CNN Central News & Network-ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: “Our scriptures speak of the principle of Advaita. They discuss oneness. Just as the sun has a kind of completeness, Advaita too is unified. Many differences are visible in this world and, generally, we live within them. But our scriptures say that everything is one. No form of conflict is the ultimate truth,” said Swamini Sadvidyanand Saraswati of the Acharya Shankar Cultural Unity Trust.
She was addressing students in the first session of a three-day TEDx Talk organised at MCU. Speaking on the Advaita way of life at the programme held on the theme of a world changing through ideas, she said this is the essence of the Vedas. The Vedas are the body of knowledge and the centre of knowledge, she said. The word Veda is derived from “vid”, which means knowledge. Knowledge is universal and objective; in this sense, knowledge too is unified, and this unity is the real reality, she said.
She said any kind of difference creates fear. Fear leads to unrest and uncertainty, and in such a situation there is an absence of happiness. The feeling of oneness removes fear.
In the inaugural session, university Vice-Chancellor Vijay Manohar Tiwari said the university, in its journey of more than three decades, was happy to organise an international-level TEDx Talk. He said Acharya Shankar presented the Vedic tradition before us in a distinctive form, and the same tradition reaches up to Swami Vivekananda. He said Omkareshwar is the only place on earth where the 11-12-year-old Shankar attained the knowledge of Brahman. He urged students to listen carefully to the lectures in the programme and imbibe their important points in their lives.
In the second session, the keynote speaker, senior Indian Administrative Service officer, noted writer and thinker Manoj Shrivastava, spoke on the changing nature of language in the digital era and youth. He said the journey of Indian society is a journey from the inner eye to the internet, in which mediums, culture and many other aspects have changed. Along with this, creation or the world has also changed, and our perspective of looking at it has changed too.
He said that in the Indian context, Shruti and Smriti represent our real oral tradition and culture. When scripts developed from Shruti, they gave language a grammatical form and bound it in a kind of discipline. After writing began, language changed from spiritual practice to a tool. After the invention of printing, language moved from written to printed form, and in the digital age, with the rise of many platforms, many changes are being felt in language.
He said language is a tradition that we inherit. It brings values with it. Today, the entire world of human linguistic behaviour has changed. The changes taking place in language are not superficial. Referring to the standardisation of Hindi by Acharya Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and Kamta Prasad Guru, Manoj Shrivastava said many words received acceptance in society only through usage. Digital expression has its own linguistic culture, marked by immediacy and informality, he said. In the digital age, emojis are being accepted as language. Signs are making a return. Languages have their own algorithms. Young people have a natural ease with things, and the capacity of linguistic words is vast. In regional languages such as Maithili and Rajasthani, the capacity of language has expanded in the digital context. Experimentation with language is a sign of its vitality. Today’s youth is the hero of language and is not merely delivering speeches.
In the third session, keynote speaker and senior journalist Brajesh Rajput shared moving and powerful experiences from his television journalism on the theme “One Screen, Crores of Stories”. He said that while doing television journalism, journalists come face to face with many stories every day. Every story has pain, joy, a question and a solution.
He won the hearts of the audience by narrating, in an engaging style, stories ranging from the demolition of Dushyant Kumar’s house to Billorani of Bundelkhand, from a newborn girl found in bushes to the reality of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. Brajesh described the experience of a girl who saw the image of her mother in the smoke in a story on an electric crematorium. Recalling the story of Harsud, a sinking town, he said that in the world of television, everything sells through emotion. “We were taught to put an arm around someone’s shoulder and draw out emotions,” he said.
Television journalism teaches not only how to see social concerns, sensitivity and social reality, but also the skill of showing them on screen, he said. Here, your work is visible, but one mistake can also embarrass you, while one good piece of work can bring appreciation.
He said everyone has stories, but in television journalism it is important to learn the craft of telling them. Advising students who want to enter television journalism, he said they must read a TV reporter’s diary. Such a diary can show how much hard work and dedication are required behind one story.
The programme was organised by the Department of Advertising and Public Relations. It was coordinated by department head Pavitra Shrivastava, who also proposed the vote of thanks to the guests present. All sessions were conducted by Jaya Surjani of the department. Students and teachers from the departments of mass communication and journalism, electronic media and library studies were present at the programme.
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