Nashik: Sahitya Akademi award-winning author Navnath Gore on Sunday spoke about the struggles of sugarcane labourers in Nashik and Kolhapur districts. He said the labourers from Nashik were actually owners of land in the hilly areas of the district, but were forced to work in sugarcane fields elsewhere as their villages have been reeling under drought since the past three years or more.Gore, who himself hails from one such village in Nashik, was interacting with literature lovers on Sunday after formally inaugurating the 51st Readers’ summit organized by the Public Library. The author had won the Akademi’s ‘Young Author’ award for his Marathi novel ‘Fesati’.“The people from the villages in the hilly areas of Nashik district cannot do farming on their own lands due to the drought. They have to leave their villages and cut sugarcane in farms in other parts of the district. The situation in the drought-hit villages of Nashik and Kolhapur is bad. The government should at least arrange for drinking water here,” he said.Gore said that after completing secondary school, he had to leave his village and work as a labourer in Kolhapur. “I also worked as a security guard but continued my studies thanks to the encouragement given by my grandmother. Somehow, I completed my post-graduation and wrote this novel as my own story,” he said.Earlier, Gore inaugurated the 51st literary summit of SaVaNa. Noted Marathi author and journalist Aparna Velankar, who presided over the literary summit, interacted with him. The day began with an interactive session with Velankar, who was the president of the summit. Prof Vrinda Bhargave, head of the department of mass communication of HPT College asked Velankar to speak on various current issues and changes in journalism.Later, playwright Prajakt Deshmukh and music-director Anand Oak spoke about the journey of the Marathi play, Dev Babhali, from a small single act to a full-fledged commercial drama that won the biggest prize in Marathi commercial theatre this year. Author Datta Patil compered this panel discussion.Readers who won the annual literary awards instituted by SaVaNa were felicitated on the occasion. Noted singer Meena Parulekar-Nikam presented a musical, ‘Ashi Pakhre Yeti’, to mark the conclusion of the summit.

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