By Manushree Maity
Kolkata, 7 June 2020: A ‘Wordsmith’ with free spirit, #TEDx Speaker along with writer and great Poet. She is a Political Analyst, an Educator, a Social and peace Activist, and a theatre personality, Saira Shah Halim. On 7th June Sunday, she shared her knowledge and thoughts at the MediaNext 2020 conclave on the topic of ‘Writing in Digital Times (Fiction and Non-Fiction)’. She was the fourth speaker on the seventh day of the online webinar.
#MediaNext 2020 is being organized by the Kolkata-based Adamas University in association with Sharda University, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, LokSamvadSansthan, exchange4media, ABP Education and IndiaReal.in, The mega conclave is being organized over a period of 10 days, 2020. Each day of the conclave focuses on one specialized domain of the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on that specific domain.
Halim was raised all over the country and the gulf as an army officer’s daughter. She got a commendation award for the great Indian poetry contest judged by Jawed Akhtar, Kusar Munir, and Kalki Koechlin. She is also a recipient of the SAARC Women’s Award by the SAARC Women’s Association Dhaka for her contribution to the cultural, literary, and bilateral contribution with SAARC countries at Dhaka.
Writing is a way to reach out
“Reading actually takes us to an uncharted flight”. Halim believed, writing has no end, it floats like a sea. Writing is the way to reach out to people, express emotions, protest against violence, entertainment everything begins from writing. During lockdown, the time is so unreal that people are finding solace in writing through different digital platforms as well as traditional modes. In the last three months, people have been writing and reading a lot according to different services. Writing poems, short stories, articles, making a blog, new websites this is how people utilize their quarantine.
Digital Writing
Talking about digital writing in the digital age during #COVID19 she expressed, digitalization in this pandemic circumstances effect on businesses a lot it seeing in a slum. On the other hand, people can be noticed the increasing number of online viewership. People prefer to buying E-books through digital backgrounds. Blog writing, online reading, watching Amazon, Netflix these digital platforms are booming right now. Schools are taking online classes so, what people are doing is that they are looking at a new way of living life trying to cope up with this digital generation. Virus or plague can’t stop the power of writing. During lockdown Authors, Poets are releasing their books digitally. This is the platform of the digital era where lots of students, youth can show their writings, sharing emotions, and portray the talent through blogs. Trending of hashtags, like, #instapoetry, #covidpoetry, or online posts are giving chance to share different forms of poetry on digital platforms.
Traditional media is here to stay too
Halim shared that print media has another fan base it will never obsolete. Traditional modes of reading and writing are a new form of platform but printed words and everything that will be sustained along with other digital modes. She has given a prepossessing example, collections of photos or memories can be post in two medium first on an album and second on google drive or any social site. An album is a hardcopy where people can touch the paper and feel the emotions however social site is a softcopy where people can only see the images and go back to the memories. So, print media is the album and digital media is the online version. Here the modes don’t matter, matter is reading and writing remains the same. She said a beautiful line, “ Sometimes people don’t write for money, they write for pleasure”
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