"Academic Reading & Writing"- A workshop by Dr. Swetha Antony.

Dr. Swetha Antony gave a lecture on "Academic Reading & Writing". Here, are the notes of the session in which Prof. discussed and highlighted many points.

(Read the same taking her as speaker)

• We need to consider this fact that every researcher is coming from some context, cultural background etc. Situatedness and knowledge of a researcher intertwined with environmental, social and cultural factors directly or indirectly shapes his/her ideas.

• When you pick a text, engage yourself with some questions like:

1. Can you identify the text, whether it is a literary or non-literary?

2. Under what genre you can categorize it? What are the parameters you will use?

3. Are you able to connect or relate with this text?

4. Is the text fit to engage with academically?

• Prof. showed some samples and explained how and using what methodologies, these samples can be taken into consideration. (You can click on the images of the samples in order to see them more clearly and read the content mentioned in them)

Sample 1: This is a large scale painting by Richard Bell. How would you use this as a text? Can it be used as a text for academic writing?

Sample 2: This is a kind of poem describing the process of making a Dosa, written by Madhu Raghvendra. Would you call it literary or non-literary? It is a kind of poem, so we consider it under literary text. The one who has written this, is he a poet or a visual artist? Would you use this as a primary text for your research?

Sample 3: This is an excerpt from "The Great Indian Tee and Snakes" written by Kritika Pandey. Can you identify the context? Is this a literary text? Here, we can see that there is a narrative, descriptive & story telling style; there is a plot, there are characters; there is time, place and setting (a middle class setting). How do you identify- time, place & setting? You unknowingly use your existing knowledge of Indian cuisine, your understanding of the same & your background in order to contextualize this text. All these factors have helped you. Would you use this as an academic text? Prof. Antony argues that try to interpret the text you read based on your own understanding, experiences, knowledge & background.

Sample 4: This is an excerpt from "Remembrance of Things Past", a novel written by Marcel Proust, discussing food stuff. What is the role of food in academic research? Can food be beyond materiality? What methodology you would apply? Textual analysis and methodologies give you questions and problems. Methodological intervention involve memory studies, diasporic studies etc. that could be used to talk about such texts.

Sample 5: This is a journalistic piece called "Indian Thought: Bringing the Flavors of Calcutta to Rhode Island in a Suitcase" written by Jhumpa Lahiri and published in "Food & Wine" magazine. You have to look out for indicators, clues to understand the context.

Sample 6: This is an excerpt of an interview with Kritika Pandey. Here, two generations are being represented. Indicators like Potluck in the US must be considered for contextualization.

Sample 7: It is a piece of poetry; the genre is 'imagism'. Indicators like Glasgow make it clear that the piece is not talking about India; green chutney metaphorically indicates home sickness. Textual analysis and methodologies including taking help from diasporic studies may help that further deal with identity crisis etc. Anita Mannur's essay help you to understand diasporic studies. Memories are different for individuals. We need to know the materiality and metaphoric of it.

Sample 8: This is an excerpt from an essay titled "The Changing Popular Culture of Indian Food" written by Ashis Nandy. Would you call it a academic text? Here, the presence of citation indicates that it is a academic text. Can you see this for literary analysis to write research? You can use all these texts as primary and secondary as well. And essays are always considered as primary source.

Sample 9(A): It is a part of sequential art, required some kind of methodological intervention different from the general one.

Sample 9(B): This sample consists of an anime by 'Studio Ghibli' and 'Manga' (comic or graphic novel) showing Japanese literary & cultural context. These are two of the most universally recognized forms of contemporary mass culture. Because they tell stories through visual imagery, they vault over language barriers. You have to be aware of different cultures while dealing with texts of different areas and different genres.

Sample 10: Can we work on memes? Yes, you can take any approach in research but:

-you should be aware of from where the text is coming from.

-what kind of text it is in which you are researching upon.

-you should be aware of the culture.

-consider the historical context as well.

-you must be knowing about the features of the genre.

-bring methodological intervention from other disciplines as well.

• Beware of misinformation available on the internet. You cannot trust such materials. This is the problem with post-modernism: you are reproducing without mentioning the origin. Working on the bibliography must be going on; any article or book you find relevant for your research must be taken into consideration.

