks to subscription-driven revenue and preference for premium educational content.

In India, the advertising industry is yet to take much notice. “Podcasts will take off when brands see their business increase because of investing in the media. Some will experiment with it, just like a few brands did with social media in the initial days,” says Prashanth Challapalli, COO of Leo Burnett Orchard.

In India, the content in general also feels uneven, says Sachdev. “Producers and creators lose momentum and direction because the industry is growing so slowly,” she says, leading to a vicious cycle and a phenomenon called ‘podfade’ when, as the name suggests, a podcast fades out.

At the same time, anecdotal evidence suggests a growing interest in the medium among the urban Indian millennial familiar with US pop culture. And people are not just talking about what their favourite podcasts are but also about launching their own. As a Twitter user remarked that people are talking about launching podcasts in the same vein they once used to talk about blogging.

Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/podcasting-growth-is-slowly-picking-up-in-india/articleshow/67398243.cms

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An Interview With Yatindra Mishra: Hindi Literature Today

Yatindra Mishra has four collections of Hindi poetry to his credit – Yada Kada, Ayodhya tatha Anya Kavitayein, Dyorhi par Aalap and Vibhas. As a music and film critic he has also written Girija (the life  and works of thumri singer Girija Devi), ‘Devpriya’, ‘Sur ki Baradari’ and ‘Humsafar’. His Meelon Se Din won the Best Publication Award for year 2010. He has also translated the twelfth century Lingayat mystic poet Akka Mahadevi’s Vachanas in Hindi language, titled Bhairavi. Translations of his English writings have been well received in German, Urdu and English languages. He is a recipient of numerous awards including Bhartiya Jnanputha Fellowship. He has worked as a Chanel advisor of DD Bharati New Delhi for the term 2014-16. Recently he published a book on the Musical journey of the Legendary playback singer Lata Mangeshkar titled Lata: Sur-Gatha.

(translated from Hindi, by the interviewer)

 WHAT ARE YOUR INSPIRATIONS WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR WORKS BECAUSE YOU HAVE WRITTEN OVER A VARIED RANGE OF TOPICS, FROM ABOUT AYODHYA TO MORE RECENTLY ABOUT LATA MANGESHKAR?
I’ve been a poet from the beginning and I’ve always written poetry in Hindi. I write about political and social issues and about cultures, how cultures are changing. But later I had the urge to write about art forms. I’ve written on Bismilllah Khan, Girija Devi and recently on Lata Mangeshkar and her music journey in ‘Lata: Sur Gatha’. But I am primarily a poet, and I write from the perspective of a poet.

WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THE STATE OF HINDI LITERATURE IN INDIA TODAY?
Nothing is dying out, I think that’s a clichéd and over hyped phrase – that it’s happening. Literature doesn’t die. The medium changes. We used to read paperback books, now we read on kindle, we read on Facebook, we read blogs; so the medium, the expression changed, it has become more democratic. We used to go to publishers and editors earlier who would reject it. Today you can write your poems on blogs and express yourself, and get people who appreciate your work. There is a different cyber culture today – every newspaper uses the online medium to get articles out as well. So I think this is a lot more democratic because people get to have their say more. But I don’t think literature died out. Just like in case of cinemas, we say that the Golden Age of movies is dead and gone, but it’s still there. So the expression of thoughts have changed with the times; and with every age the questions asked change, and their impact changes. Every age has its own ideologies, and the questions to be asked have been modified as well. For example if we talk about the independence of our country today, we’d talk it in the context of us celebrating 7 decades of freedom. However if we went back in time and talked about it in 1947, then we’d be talking about just achieving it. So similar is the situation in case of literature. If you talk about Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay and a writer of today, there would definitely be a stark difference in styles of writing, and what they write about.

Source: http://kolkatabookfair.net/an-interview-with-yatindra-mishra-hindi-literature-today/

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Being a judge at a poetry competition

After the assembly, the principal gave a short, motivational & influential speech, which I heard like a student. After that all of the students spread into different directions to move towards their respective places designated for separate competitions. And those two girls escorted me to the place where the Hindi poetry competition was to be held. Over there I met the other judge, who is a Sanskrit professor at a government girls college in Gurgaon.

I was glad to see that there were almost forty students from classes 7th to 10th, including a few children from two other schools as well. As I sat on the judge’s chair, I felt a great sense of responsibility. The students were given three topics, out of which they had to pick one of their choice & had to write a poem of 10-12 lines in the given 20 minutes time. When they were done, one by one they came on the stage to recite their poems. We had to judge them on four criteria: relevance, expressions, confidence & expressions. I heard each of them attentively. After that I, along with the other judge, took the best marks from both of us’ sheets & added them to decide the first & second position.

