Agra: A three-day SAARC literature festival will begin in the Taj city on February 13.

Literary luminaries from the neighbouring SAARC countries will interact, debate latest literary trends and present their literary pieces for analytical comments during the event.

The evenings will be enlivened by performances by Sufis and Darveshes. The regional Braj culture and literature will also be on display.

Ajeet Cour, chairperson of Foundation of SAARC writers and literature (FOSWAL) told IANS: “Events like these help bridge the communication gaps and lead to better understanding of humanity.”

“SAARC is probably the only region in the world where we celebrate love and marriages, pregnancies and child-births, and even deaths with songs. In our folk tales and folk songs, gods come to earth to interact with human beings; birds and animals speak and tell tales of ancient wisdom. We have songs for the changing seasons, for harvests, for monsoons,”Cour said.

People in this region sang songs and told tales of the whole of nature and all the wonders of life around! “They are the original story tellers since the Indus Valley civilisation.” People share long civilisational journeys, horizontally and vertically, on micro and macro levels, she said.

The vision of cultural bonding and connectivity was extended to the neighbouring SAARC countries in 1987, when writers from Pakistan set foot on Indian soil for the first time since the Partition of the country in 1947, for the first-ever Indo-Pakistan Writers Conference. It was like swimming against the current.

She said the driving force behind this endeavour was LOVE. Love for the people living in the neighbouring countries ! Love for the whole humanity ! Love for the one Infinite Presence merged in the Universe like soft fragrance ! The one who created the Universe in Love !

Ajeet Cour said: “We have organized 48 Conferences and Festivals and Academic Seminars for deep deliberations about what binds us emotionally and culturally : our literature, our music, our beliefs, our myths and legends, our sensitivities and deep mystic beliefs, our poetry and our melodies. Our Conferences of Sufism and Buddhism, of Folklore, of Fiction and Poetry ! And Festivals of Mystic Music and Folk Performances! Cutting across borders and boundaries.”