This session was a part of 'Academic Writing Workshop' which was conducted online by English Literary Society, Zakir Husain College (Evening), University of Delhi on 15-03-24.

Dr. Swetha Antony is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Delhi.

Mridula Garg at book launch event of Shruti Sonal's "In which language do I remember you?"

Mridula Garg released Shruti Sonal's "In which language do I remember you?" We see that a good writer's speech contains many philosophical statements that he or she unknowingly makes. Mridula Ji gave an address at the event, and here I am highlighting some of her statements that make one to think upon.

• Grief is more enduring than love.

• Memory has no language.

• After all, what is life but memories?

• When you love someone, that shows you’re a good person. Also, you empathize with others.

• In grief and in love, you’re alone. And when you’re alone, you connect with yourself more deeply.

• Writing helps you conquer your grief.

• Grief is something that remains with you forever.

• Memory is a very treacherous thing; it doesn’t leave you anywhere. It is like everything passes, but nothing passes.

• Grief encompasses all the things, including pleasant moments and horror moments as well.

• Motherhood is not only about caring for children but also about caring for everything.

This event of book launch was conducted on 29-02-24.

Mridula Garg is an Indian writer who writes in Hindi and English languages. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Professor Aloka Parasher Sen delivered a lecture on “Crossing Conceptual Boundaries of Feminine Identity”.

Professor Aloka Parasher Sen delivered an inaugural lecture of the series on ‘Women in History’ on “Crossing Conceptual Boundaries of Feminine Identity” under the theme “Gender and Cultural History”. Here are some of the points highlighted by her:

• When we talk about Women’s History in Ancient Indian context, we should have an understanding that this domain of women history has two aspects.

The first comes out of didactic traditions containing those literary texts which are rule bounded due to rules boundedness of contemporary society, for e.g., Dharmashastras in which rules of women as wife, daughters etc. are prescribed. Didactic traditions usually portray negative images of women; it shows that women had no independent agency in those times. People like A.S Altekar who wrote ‘The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization’ relied more on this. And we cannot ignore them as it reflects the contemporary ideology of the social structures or society at large.

In opposition to these prescriptions, we have narrative traditions which we can call 'story telling'. These are more horizontal in nature as it reflects fluid images of social relations in the context of Gender. Puranas, rituals, cultural traditions etc. come under this category.

• India’s past had Goddess cults that reflects matriarchal practices of times. Over the course of time, some of these transformed into patriarchal practices. The images of feminine identity had impact on society. But who are the recipients of these practices and identities? This is what we need to know and explore more.

• Gender studies became important in 1990s and the lens of the same should be used in order to understand social and cultural construction of femininity & masculinity and not male & female in entirety. If you look at images carefully, you get to know that in this regard image representation help us to understand these ideas more. You can take help from works of Uma Chakravarti, Kumkum Roy, Snigdha Singh, Saswati Sengupta, Seema Bawa.

• Society creates an idea based on a myth. Myth become a kind of source for some ideas but we shouldn’t take them literally. While understanding and reading about myths, you see that there are fluctuating images of men and women. We need to have a nuanced understanding while studying mythical traditions or mythic world.

• Regional variations also need to be looked at in order to get the full picture of Indian society which is so diversified and we'll see how the patriarchal forms & its nature become different in different areas.

• The study of iconography (especially of the folk goddesses) tells us about variations of feminine identity imbibed in them.  One of the images of folk goddesses is Lajja Gauri depicted as an independent category; another goddess is shown as a spouse of a male God signifying as a dependent category; in the case of Durga and Kali, their iconography is independent. Here’s what is important to note is that the narrative with regarding to Durga is that she’s known in relation to Mahakaal which is contrary to its depictions in iconography. Even in regional traditions or variations, we have many goddesses that represent feminine identity where they’re not seen in relation to male God as such. One of the aspects of women in transition in relation to tribals in India which need to be considered is that they’re shown in relation to male but in iconography, they’re independent.

Professor shared some images based on iconography during her lecture. Look at these images in order to understand the varied feminine identities depicted in them. (You can click on the images in order to see them more clearly and read the content mentioned in them).

Goddess Dhumvati: She is one of 64 yoginis, all belong to Tantric traditions.

She can be seen as independent here.

