Jnanapravaha will host literary scholar and cultural activist GN Devy who will speak about the history of Indian languages. Titled Painted Words: Literature, Language, Silence, the lecture will offer a comprehensive picture of nearly 800 languages in existence in India and how they are rapidly losing imaginative expression.

Devy will provide a perspective on the uneasy journey of imagination in Indian literary practice over the last two centuries and show the inter-dependence of cultural diversity and creative arts in our time.