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Date: 05.02.2022

Time: 16:00 - 16:30

Location: Youtube

Jaipur, India

You can watch Literature Live Around the World on YouTube.

Nanak Singh's Khooni Vaisakhi

Navdeep Suri in conversation with Sanjoy Roy, with a musical rendition of the poetry by Harpreet

Presented by Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF)

On 13 April 1919, Twenty-two-year-old Nanak Singh joined the mass of peaceful protestors agitating against the Rowlatt Act at Jallianwala Bagh. It was a life-changing experience for him: he survived the massacre, unnoticed among the hundreds of corpses, and his poem about the traumatic event – Khooni Vaisakhi – was banned soon after its publication in May 1920. Navdeep Suri, Nanak Singh's grandson, talks to Jaipur Literature Festival Producer - Sanjoy Roy about rediscovering this poem after sixty long years and translating it.

Local Host: Sanjoy Roy

Navdeep Suri has served as India’s Ambassador to the UAE, High Commissioner to Australia, Ambassador to Egypt and Consul General in Johannesburg. He has also held diplomatic assignments in Tanzania, UK and the US and has headed the Africa and Public Diplomacy departments of the Ministry of External Affairs. After acclaimed translations of his grandfather Nanak Singh’s novels Pavitra Paapi as The Watchmaker and Adh Khidya Phul as A Life Incomplete, he has worked on Khooni Vaisakhi – a long poem written by Nanak Singh in 1920 after surviving the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Sanjoy Roy, an entrepreneur of the arts, is Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 25 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across 40 cities in countries such as Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and USA, including the world’s largest literary gathering — the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. 

Sanjoy works closely with various industry bodies on important policy issues within the cultural space in India and Abroad.

Harpreet is a versatile artiste who sings original musical compositions in Hindi, as well as in Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Rajasthani and Haryanvi. Trained in Hindustani classical music, he plays both the guitar and flute. His talent fuses both the modern and traditional when composing tunes to his own lyrics and for classical poetry that he loves. He is best known for creating musical scores to the works of poets such as Kabir and Bulleh Shah. His original composition Kutte (dog), a song about a canine’s view of human life, was selected by Bollywood film director Dibakar Banerjee and Kanu Behl for the film Titli. Some of his yet-to be-released compositions, Geet Aur Shabd, Kho Gaye He Wo and Sonapani, have received wide appreciation.

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