They called me on the stage to announce the winner. I was a bit nervous but I knew being a poetess, I have to give them some poetry tips honestly. I first thanked the school authorities for inviting me. Then I said that I am glad to see you many in numbers as there is a lot of work to be done in the field of hindi poetry and you are the future & it’s great that you are taking interest in it. Then I told the children a little about writing poetry. I said, ‘a poetry should be like a river, just like a river flows flawlessly, a poetry must be flowing. It must have a message in it. There must be a proper beginning, middle & an end, rhyming is also equally important. I told them it is not easy to write, not everyone can, because for writing a poetry one has to be in sync with the universe, so that one can pick just the right words from the stream of thoughts flowing into the cosmos. Use of selectively chosen words should be there & one can use a lot of synonyms as well.’ Then I announced the first & second winners, called them on stage, told them why they have been chosen.

We were told that the selected poetry would be uploaded on the CBSE website. I was happy that behind that uploaded poetry, my judgement would be there.

This way I thought I did justice to my being a Judge.

Besides all this I gone through many other tiny feelings & emotions, which I would share some other day.

Source: https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/being-a-judge-at-a-poetry-competition

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As Podcasts vie for ear space, these pioneers hope to change what we hear

As a generation, most of us are glued to our mobile phones, taking in information with our heads bowed down. But there will soon come a time, when we will be able to keep our heads up, listening to all the information through a podcast,” says Naveen Haldorai, creator of Curry Podcasts, one of the very few Tamil podcasts in India. For him, podcasts are the bridge between active and passive content.

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A podcast is the only online content that allows indirect consumption. “It lets you consume content in passive state. You can listen to a podcast when the phone is getting charged, when it’s locked or even while going through social media,” says Gautam Raj Anand, founder of Hubhopper, India’s largest podcast directory.

The intellect recommends podcast
“A few years ago, people were not even familiar with the word ‘podcast’, but now it is ‘intellectual’ to listen to a podcast,” Anand says. The word ‘podcast’, an amalgamation of ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’, was coined in 2004 and has now become synonymous to the audio content available on the Internet. Although the industry is flourishing abroad, in India it is still at a very nascent stage.

It feels like your friend is talking to you, and because of this, you retain and believe what you hear. It also opens up your imaginations and takes you on a journey,” Haldorai says.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/as-podcasts-vie-for-ear-space-these-pioneers-hope-to-change-what-we-hear-5499417/

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World Hindi Honour for BBC's Achala Sharma

Achala Sharma, Head of BBC Hindi Service, has been awarded the World Hindi Honour at the Seventh World Hindi Conference held in Suriname.

She has been honoured for her significant contribution to the development and popularity of the Hindi language in the field of broadcast and literature.

Achala is a well known name and voice to the listeners of BBC Hindi Service.

For almost 18 years now she has been instrumental in turning BBC Hindi into a leading Hindi-language radio and online service.

Among other achievements, she has to her credit two collections of radio plays, Passport and Jaren (Roots) which were recently released in London.

She has also authored two novels and three collections of short stories.

Achala says she is delighted to be honoured.

"Hindi as a language has an immense potential. With Indians living all over the world, it is transcending geographical boundaries," she said.

"The World Hindi Conference being an annual event held in different countries stands testimony to the diverse reach of the language.

"I feel truly privileged to be sharing the limelight with acclaimed scholars, and hope that the exchange of thoughts and ideas amongst us helps further enhance the quality and reach of Hindi literature and broadcast."

Achala is one of 25 people across the world to be honoured.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/06_june/06/achala_sharma.shtml

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Pervaiz Alam

Producer, writer, journalist and broadcaster, Pervaiz Alam is a s a professor and dean, Journalism & Mass Com at Apeejay Stya University based in Gurgaon. He is the award-winning director of the immensely popular BBC radio-drama series in Hindi called, Life Gulmohar Style. The series, which dealt with gender issues like equality and sex-selective abortion reproductive health and violence, were broadcast by more than fifteen FM Networks across India.

Pervaiz has worked as a senior broadcast journalist with BBC World (Television) where he produced programmes like India Business Report, Mastermind India and HARD talk India, amongst others. Prior to this he was a producer with BBC World Service (Radio).

