It is often said, ‘The pen
is the tongue of the mind’. But has anyone ever analyzed that the one who
wields the pen is the one who is bound to sit in a corner of his study and give
voice to undesirable human thoughts, desires, wants and emotions! Authors, no
doubt, are a weird lot who are most often, forgotten by the society.
Chandigarh, the City Beautiful, deserves a fair mention
in the history of Modern
Township planning in India. A number
of writers, poets and scholars have lived in this which include the famous Urdu
poet Hari Chand Akhtar, Manohar Sahani, Dr.Mulk Raj Anand, Acharya Hazari
Prasad Dwivedi, Dr.Mohan Singh’Diwana’, Chand Narain Chand, Shiv Kumar Batalvi
and many more! Unfortunately these names are aliens to the present day
generation of Chandigarhians
.
But the city still has
authors like Dr.Indu Bali, Dr.Naresh, Shakuntla Brajmohan, Dr.Gurcharan Singh
and the like but to the misfortune of this ‘City Beautiful’ or the ‘City of
Stones’ as called by the authors, these persons who have made Chandigarh proud
by winning dozens of national and international awards, find a rare mention
among the city residents.
As Ovid said, ‘Scripta fervent annos (writing
survives the years)’, he failed to mention that writers do not. It’s high time
for the city residents to recollect the words of Lord Byron and Don Juan that,
‘But words are things and
a small drop of ink’
falling like dew, upon a
thought produces,
that which makes
thousands, perhaps a million think.’
And to realize that they
ought to have a sense of concern for the esteemed personalities who have added
heart to this city of stones.
