One Sarita Speaks of Hindi Poetry to the Gujarati Sahitya Sarita

BY JAWAHAR MALHOTRA

SUGAR LAND: The Gujarati Sahitya Sarita held its regular monthly meeting this past Sunday afternoon, March 17 at the Sugar Land Community Center and had a confluence of thoughts and ideas with those of its chief guest, the noted Hindi poetess and writer, Dr. Sarita Mehta.

The GSS is an institution of writers, poets and others interested in Gujarati literature, established 20 years ago in Houston. It has more than 100 members and around half of them attended the meeting. They had invited Dr. Sarita Mehta as a distinguished guest to address the group on the topic of Hindi poetry and literature. The program began with Saraswati vandana prarthana by Nikhil Mehta.

The President of GSS, Fatehali Chatur, a dramatist and lover of Gujarati and Hindi poetry, who is well-known for reciting Ashok Chakardhar poems, welcomed Dr. Mehta. Also attending were GSS Executive members Vice President Shaila Munshaw, a writer who has published the book “Bal Gagan Vihar” based on daily incidents of special need children; Honorary Secretary Avani Mehta; and GSS Advisor Devika Druv, a poet who writes both in Gujarati and Hindi, and has written a few books,
Dr. Sarita Mehta is the Chairperson for the newly formed Vidya Dham USA, which has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Gujarat to teach Hindi, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Yoga and Ayurveda in her institution in the US.

Mehta spoke on the relationship of Hindi and Gujarati languages and literature with the Sanskrit language, and expressed her views in a poetic way. Not coincidentally, the word “Sarita” means fluent, flowing or river in Hindi.

“It is a ‘beautiful Sangam (confluence) of Hindi Sahitya Sarita with Gujarati Sahitya Sarita to work together with my forthcoming Vidya Dham USA project to make ‘Peace Clubs’ in schools,” she said, adding that it was important to ”sow the seeds of Love” at the grassroots level in children.

Other speakers included Dr. Indu Shah, reciting a poem on Women Empowerment (Nari Shakti); Bhavana Desai delivering Phalgun geet and Navin Benkar, who wrote and published his first book in 1965, spoke on “Short Stories” (Laghu Katha).

Others who spoke were Charuben Vyas, Prashant Munshaw, Janardan Shastri, Hasmukh Doshi, and Chiman Patel.