About us:
Clustered around by the ancient Arawali ranges, Ajmer has been a holy city. It has remained a great center of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Muslims down the past centuries. Ajmer is a true blend of rich Hindu and Islamic heritage. The sacred lake of Pushkar believed by Hindus to be as old as creation along with the temple of Brahma has been a place of pilgrimage since time immemorial. The great Sufi Saint Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chisti of Persia was buried here and his Dargah is equally sacred for the followers of Islam. Akbar the Great used to visit the Dargah annually.
The strategic position of this city has led to its long and turbulent history. Ajmer is connected to Delhi, Agra, Ahmedabad, Abu, Jodhpur and Jaipur by main highways and holds strategic access to Gujarat and Malwa (M.P.). It was a key centre of Chauhan power along with the twin capital of Delhi. During the last couple of centuries Ajmer was a British Residency as a result of which the city in due course gained a metropolitan look and culture. And A.R.A.W.LII... is situated in the heart of this sacred city.
Office Bearers:

Patron:		Satish Verma Satish Verma was born in 1935, did his post graduation in Botany in 1957.  At the age of 18, he started writing poems in Hindi and got them published in various journals. In 1957 he started a literary journal called Lahar (The Wave...) which immediately became a grand success and sold like hot cakes.  In the early 60's he successfully tried his hand at translating the classic works of Ravindra Nath Tagore like Balaka, Jyoti-Kanikain and Manimal into Hindi which were hailed as landmarks in the art and craft of translation. His versatility and creativity almost goaded him to compose poems of a different sort and a class by themselves which came out in volumes like Prayaas and 1974 and Other Poems. In 1980 his first- ever collection of English poems called INWARD JOURNEY saw the light of the day, which was well received and reviewed in various journals and magazines in India and abroad. And all these years he was teaching Botany to graduate students. In 1980 itself he started a social project of Holistic therapies called SEWA MANDIR which in due course of time has become the biggest institute of charitable kind in Asia. Sewa Mandir, however, was also in a way responsible for making Satish the poet undergo a long hibernation. And for about 25 years he did not write a single word.  And suddenly the creating urge erupted almost in a volcanic fashion and for the last two years he has been writing literally daily without any compromise with profundity, infact.  He has been rightly called "a talented poet" by Mark O'Connor, the Olympic poet of Australia and John Kinsella has found "Certainly something interesting and spiritual and tough! happening" in the poetry of Satish Verma. While Christopher Rollason has been impressed by "a strong and elegant line, forcible rhythms, and memorable use of alliteration and assonance" in the recent masterpieces of Satish Verma, E.E. Sule finds Satish's poems "exhilarating" exhibiting "a restless spirit in a surrealistic quest..." . Satish's poems written during the last couple of years will shortly be published in his forthcoming volume called Beyonds & Betwēon.  Presently he lives in Ajmer, INDIA. He can also be reached at kantasatish@gmail.com.   [more...]
President & Editor of Prosopisia		Anuraag Sharma A poet, critic, short-story writer, translator and playwright, Anuraag Sharma was born in 1962. Did his Ph.D. on the poetry on Les A. Murray from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur in 1992.  A known scholar, Anuraag has represented India at various International forums, attending, thus, the IV International Conference of Australian Studies held in China in 1994, followed by his visit to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1995 for the III EASA Conference. In July-August 2000, he was on an academic tour to Australia on AIC grant and attended the ASAL 2000 Conference at Hobart.  His articles, reviews and write-ups have been published in various journals in India and abroad. A poet of some modest repute in the Hindi heartland of the country, he has to his credit three collections of poems published so far which include: Kiskey Liye? (1985), Punarbhava (1998), Audhava (1999).  A Dimension of the Angel: A Study of Les Murray's Poetry (1997), was his critical work which was highly acclaimed by Les Murray himself and reviewed in various journals in India and abroad. As a short- story writer he co-authored Iswaswillbe  a collection of short stories along with A Sanjit. In 2003 he translated the selected poems of Les Murray into Hindi which came out in a bilingual volume called Setu… (The Bridges…).  Besides, he has edited a couple of course books of literature for young boys and girls also.  Along with Pradeep Trikha he has co-edited the volume of conference papers- Caring Cultures: Sharing Imaginations. Currently he is the Head of the Department of English and Director, Centre for Indo-Australian Studies at Dayanand College, Ajmer, in which capacity he edits Lemuria, the first ever international journal of Indo-Australian studies from this part of the globe and a regular newsletter called Delphi in Desert. He can also be reached at sharma_anuraag@yahoo.com. His forthcoming publication includes a trilogy of plays called ...Etc. and a collection of selected poems of Four Canberra poets translated into Hindi. [more...]
Secretary:		Pradeep Trikha Pradeep Trikha is a Senior Faculty at the Department of English. Dayanand College, Ajmer. Born in 1963 he did his Ph.D. on “The Short Fiction of Frank Moorhouse: A Thematic Study” from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. During 1996-2000 he was Associate Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla where he took up a UGC Research Project on ‘Contemporary Indian Women Short-Story Writers-- Anita Desai, Githa Hariharan and Bharti Mukharjee”, which later appeared as a monograph from IIAS, Simla. His research articles, reviews and write-ups have been extensively published both in India and abroad. His first well-received book was Frank Moorhouse: The Writer as an Artist (2001). In 2003 he received the AIC grant fro his visit to a number of Universities and Centres of Australian Studies in Australia and for attending the Annual ASAL and ADSA conferences at Brisbane. He is the co-editor of Lemuria and also the Deputy Director, Centers for Indo- Australian Studies, Dayanand College, Ajmer. His major research interests are contemporary Theatre, Australian Literature, and Indian English Novel. As a scholar of fiction and short story, his critical writing are widely acclaimed and accepted.  He can also be reached at pradeeptrikha@gmail.com. His forthcoming publication is Literature, Nation and Revolution: Celebrating 150th year of 1857 (ed.). [more...]
Advisory Board of A.R.A.W.LII:		Les Murray, Australia Jayanta Mahapatra, India Bill Ashcroft, Australia E. E. Sule, Nigeria S. Asnani, India Sheela Upadhyaya, India M. Chaurasia, India Bibhu Padhi, India Geoff Page, Australia John Kinsella, Australia Philip Mead, Australia G. J .V. Prasad, India Stephen Gill, Canada J.P. Savita, India Christopher Rollason, France S.B. Srivastava, India Shyam Mathur, India Sudha Srivastava, India Ravi Sharma, India [more...]
Editorial Board of Prosopisia:		Les Murray, Australia. Jayanta Mahapatra, India Bill Ashcroft, Australia Pradeep Trikha, India S. Asnani, India E. E. Sule, Nigeria John Kinsella, Australia Stephan Gill, Canada Sheela Upadhyaya, India Jenna Mead, Australia Geoff Page, Australia Mark O'Connor, Australia Bibhu Padhi, India Niranjan Mohanty, India Jaydeep Sarangi, India [more...]
Contact us:		5-A(II), Mayoor Colony, Alwar Gate, Ajmer-305008 (India) Phone No.: 0091-145-2660016, 0091-145-2642118   Fax No.: 0091-145-2660010   E-mails: sharma_anuraag@yahoo.com pradeeptrikha@gmail.com
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