Our Shared Heritage - A Lecture Series

Venue: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Conference Room, Teen Murti House, New Delhi

Prior Registration Required for Attending the Programme Due to Limited Space

(Registration on first come first serve basis
 e-mail: anhad.delhi@gmail.com 23070722/ 23070740) The most prominent element of the Heritage of a nation is its culture. The culture of a nation finds expression in two ways: the visible elements are dresses worn by the people, the food they eat, music, dance and architecture. The invisible elements are the way people think, the values they hold dear and their ideas and beliefs.

Culture is not some thing that has been there from time immemorial, it is also not something that is frozen in time, culture is in fact something that is dynamic and constantly changing, it absorbs new influences, and modifies them to suit local requirements it constantly appropriates from other traditions and also gives to them in equal measure. It has always been so and it will continue to be like this as long human beings live.

Almost everything that we see, taste, hear, smell and touch, the buildings we have built, the tools we use, the clothes we wear, the languages we speak and even the ideas that we have are products of processes, discoveries, inventions and developments that occurred at places far and near in times in the distant and not so distant past and have reached us through very complex and roundabout routes.

Cultures, civilizations grow and develop because they constantly take from each other. Civilizations borrow from others and give to others. And it is in this process of give and take that each civilization, each country, each nation constantly reinvents itself. It defines and redefines itself.

The idea is not to purge what we consider alien but to recognize that it is impossible to say what is ours and what is not. What we need to do is to see what is relevant, living and robust in our culture as it exists today, to accept what will enrich our lives and help us to improve as human beings and to reject and discard all that is likely to sustain prejudice and malice towards other human beings.

Anhad feels that the best way to fight prejudices is to take to the people the richness of our cultural heritage. We are organizing eight lectures on various aspects of our cultural heritage. These will be recorded and later edited into video lectures.