'Thirty Songs From & Kashmir' Steals Spotlight

SRINAGAR: A captivating panel discussion was conducted by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) on the century-old musical-literary classic “Thirty Songs from the Punjab and Kashmir” enthralled a discerning audience at the ongoing second season of the Chinar Book Festival, currently underway in Srinagar.

- Agencies

Originally published in London in 1913 by Luzac and Novello & Co, the seminal volume was recorded by Alice Coomaraswamy, popularly known as Ratan Devi, with introduction and translations by the pioneering art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and a foreword by none other than Rabindranath Tagore.

The revised edition, published in 1994 by the IGNCA in collaboration with Sterling Publishers, was edited by the eminent musicologist Prem-lata Sharma and carries a fresh foreword by Kapila Vatsyayan.

The session featured a distinguished panel comprising renowned scholars, writers, researchers, and intellectuals Prof. Farooq Fayaz and Dr. Satish Vimal, with journalist and moderator Bilal Bashir Bhat guiding the conversation.