Kathmandu:

Writers transcend boundaries of time and space to create something universal. And a common language for expression ties the knot even stronger. Litterateurs, writers, commentators from Nepal and India had gathered in Kathmandu to celebrate the use of Nepali as a common language of expression on March 25 at the fourth India-Nepal Nepali Writers’ Conference.

BP Koirala India-Nepal Foundation organises this kind of conference every two years so as to encourage interaction between the writers in Nepali of both countries. Inaugurating the two-day conference, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, ambassador of India to Nepal said, “Nepali language-users in India are estimated to be more than 3 million and it has already received a constitutional status in India that encourages writers in Nepali language to exploit its natural acumen and at the same time contribute to enrich the Indian literature with diversity.”

About a dozen writers from Darjeeling, Kalim-pong, Assam, Dehradun, Meghalaya, participated in the programme. Indra Bahadur Rai from Darjeeling gave a brief introduction about how the writing style has evolved from religious, social, realistic, existential, modernist, postmodernist to the most recent simulation mode of writing. Diwakar Pradhan, Bhupendra Adhikari and Gyanu Pandey presented their papers on various topics followed by comments and discussions.