As Ardhanarishavara- half male and half female- Shiva.

• Have you ever wonder about the concept of Ardhanarishavara in our society? What is its meaning? Modern psychology says that humans have male and female propensities. We need to consider the understanding of the contemporary society of those, who depicted these gods and goddesses in such manner and also of those, who looked at them. What was their understanding behind such ideas?

• Feminine identities are integral to define us and impact all societies and communities in a plural country like India.

• In Tantric traditions, yoginis are very important and there also, notions of patriarchy vary.

• There are multi-layered cultural issues which we ignore and impose classical traditions over them.

• Mythical and oral traditions have ideas and concepts imbibed in them upon which we should focus rather than take them literally. For e.g., in stories associated with Samudra Manthan, Amrit is not just a pot but the assets of life. We understand that mythic world under narrative traditions is not history but what we should remember is that it contains collective historical consciousness which one cannot ignore.

• We should look for Dramas, Kavyas, Jatakas & other stories, Budddhist & Jaina Traditions, Folk & Local Traditions, Regional Variations and a collective look of folk, mythic & prescriptive; and you will get to know that the mosaic of India is very complex. By not looking at them collectively, we are the new Brahmanical elite and we are holding aloof ourselves by keeping us away from these sources.

• Sometimes understanding of material cultures through visual representation is more than that of textual representation.

• For the understanding of history of events, you need to stick to the sources but for the understanding of history of processes, there is a more space for literature.

This lecture was conducted online and organized by Herodotus Society, Department of History & Culture, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur on 06-03-2024.

Aloka Parasher Sen is Professor Emerita, Department of Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad, where she had earlier served as Professor in the Department of History, School of Social Sciences (1979-2018).

The 8th Munshi Premchand Memorial Lecture on “The Reception and Relevance of Munshi Premchand: An End-Century Perspective”, delivered by Professor M. Asaduddin.

Professor M. Asaduddin gave The 8^th Munshi Premchand Memorial Lecture on “The Reception and Relevance of Munshi Premchand: An End-Century Perspective”. Here are some of the points highlighted by him:

• Prof. initiated his talk quoting Harish Trivedi's remarks marked in earlier Munshi Premchand Memorial Lecture that “Premchand’s writings not only tell us about Indian society but also about ourselves and the same persuade us to look at ourselves more deeply.”

• If we see carefully, we find that novels and short stories written in the late 19^th and 20^th century had Indian and western elements in them.

• Premchand used fiction writing in order to assert moral edification, social awakening and ethical reform. He would emphasize upon this message and we find such elements rare in the writings of others who were contemporaneous to him.

• There was hardly any contemporary issue of Indian life untouched by him. All modern narratives can be found in his writings including Feminism, Dalit consciousness, Environmentalism, Animalism etc. He wrote almost about all the contemporary issues, passed away but the values in his writings have not been lost yet.

• He was a concurrent writer who wrote in both Urdu & Hindi language and Godan is one of the greatest Hindi-Urdu novels of the 20^th century.

• Like Gandhi, he also demanded Hindustani.

• He kept his sanity and was never involved in any kind of communalism.

• Scholars working on Premchand have to tackle this question- Are Hindi and Urdu writings of Premchand replica of each other? Prof. gave two examples of Premchand’s writings including ‘Bazar-e-Husn’ and ‘Poos Ki Raat’; one can easily find the changes (especially in chapter 15 of ‘Sevasadan’ in which first few paragraphs are similar but there are some following paragraphs in Hindi version only which are absent in ‘Bazar-e-Husn’. Also, the Urdu version story ends differently than that of Hindi one.) which are apparent in both the versions (Hindi & Urdu). When a writer chooses a title for his literary piece, it has some implications as the writer tries to reflect the central idea of the whole piece of his art through that particular title and when he changes the title of the same literary piece during translation, its implications also change which we need to look at. What scholars do is to use one version and get a different picture from those who use another version. Therefore, combined and comparative study is necessary.

• Premchand was a follower of Gandhi but was not an uncritical one towards him. And because of the non-cooperation movement led by the latter, he left his government teaching job. Also, one can find the Gandhian principles in his writings as well. For example, the character of Surdas in Rangbhoomi was modelled on Gandhi himself.

