The human being is an important part of Nature who is both the most evolved yet most dangerous for nature, said noted poet Naresh Saxena. He was speaking at Celebrating Natural Heritage: In literature, Arts and Culture organised by the UNESCO Category 2 Centre (C2C) for World Natural Heritage Management and Training for Asia and the Pacific Region at the Wildlife Institute of India. The two-day event which concluded on Wednesday was held in the spirit of encouraging the celebration of nature through literature and arts.
Saxena said, “Humans are supremely evolved in nature yet also the most dangerous to nature. Trees, rivers, mountains don’t hurt nature; volcanoes explode occassionaly but even then they create landscape unlike the destruction wreaked by man in nature.” Regarding Nature in poetry in India, he said that compositions of ancient personalities like Kalidas to the more recent Chhayavaad period in Hindi poetry which was wholely based on nature, literature in the Indian civilization is seeped in nature, he opined.
Noted poet Manglesh Dabral said that India has poetry in 24 languages. He stressed that Hindi poetry with environmental facets should be made part of school curriculum till class V. Expressing his views, writer and poet leeladhar Jagudi said that one should find science in religion. Citing examples he said, “In our religion, god incarnated first as an animal and not a man.
With a religion that deified animals too, there is a scientific and poetic presence of nature in literature,” he said.
Rakesh Saklani also expressed his views on the occasion.