Harvard to host Lucknow storyteller's 'qissa' on Amir Khusrau on Oct 8
Lucknow: Lucknow's popular storyteller Himanshu Bajpai is set to enthrall a global audience with tales on Sufi poet-philosopher Amir Khusrau at a special event being organized by the US-based Harvard University.
To be held on October 8, Bajpai's session is titled Khusrau's River of Love: Cosmopolitanism and Inclusion in South Asian Traditions and will be a part of the fourth annual 'Worldwide Week' at Harvard, according to the varsity's invitation letter to him.
Bajpai, 33, will be accompanied by international singer Ali Sethi in the musical storytelling session interspersed with analysis and commentary by Harvard professor Ali Asani, stated The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute linked with the Harvard University.
The 'Worldwide Week' will be delivered entirely virtually for fall 2020, allowing audiences to join in from all over the world and affording attendees even greater opportunities for participation, it stated.
The 'Worldwide Week' kicked off on October 2 and shall continue with events through October 9, it added.
Bajpai, a qissa-go, an author and expert in the Awadhi or 'Lucknawi' culture, said it was a matter of pride that the world-renowned university has chosen him for the program.
Through my art, I have also tried to highlight the great culture of Hindustan and especially my city Lucknow, and I am looking forward to doing it from Harvard's platform also, he said.
Be it the languages, the literature, or the music of the Indian subcontinent, Amir Khusrau has made an unforgettable contribution in all fields, he added.
Born in the Raja Bazar area of Old Lucknow, the storyteller is among the few who have had a major influence on making the traditional qissa-goi (story-telling) a full-time profession in recent years.
Over the last six years, he has traveled to countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe performing more than 150 story-telling sessions on subjects like 'Kakori', Mahatma Gandhi, Kabir, Chandrakanta, Tulsidas, and Mangoes.
Qissa goi is one of the oldest art traditions in India and the world. The form that I practice is daastan-goi which belongs to the medieval era. My city Lucknow is considered the epicenter of the medieval era of qissa goi, the 'Mecca' of daastan goi, in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, he told PTI.
Now I am the only full-time qissa go in Lucknow and hoping to take this tradition further, added Bajpai, who was honored by President Ram Nath Kovind in February 2020 for his art at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
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Bridge portion collapses on Jammu outskirts; 3-4 labourers feared trapped, 1 rescued
Jammu (PTI): A portion of a small bridge collapsed in the Bantalab area on the outskirts of Jammu city on Friday, trapping at least three to four labourers under the debris, while one injured worker was rescued, official sources said.
Authorities have closed the road link following the collapse of the portion of the bridge.
The incident occurred when labourers were carrying out repair work on a retaining wall near the bridge that was damaged in last year's flash floods, the sources said.
According to the sources, a section of the bridge suddenly gave way, burying workers engaged at the site under the rubble.
Police, Army and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams launched rescue operations to extricate those buried under the debris. They pulled out one injured labourer and shifted him to a hospital, the sources said.
Family members of the labourers present at the site said around six workers engaged at the site at the time of the incident came under the debris when the structure collapsed. The family members said while two of the labourers managed to escape, four got trapped.
The sources said those trapped included the husband of a woman labourer, a mason, an unmarried labourer and a relative of the contractor.
There was no official confirmation on the exact number of persons trapped under the debris till the filing of this report.
The rescue operations are ongoing.
