A three-day International festival of literature and art organised by the Tagore University, Bhopal, was held in 16 countries including the UK from November 6-9.
The Vatayan UK represented 'VishwaRang-2020' virtual programme in Britain in collaboration with the UK Hindi Samiti and the Vaishvik Hindi Parivar-UK.
Author and founder of Vatayan-UK Divya Mathur, chairperson Mira Mishra-Kaushik OBE and director of Oxford Business College and Vishva-Rang-UK Dr Padmesh Gupta have conducted the event.
The festival began on 6 November with a tribute to the Noble laureate Rabindranath Tagore at the Shakespeare’s residence at Stratford-upon-Avon by Dr Padmesh Gupta followed by the lighting of the lamp by Dr Santosh Chobey, the source of inspiration for 'VishvaRang'.
Virendra Sharma MP and Dr Nanda Kumar, director of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-London have spoken on the occasion.
The cultural programme included tabla and kathak dance performances by Pulkit and Divya Sharma followed by dance performance by Shivani Sethia on Sohan Rahi’s ghazal, composed and sung by Radhika Chopra.
Ashish Mishra conducted a Poetry session with poets such as Tithi Dani, Dr Ajay Tripathi, Dr Nikhil Kaushik, Zakia Zubairi, Dr Vandana Mukesh and Dr Padmesh Gupta.
Following this, Piali Ray and Mira Misra-Kaushik had a conversation with the founder of Kriti-UK and fashion designern Titiksha Dand-Shah on ‘arts and culture in Britain for the last three decades’.
Prof Aishwarj Kumar of Cambridge University delivered the vote of thanks.
On the second day (7 November) Indu Baroth conducted a review session of newly published books by Indian authors in the UK. It was followed by theatrical performances by prominent artists.
Dr Padmesh Gupta introduced a newly published collection of short stories -Pravasi Man-edited by Tarun Kumar.
Antareepa Thakur-Mukherjee, marketing head, Akademy-UK’s conducted a session on appraisal of Hindi authors based in the UK on 8 November.
Screenings of Lalit Mohan Joshi's documentary 'East Meets West: Indo-British Cinematic Encounter' and Dr Vijay Rana's documentary 'Kashi Ki Amar Kahani' were the highlights of the day.
The concluding session started with the rendition of Nida Fazli’s ghazal by Swati Natekar. Divya Mathur, Mira Misra-Kaushik and Dr Padmesh Gupta spoke.