• Ideas of nationalism, patriotism can be understood through his novels including Rangbhoomi, Karmabhoomi.

• He drew the ideas reflected in his writings from history & mythology of South Asia, cultures of Hindus and Muslims, literature from all over the world especially from English, Russian, French literature. He was influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 & several Russian writers including Maxim Gorky and Tolstoy and translated the latter’s many writings. His writings including many novels and stories have been translated into Russian language for Russian readers; a very large number of copies have been published and sold, even outnumbered some of those which are in Hindi.

• Contemporary issues of the times was the subject matter of his stories. Social justice was the dominant subject and common man was the dominant character in his writings one can find. Premchand would understand that oppressors and oppression come in different ways.

• He highlighted the subject of caste injustice by picking up the characters who belonged to the economically and socially lowest sections of society (whom we understand as ‘untouchables’ as per contemporary social orders). In this regard, ‘Sadgati’ and ‘Thakur ka Kua’ describing the realities of Dalits are more impactful than a large corpus of writings. We should remember that the current political consciousness of Dalits was not historically available to that much extent in those times when Premchand was writing. He also talked about issues related to women including widow remarriage. Nirmala can be taken as a good example of his understanding and consciousness towards women. Premchand took them as an ‘independent agency’ and readers will find his understanding by reading the stories of women characters who are more resilient and take initiatives by themselves; they are more memorable characters than men. One can also find the portrayal of old women in his stories including Panchayat and Boodhi Kaki.

• Rabindranath Tagore succumbed to societal pressures and the same can be observed during his daughter’s wedding & this is the difference between him and Premchand.

• How do we get to know that the writer is impactful? We get to know about the same when his/her writings become part of the academic discourse and the other writers respond, discussing his/her work. And Premchand is one of those writers who is still part of literary consciousness and literary discourse. Writers of other languages cannot ignore his writings; they have to engage with them.

• In most of the cases, writers write as an insider and outsider. Like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Sharat Chandra- they wrote about Muslim communities as outsiders. I find Premchand as the only writer who could write about both the communities (Hindus & Muslims) as an insider.    

This lecture was organized by Premchand Archives And Literary Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi on 07-03-2024.

Professor M. Asaduddin is an author, academic, critic and translator in several languages. He is a Professor of English at the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, and a Charles Wallace Trust Fellow at the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. His translations have been recognized with the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Katha and A. K. Ramanujan awards for translation, as well as the Crossword Book Award.

A lecture on "Changing The Narrative: The Journey of Feminist Publishing" delivered by Urvashi Butalia

Urvashi Butalia delivered an Extension Lecture on "Changing The Narrative: The Journey of Feminist Publishing". 

She made an argument that "the question asked for the Census about the occupation of a homemaker (woman) from the male householder, who says that his wife doesn't work, will not provide the real picture of her work. Rather, one should ask the same question, changing its nature a little bit, from the woman herself about her whole day since she wakes up till she sleeps. The whole picture will change by changing the nature of the question."

The lecture was organised by the Department Of English, Jamia Millia Islamia on 02-03-24.

Urvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist writer, Independent Feminist Publisher, activist and Founder, Zubaan Books. Also, she is a visiting faculty at Ashoka University and a reader at College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi.

A panel discussion on "Pages of Partition: Literary Legacies."

 

English Literary Association, Department Of English, Jamia Millia Islamia University organized Lexicon'24, the annual literary fest. They conducted a panel discussion on the topic "Pages of Partition: Literary Legacies" on dated 27th Feb 2024. Among the panelists who were present included Sukrita Paul Kumar, Gurmehar Kaur and Professor Debjani Sengupta. Some points highlighted by the speakers which I would like to share are:

-Sukrita Paul Kumar

1. Once a refugee is always a refugee.

2. Memories are not static. If you do diachronic study, you will find how memory changes with time and how the same can work in many ways & this tool of diachronic study will help us to study partition stories. So, when you do the study on this very subject, don’t forget to contextualize and locate your study of memories in terms of time and space.

3. I’ll tell you a story of a woman who, at the age of 95 years, before two hours of her death, revealed a dark memory from her past before her daughter that she had been a victim of rape during partition. By doing so, she re-lived the time again by memorizing those dark times & freed her mind. Also, in a way, she carried the memory forward to her daughter that might have impacted the latter in different ways.

