It's not nice to open the papers in the morning and find you no longer have a job. But that's exactly what happened to Malayalam poet Satchidanandan, who's been serving as the Akademi's chief executive for nine years. Like his predecessors, Satchidanandan was hoping for a one or two-year extension when he turns 60 in May. A respected figure in the world of letters and the Akademi, he's credited with having turned the Akademi from a sarkari outfit to a semi-literary one. At least the 250 programmes and seminars he organised had real writers! The change was evident in the books the Akademi produced in the last decade: sales went up from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 2 crore.
And we thought Sufism was all about singing and dancing. Punjabi writer Ajeet Cour's Foundation has decided to take all the fun out of it by holding a conference on its deep aspects like 'Pluralism, Secularism and Sufism' with delegates from 14 countries. But despair not: there will be some singing by Pakistan's Iqbal Bahu, Baul and Gurbani singers and trips to Sufi shrines.
