Sameera height 160 cm (5 feet 3 inch) and Weight 55 kg. She has a younger sister, Seema Eff Sherief. She has a bachelor’s degree from Villa Marie Degree College for Women, Hyderabad. She completed her secondary education at Keyes High School for Girls, Secunderabad. Sameera Sherief was born on 14th November 1991 to Amir Sherief in Hyderabad,Telangana. Villa Marie Degree College for Women, Hyderabad “Our aim is to give enough tasteful literature to the audience in the language that they feel most connected to,” she adds.Keyes High School for Girls, Secunderabad We want to bring all the languages prevalent in Pune together, apart from presenting the past and present of Hindi/Urdu literature,” says Singh, who plans to scale up the festival next year with the addition of Sindhi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu and other languages spoken in the city. While it has seen a time of glory in the past, the current times present a very dynamic version of it. “The Deccan has a long, inspiring history of Urdu shayars, sufi musicians, dance culture, theatre, fiction and non-fiction literature. With the festival, Singh also aims to dispel the notion that the Deccan states have little association with Urdu language and literature. But if we make poetry user-friendly by including it in film songs, they are more likely to develop a taste for it,” says the lyricist. “We can’t expect every college-going youth to study ‘Gitanjali’ or Ghalib and Mir. Manoj Muntashir, who has penned popular songs like ‘Galliyan’ (Ek Villain) and ‘Tere Sang Yaara’ (Rustom), believes that songs effectively bring poetry to people. They feed off each other.” To put this thought to effect, she has roped in film and stage artistes like Salim Arif, Kanwaljit Singh, Pravin Bhole (head of Lalit Kala Kendra, SPPU), Sachin Khedekar, Alok Rajwade, as speakers for panel discussions. She says, “Literature is present in most creative arts. A civil servant by day, Singh who burns the midnight oil reading and writing Urdu poetry, has strung together theatre, music, cinema and songs for the festival. The poet Monika Singh, a member of Dakani Adab Foundation and the curator of Deccan Lit Fest, shares that the purpose behind showcasing the arts is to present a well-rounded view of literature. An open mic event, Poetry of Youngistan, for poets aged below 30, will also be held. The main attractions of the festival are the mushaira (in Urdu), and a kavi sammelan in Marathi and Hindi. A Vijay Tendulkar play adapted in Hindi, Panchhi Aise Aate Hain a Kathak recital by Ameera Patankar and a Sufi music performance by Dhruv Sangari and troupe is on the programme too. The event will also feature a Hindustani classical music performance by Padma Vibhushan Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, who will be accompanied by his son, Murtuza Mustafa and grandson Faiz Mustafa. Among the highlights of the event include a poetry reading session by Deepti Naval a talk by Hindi author Narendra Kohli a tour of Tukaram’s poetry by Sadanand More a retrospective of Pu La Deshpande, Keshavsut and Purushottam Shivram Rege presented by Sachin Khedekar and Bollywood lyricist Manoj Muntashir’s take on poetry in films. I am keen to hear the new poets and their works,” says Nizam who will read from his published works at the festival.Īctress-poet Deepti Naval, Urdu poet Sheen Kaaf Nizam, Padma Vibhushan Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Lyricist Manoj Muntashirĭeccan Lit Fest goes beyond the spoken word, and weaves together poetry and the arts of the Deccan region. There is actually a great contemporary wave going on, which co-exists with the classical poetry of the mushairas. Many young poets are doing brilliant work in the postmodern Urdu shayari era. The Sahitya Akademi Awardwinning Urdu poet, Sheen Kaaf Nizam, is happy to be a part of the festival, for it presents a good mix of the classical and contemporary. The festival will also host writers from across the country for a wider purview. Organised by Dakani Adab Foundation, the two-day litfest will debut with poets, writers and performing artists of the city, bringing to the fore Urdu, Marathi and Hindi literatures. Aiming to fill this void and to put the spotlight on literatures of the Deccan states, the Deccan Lit Fest will launch in the city this weekend. While there are literature festivals aplenty in the state, and a few homegrown in Pune as well, most don’t go beyond either discussing Hindi or English literature. With shayars, kavis, lyricists, thespians, screen writers and more, this new literature festival shines a spotlight on the region’s poetry