Urvi's Personal Blog: National Webinar on Literature and Epidemics

At the present time when the world is dealing such a serious issue, some people are busy in working from home while some are taking up their hobbies and some are just locked up in their homes fearing this pandemic. During this time, while everyone is discussing about COVID-19 and the lockdown, Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad sir organised a webinar on 16^th and 17^th May 2020 on the topic 'Literature and Epidemics'. I also had registered so that I too can be a part of this enriching experience as there were many plenary sessions by many experienced and knowledgeable scholars and papers were also presented by many research scholars, professors and students. While attending this webinar I came to know that there are plenty of books written on Pandemics (Plague, Spanish Flu etc) which I have not explored yet. While listening to the paper presenters, I came to know that people in the past faced many difficulties due to these virus as there were not much facilities available for treatment or prevention and due to that many people died.

There were 12 plenary speakers (Atanu Bhattacharya Sir, Avishek Parui Sir, Balaji Ranganathan Sir, Kalyan Chattopadhyay Sir, Kalyani Vallath Mam, Kamalakar Bhat, Madhvi Nikam Mam, Om P. Juneja Sir, Prakash Joshi Sir, Sachin Ketkar Sir, T.S. Chandramauli Sir and Valiur Rahaman Sir) who helped add to my knowledge with their innovative and creative thinking. There were around 80 scholars who presented papers. Their work is also appreciated as they had prepared it in a very short span. Most of the discussion was on the topic 'What will happen or how will be the world after the pandemic?' People today are scared as the things are not getting normal and everyone is facing some difficulties. People (shopkeepers, businessmen etc) are now preferring online transactions and the challenge comes here as only a few people know about how to pay online. People are not yet ready to or can say they do not want to accept this change. In the same way, it will be a challenge for some institutions too because many teachers are not familiar with PowerPoint Presentations, Blogs, Slide share etc or even how to teach online. There are many problems with this as in rural areas, technology cannot be used easily and they lack knowledge about it also. Many schools have become smart schools by adopting technology and training their teachers so it can be user friendly. If I talk about myself, I am thankful to Dilip Sir who taught us everything. During the department days, we used to take online quiz, make presentations and shared it on slideshare and YouTube, post our assignments on blogs, even we prepared our own website. We also used to study online. All this was possible due to sir who has a keen interest in technology and always encourages everyone to use it.

Here are some of the points presented during webinar by the scholars-

1) Mr. Shailendra Kumar Mishra presented a paper on 'Portrayal of Epidemics in Indian Literature' where he talked about different novels like 'The Withered Arm' by Thomas Hardy, 'Coolie' by Mulk Raj Anand, and 'Maila Anchal' by Phaneshwar Nath Renu. All these novels show that Gender and Class divide still runs deep across Indian society. As literature reflects the time, events the society therefore Literature teaches us not to repeat the past mistakes.

2) Kalyan Chattopadhyay Sir posed some questions like what features of pandemic do we find in the literary writings, how do the writers respond to the diseases causing it and many more. He also introduced names of the texts like Giovanni Boccaccio's 'The Decameron' (1349-53), Thomas More's 'Utopia' (1516), Francis Bacon's 'New Atlantis' (1627) and many more. We learnt that revisiting Literature can help us think about what we are experiencing, something humanity experienced earlier and how we survived. Time and again such catastrophic death assemblage will revisit us in the form of pandemic and will enlighten us about nature, this world etc.

3) Sachin Ketkar Sir talked on 'Globalisation and Contemporary Marathi Poetry'. He himself has translated many Marathi poems into English language like 'Khajavnyachi Jaga' from Sirenche Shahar, 'Shraddha' from Adhisatta.

4) Atanu Bhattacharya Sir discussed on 'Imagining Disaster: Texts and Contexts' where he talked about how do we imagine disaster genealogy of textual contexts in Europe and Bengal, Literature and Epidemic. He showed many images where we could see the disaster and consequences of Epidemic like in Salvator Rosa, Humana Fragilitas (Human Frailty), Titian, Pieta (C. 1576). He also talked about tracing genealogy in Bengal- The mangalkavya tradition and Sitala Mangal (c. 17^th- 18^th c.). It was really great to listen to an eminent scholar like him again as I have attended his classes earlier when I was a student at Department here.