Internet is disrupting life, says Gul Panag

Chandigarh, Nov 8: In a session on ‘Virtually Yours’ at Literati 2015 here at the Lake Club today morning, cofounder of Chandigarh Literary Society (CLS) and author Vivek Atray moderated a session with Gul Panag, Chandra Shekhar Varma and Sandeep Roy discussing the way digital media is changing lives.

Irrespective of the likes or the followers that one may have, one has to be very careful about relationships in the virtual world since it is not only putting people to lots of stress and anguish, it has turned relations very fragile, said Gul Panag.

She said that technologies and especially social media’s biggest contribution had been in encouraging political discourse and discussion amongst the common man reaching across all shades of people.

Vivek Atray’s remarks on the clappers and nodders which help the leaders in the real world, the likes play a similar role on social media front, to which Sandeep Roy said that in a world where one hears now about paid media and paid-audience in real world, it is no wonder when one can get paid ‘likes’ for one’s ideas and opinions in virtual world.

Chandra Shekhar however remarked that though virtual media has given a big handle to the writers to promote their work and increase sale of their books, these however not necessarily convert into sales.

Earlier in the day, Literati focussed on children’s literature in which Payal Dhar, Himanjali Sankar, Devika Rangachari with Jane De Suza discussed the challenges of writing for the children, which was acknowledged by the participating authors in the audience that it was the toughest job to write for children.  The panelists also agreed that some of the undiscussable subjects which are social taboos can be better explained through the children’s literature.

In the session on “Lights, Camera, Action”, Gul Panag moderated a session with renowned cine director Sudhir Mishra who also touched upon the challenges of digital technology which is enabling anyone to produce, create and distribute the movie anywhere.  He said that already people are creating special films and serials using the digital media and you will find overnight sensations emerging on YouTube.

However, he shared that he along with Ketan Mehta, Deepa Sahi, Navdeep and others are mentoring 8 young film makers and help them produce films which would be out next year.

In the last session on Bhishm Sahni, Ismat Chugtai and Saadat Hasan Manto, Nighat Gandhi, Dr Chandra Trikha and Vandana Shukla explored the rich literature these three literary icons created in pre-independent India which is considered an inspiration for many budding authors.

Renana Jhabvala and Leila Seth in a session from Self to Society, explored the challenges they face being women in the world and their respective professions, and how they could emerge winners through sheer grit and strengths of their character.