4. There is a PRE-MEMORY, MEMORY, POST-MEMORY & BEYOND MEMORY and its nature might change in every stage.

-Professor Debjani Sengupta

1. Violence during the times of partition has multifarious dimensions. We often make a mistake thinking that partition in the area of Punjab was more violent than that of Bengal (which faced three partitions) and ignore its forms that occurred in the latter that was there in a different way. Authors and literary writers help in bringing out the stories of important incidents. My teacher used to say that we, in Bengal, did not have such people like Sa’adat Hasan Manto who without any fear wrote about the horrors of those times but that doesn’t mean this area (Bengal) was devoid of stories. After all, it is always about the way we remember and the way we choose to remember things.

2. Memories play an important role in human lives. When we talk about memories, what we need to emphasize upon and not forget is that it is important to highlight that the way you remember the memories associated with any particular incident, partition for that matter, also makes a difference. We’ve villages, cities & relationships as well filled with a lot of memories that differ from one to the other.

3. Once Ashish Nandy said that the more we repress our memories the more it comes back to haunt us. Do we realize how people who’ve lived together for hundreds of years turned into enemies for each other during partition? These are like the mysteries that turned and made us perpetrators.

-Gurmehar Kaur

1. Now, there are ideological borders apart from geographical ones. Have you ever imagined a situation of connection between two individuals having two extreme ideological polarized thoughts (maybe such thoughts have been imposed from above on these two personalities), have you ever thought? We have so many unheard stories which tell us that situations of difficulties and the needs of a person see no such polarized contradictions.

Sukrita Paul Kumar is an Indian poet and critic.

Debjani Sengupta is a Professor in the Department of English, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi.

Gurmehar Kaur is an Indian activist and author. 

Professor Mehr Afshan Farooqi spoke on "Social Values and Literary Acts: Interpreting Ghalib's Published and Unpublished Poetry"

This extension Lecture (Under the Viksit Bharat @ 2047), was delivered by Prof. Mehr Afshan Farooqi on "Social Values and Literary Acts: Interpreting Ghalib's Published and Unpublished Poetry".

Some important points from her lecture:

• How do we judge a literary text?

• Hermeneutics is a tool, theory and methodology through which literary texts can be understood. But we have no such tool for oral traditions.

• Urdu in its initial stage was a spoken language, the literature written in it was based on oral traditions. Later in times, any form of genre of writing preserved in spoken language started converting into textual or printed form. Now, the question comes, what are the tools that one can use and how do we judge such texts now?

• Any text exist in a discourse and that discourse is created through its socio-historical background that should be taken into consideration.

• Presentation of a text changes with time & sometimes performative aspect of a text becomes an issue as performative act creates yet another way of looking at texts.

• Judgement is different for two different types of presentation. There is a difference between the judgement for oral tradition & judgement for, when such oral tradition takes textual/printed form as the type of audience and readership also change in both forms.

• Philosophers associated with deconstruction including Derrida and Foucault argue that discourse of written texts has more stability in comparison to discourse of orality.

• Ownership plays an important role in written text. Ghalib was aware of this fact and used the concept of copyright in 1841. He was also aware of the fact that what type of audience is going to read the text in printed form.

• Now the question arises that how did oral culture did respond to the printing culture? Then, people started memorizing the printed texts and it was an intervention between spoken discourse and written discourse.

• There is a difference between imagination and thought. At the same time, there is a relation between the two as well.

• There is a difference between oral tradition and written discourse but when we judge a literary text, we have to look in space between the two that is embedded in contemporary socio-historical background. And from the point of view of Ghalib, he was aware about the response of the public and he took the same into consideration then.

This extension lecture was organized by the Department of Urdu, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi on 07-02-24.

Mehr Afshan Farooqi is a Professor of Urdu and South Asian Literature in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages & Literatures, University of Virginia, USA.

Anjum Hasan on her new book "History's Angel".

"What I have tried is to trace out the violence, that is there in humans' inner lives, what people usually neglect. Books are not written with any single point of view, it is a responsibility of an author that he/she tries to see and understand the multiplicities. When you realize that life is full of complexities, you will understand that there is nothing like straightforward in writing a book.

