Casa Asia and the Cervantes Institute, in collaboration with Casa de la India and the Embassy of India in Spain, are organizing the "Spain-India Encounter" on May 6 in Madrid and May 7 in Valladolid: a two-day event that will focus on dialogue between the two countries through a variety of activities.
Activities in Madrid
The program for this event begins on May 6 at the Cervantes Institute headquarters in Madrid. The Spain-India Encounter will be inaugurated by the Director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero; José Pintor Aguilar, Director of Casa Asia; Guillermo Rodríguez Martín, Director of Casa de la India; and Swetow Tyagi, Second Secretary of the Embassy of India in Spain. Next will be the Tribune of Indian Hispanism, an online event presented by Hispanist Shyama Prasad Ganguly, with the participation of fellow Hispanists Vibha Maurya, Vijaya Venkataraman, and Sonya Gupta, moderated by the Academic Director of the Cervantes Institute, Álvaro García Santa-Cecilia.
Following a musical interlude by the flamenco, jazz, and Hispano-Indian group TRILOG, the Legacy to the Vault of Letters ceremony will take place, honoring the Indian Hispanist Vibha Maurya. She will be accompanied by Luis García Montero and the Director of the Cervantes Institute in New Delhi, María Gil Bürmann, who will then present a multilingual poetry reading featuring Shreyashee Nag (Bengali), Pooja Anil Bharwani (Hindi), Sumant Palorkar (Marathathi), and Priya Jayant Khobragade (Urdu).
The morning events will conclude with the roundtable discussion "Indian Studies in Spain: A Reflection." Moderated by Yasmin Paricio, Coordinator of Policy, Society, and Educational Programs at Casa Asia, the panel will include Eva Fernández del Campo, a specialist in Indian art from the Complutense University of Madrid; Antonia Navarro Tejero, who for decades has represented the Spanish Association for Interdisciplinary Indian Studies, an association present at several Spanish universities; and Òscar Pujol Riembau, author of the Sanskrit-Spanish Dictionary.
In the afternoon, a colloquium on the teaching of Spanish in India will take place. Moderated by María Gil Bürmann, the panelists will be Gaurav Kumar, from Jawaharlal Nehru University; Srivani Tumu, from the English and Foreign Languages University; and Vikash Kumart Singh, from the Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Following another musical interlude, the publication "The Creation of Kijote Kathakali" will be presented by María Gil Bürmann, Guillermo Rodríguez Martín, the Director General of the Niemeyer Center, Carlos Cuadros Soto, and Mónica de la Fuente García, Artistic Director.
Participation in the first day of the Spain-India Encounter in Madrid is free with prior registration at this link.
Activities in Valladolid
On May 7, the Spain-India Encounter moves to the city of Valladolid where, after a reception at the Santa Cruz Palace hosted by the Rector of the University of Valladolid, Antonio Largo Cabrerizo, participants will visit the Santa Cruz Historical Library and the Tagore Library of José Paz and Center for Asian Studies.
Following this, the round table discussion "Rabindranath Tagore and Spanish Literature" will be held at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters.
In the afternoon, there will be a visit to the Cervantes House Museum and the city's historic center, followed by a poetry reading at Casa de la India. The event will conclude with a group photograph in front of the Rabindranath Tagore statue at Casa de la India.
More information is available on the Casa Asia website
