Sudama Pal/Associate Editor
Ghaziabad. Launch of Vishnu Saxena’s short story collection ‘Andheron Se Aage’ and a poetry symposium was organized under the aegis of Amar Bharti Sahitya Sanskriti Sansthan. In this program held at Food Chase Cafe in West Model Town, the writers present expressed their views on the subject matter and craft of the short stories compiled in the book ‘Andheron Se Aage’. At the same time, in the symposium, the poets enthralled the audience with the presentation of wonderful compositions on contemporary topics.
In his address, the chief guest of the launch ceremony, famous short story writer Balram Agarwal said that like various genres of storytelling such as novel, story, drama, short story has also been established as a strong genre. Today, the culture of reading is weakening. Very few readers have the patience to read novels or long stories. In such a situation, good short stories are needed.
The president of the program, famous story writer Sudhendu Ojha said that a consensus has not yet been reached among critics regarding the word limit of a short story. Some are calling a story written in 500 words a short story, while others are calling a story written in 1000 words. Some clear rules need to be set in this regard.
Before this, Surendra Arora and Omprakash Kashyap threw light on various aspects of the short stories described in the book. They said that like poetry, symbols and images are also important in short stories. Vishnu Saxena also recited two of his short stories in his own style.
Dr Yogendra Dutt Sharma, Ved Sharma Ved, Jagdish Pankaj, Dr R K Bhadoria, Neha Vaidya, Awadhesh Singh Bandhuvar, Tulika Seth, Pratibha Pushp recited poetry in the poetry symposium. Praveen Kumar, General Secretary of Amar Bharti Sahitya Sanskriti Sansthan successfully conducted the program. Veena Saxena, Suruchi Saxena, Nidhi Raj and Rupak Raj etc were present in the program.