It is the human beings and their lives that intrigues me, these are the real material for the novelists. Unless you are curious about people, you will not become a good writer."

This talk was organized on 11-10-23 by the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi.

Anjum Hasan is an Indian novelist, short story writer, poet, and editor. Her latest novel is History's Angel. She is the author of The Cosmopolitans, Neti, Lunatic in my Head, Difficult Pleasures, and a book of poems, Street on the Hill. She has been a Homi Bhabha Fellow, a Charles Wallace Writer-in-Residence and is currently a New India Foundation Fellow.

"हिंदी को फ़र्क पड़ता है!"- परिचर्चा।

"हिंदी भाषा में उर्दू शब्दों की मौजूदगी और उसके प्रयोग के विरोध की ढाल बना कर अब उद्देश्य भाषा की मौलिकता को बचाए रखने की बजाए किसी विशेष धर्म और उसके समुदाय का विरोध करना अधिक हो गया है, इससे आक्रमण करने वाले को एक प्रकार का कवच मिल जाता है और वो सुरक्षित भी महसूस करता है।"

- राहुल देव (वरिष्ठ पत्रकार)

"क्या आपको इस बात का एहसास होता है कि आप किसी प्रक्रिया का हिस्सा बनकर किसी एक से इतनी ज़्यादा मोहब्बत करने लगते है कि आप किसी दूसरे से नफ़रत करने के लिए बाध्य कर दिए (हो) जाते है।"

- रविकांत (इतिहासकार, लेखक, अनुवादक)

"सिर्फ भाषा अरक्षित नहीं है, हम सब अरक्षित है। वो सब अस्मिताएं जो हाशिए पर है, वे सब अरक्षित है। भाषा को फ़र्क नही पड़ता, हमें फ़र्क पड़ता है क्यूंकि इस भाषा में समावेशी होने की प्रवृत्ति बहुत थोड़ी है। आज भी फेमिनिज्म को ख़ारिज कर के इस भाषा में काम चल जाता है, कोई ये नहीं सोचता है कि अब इतनी सारी स्त्रियां हिंदी में लिखने आ गई है, तो इसे एक नई आलोचना पद्धति और एक नए वैकल्पिक दृष्टिकोण की ज़रूरत होगी, नए शब्दों की ज़रूरत होगी। कितनी मज़ेदार बात है आप अंग्रेज़ी भाषा को उपनिवेशवादियों और साम्राज्यवादियों की भाषा का दर्जा देते है लेकिन पिछले कुछ सालों में इस भाषा ने अपने आपको जितना इंक्लूसिव बनाया है नए शब्दों को रचते हुए, हम उससे दूर-दूर तक भी कहीं दिखाई नहीं देते है। इतने सारे शब्द है, इतनी सारी अस्मिताएं है जिनका हिंदी भाषा में प्रतिनिधित्व ही नहीं है। हम इस भाषा का वो ढांचा ही नहीं बना पाए है कि उन तमाम अस्मिताओं की अभिव्यक्ति करने में आसानी हो।"

- सुजाता (प्रोफेसर, दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय)

"एक इंसान अपनी ज़बान के पीछे छिपा हुआ होता है। हम भाषा को लेकर नहीं ख़ुद को लेकर कहीं खो गए है। हम ख़ुद को व्यक्त नहीं कर पा रहे है क्यूंकि हमने किसी भी भाषा को ठीक से नहीं सीखा है। आज ये कहा जाता है कि ये पीढ़ी सोच नहीं पाती, मुझे ऐसा लगता है ये पीढ़ी व्यक्त नहीं कर पाती। हर दूसरा शब्द मतलब होता है, 'मतलब' दो नदियों के बीच में एक पुल के समान है ताकि हम एक विचार से दूसरे विचार की तरफ़ पार कर जाएं। मगर नदियां सूख गई है, पुल रह गया है।"

- सायमा (रेडियो जॉकी)

इस सत्र "हिंदी को फ़र्क पड़ता है!" का आयोजन 14 सितम्बर 2023 को राजकमल प्रकाशन और इंडिया हैबिटेट सेंटर द्वारा मासिक विचार-मंथन श्रृंखला के पहले सत्र के रूप में किया गया था।