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/litfest/litfest-2017/speakers/pervaiz-alam/articleshow/61115413.cms

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Why podcasters are betting on desi content

In the past two years, Gautam Raj Anand says he’s read more books than he has in his 27 years — and that’s because he’s listening to them, not actually poring over every word. The founder and CEO of Hubhopper a Delhi-based podcasts aggregator, says it’s his own experience of the ease of using audiobooks that convinced him of audio’s potential as a medium.

Anand started Hubhopper as a social network in 2015, but pivoted over time to an AI-enabled repository of podcasts, and he’s now aiming to create a community of podcasters in regional languages. “One way to do that is to disassociate the medium from the word ‘podcast’. We need to escape the niche and elitist impression it creates,” he says. Audio content has been popular for decades in India, and it’s just a matter of reviving it, he believes. Hubhopper has raised four rounds of funding, including an undisclosed pre-series A investment from a VC firm. It receives close to 100 creator requests on its platform every week, but only 25% of the leads make the cut.

Early trends indicate that 2019 may be the year of audio, say experts. In 2018, Amazon launched its audiobooks platform Audible in India, Google Audiobooks opened access to Indian users, and last year Sweden-based audiobooks firm Storytel started an Indian arm. Global media reports suggest that streaming major Spotify is set to look beyond music and enter the podcasting world, with India on its priority list. Audioboom India, an on-demand audio platform, gets 15 lakh listens on an average each month for podcasts, with 80% of its listeners are in the age group of 18-34.

Yogesh Dashrath, country manager, Storytel India, said the group took almost “a courageous leap” betting on India’s audio space in 2017. “The Jio effect on smartphones and Netflix’s effect on the subscription business model has helped increase appeal of audio in India,” he says.

The convenience of podcasts is at the heart of its popularity. Increasing commute times, faster data, smartphone penetration, and the country’s preference for passive content that doesn’t need one’s full attention make the audio space ripe for entrepreneurs to venture into. IVM, Audiomatic and Indicast are other startups that host narrative audio content across news, sports, pop culture and entrepreneurship. Media enterprises too are tapping podcasts as an additional touch point to reach users.

Audiomatic, co-founded by Rajesh Tahil and Tariq Ansari in 2015, pegs itself as a spot for quality narrative content and hosts five shows across culture, current affairs and food. Tahil, who also heads operations at a digital media enterprise, admits that Audiomatic is currently in a phase of “market discovery”, and is trying to spread podcasts beyond the niche audience it currently enjoys. While he refused to disclose listener metrics, Tahil said the self-funded Audiomatic’s adoption has grown close to 300% in three years.

One of the most popular genres is startup-themed podcasts. From Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale in the US to The Indian Startup Show by Neil Patel, entrepreneurs are lapping up insights on leadership, innovation and productivity via podcasts. “Given an entrepreneur’s hectic lifestyle, podcasts are a huge resource for growing your enterprise,” says Hubhopper’s Anand, noting that podcasts have been his single source of support in scaling up his own business. Audiomatic's Tahil agrees: “It’s a great forum for discussing challenges and sharing experiences as an entrepreneur.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/trend-tracking/why-podcasters-are-betting-on-desi-content/articleshow/67001341.cms

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An interview with India's jeweller to the stars Farah Khan

Farah Khan's fine jewellery is unique. Like her flamboyant personality, it is intricate yet striking, bold yet feminine. Her signature style incorporates majestic tigers, snakes, insects, floral motifs and Egyptian heads, encrusted with the finest diamonds and gemstones, and she has designed for some of the top Bollywood and Hollywood stars and India's foremost families.

Crowned one of India's most renowned jewellery designers and gemologists, Farah insists that every single design should be a masterpiece. So it is hard to believe that she found her way into jewellery making quite by chance. Coming from a famous Bollywood family, there were expectations that she would pursue a career in acting or filmmaking. But all that changed when she enrolled herself on a gemology course at GIA. It marked the start of a journey that today spans 20 years, with many accolades earned along way.

Farah's journey took another momentous turn recently with the opening of her flagship store at Turner Road Jewellery Boulevard in Bandra, Mumbai. Spread over two floors, it is a visual delight, with jewellery themed around a story that will change every few months. The inaugural "Alice in Wonderland" theme, with its vivid orange windows and quirky displays, is designed to create an emotional connection with the customer, making them - just like Alice - curiouser to find out more. "I believe that anything is possible. Just like Alice, I daydream, except I make those dreams come true," says Farah proudly.

In an exclusive interview for The Jewellery Editor, Preeta Agarwal (PA) spoke to Farah Khan (FK) about her decades-spanning career and passion for jewellery design:

PA: What made you pursue the GIA course?

FK: My initial idea was to go to LA and party for six months, so I was shocked when I realised the course was no joke. So, the only way out was to learn. It left me inquisitive, so I enrolled into the GIA's Jewellery Design course next.

PA: You graduated back in 1993, when jewellery design as a concept was unheard of in India. What were those initial years like?

FK: During those first years I worked with various jewellers in Mumbai, interacted with Indian craftspeople and gained a lot of hands-on knowledge. But unlike most jewellers, who took the route of safe jewellery designs, I itched to make something original. How will a customer know they have a taste for the different if they don't have the opportunity to see something different? I started designing for family and friends and had my jewellery manufactured by a close friend/jewellery manufacturer. The combination of my designs and his manufacturing worked for many years, and I launched my label "Farah Khan Fine Jewellery" in 2004. Then I started my own jewellery design workshop, which houses 80 craftsmen and a skilled design team. Today, with the launch of my new store, I have a retail presence in Delhi and Mumbai.

PA: You are the daughter of a famous Bollywood family. How has that affected your career?

FK: To begin with there were benefits. The Bollywood angle encouraged customers to walk through the door, but my designs made them stay. Adversely, most potential buyers who like my work think my jewellery is super-expensive. To break this myth, my new store is in the biggest high-end jewellery retail market in Mumbai. In the midst of all that competition, I hope that even if guests walk in just to browse, they will realise that my jewellery is equally affordable as my neighbours'.

PA: You are often referred to as a 'jeweller to the stars'. Did you set out with that aim?

FK: Being from a famous Bollywood family, it did give me fame initially as I have many celebrities who wear my jewellery. But I see jewellery as an artform; I make it for those who appreciate art. If they love my work and feel like a princess wearing it, it doesn't matter if a customer is a celebrity or a housewife.

PA: Your designs are more contemporary Indian than traditional. Where do you get your inspiration from and how do you go about designing pieces?

FK: Designs need to have a definite language. I believe in reinventing the past along with creating something new. I make jewellery to suit not just Indian garments but also Western outfits. Most of my inspiration comes from nature. I absolutely love designing bejewelled, three-dimensional animals and insects so that they apear almost alive. I use only gemstones that are lively and have a beautiful lustre - stones that sparkle and leave a twinkle in the eye.

Source: http://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/jewellery/article/an-interview-with-indias-jeweller-to-the-stars-farah-khan/

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7 classics of Hindi literature you must read right now

It's a reservoir that can never go dry, and neither is it possible to ever do justice to any list of top classics. Still, here's a humble attempt at making you appreciate the range of the language, and also at the same time evoke the deep feelings of joy, pain and love their authors have evoked in their readers.

Gunaahon Ka Devta (by Dharamveer Bharti)
One of the most-touching romantic novels ever, it was first published in 1949. Gunaahon Ka Devta is a complex love story that defies the general concepts of romantic relations, taking it way ahead in the realm of human existence. Chander and Sudha, the lead pair, love each other since childhood but do not get married to each other. The books traces the love lost and found in the process and beyond.

RashmiRathi (By Ramdhari Singh Dinkar)
First published in 1954, Rashmirathi is a novel take on the Hindu mythological epic Mahabharat. The character of Karna, the son unmarried Kunti (Pandu's wife) had with Lord Son, is portrayed as the hero in the poem. It is interesting to read the perspective of what is otherwise an unsung hero in Vyas's Mahabharata.
From the injustices meted out to Karna as a 'shudra-putra' to the self-righteousness of the Pandavas and even Kunti, Dinkar points them all out in his poetic style.

Madhushala (By Harivansh Rai Bachchan)
One of the most-quoted works of Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Madhushala was first published in 1935. Madhushala has gems of philosophical wisdom using the symbol of alcohol and alcoholisms. Interestingly, the poet was a teetotaller.

Nirmala (By Munshi Premchand)
First published in 1928, Nirmala is one of the many novels where Premchand takes a dig at the evil practices plaguing Indian society. The USP of Premchand's works is the usage of colloquial words and referrences. Nirmala is the story of a young woman married to a widower and her struggles thereafter.

Raag Darbari (By Sri Lal Sukla)
Raagdarbari, first published in 1970, is a commentary on the disconnect between what we practice and what we preach. Rangnath, a history student visits his village and stays there to notice the stark differences between the ideals he learnt at university and the practices of his uncle, the village head and his practices.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/7-classics-of-hindi-literature-you-must-read-right-now/story-cN1KGVSWpQ9SYVJ6NzBEDL.html

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