Honorable Dignitaries on the dais and all the eminent Tagore Lit. Awardees and friends, I am greatly honored by being selected for Tagore Lit. Award 2010 in Marathi, by Samsung India Electronics Pvt. Ltd. in collaboration with Sahitya Akademi. I accept this award in all humility and on behalf of literary critics of my generation in all the Indian languages. Literary critics are seldom considered for awards on a national level and hence the uniqueness of this award to me.

On this occasion, I would briefly introduce my book ‘Nivdak Samiksha’. This book of about 480 pages covers the period from 1955 to 2004. It contains 40 articles divided into three sections, namely, 1] Critical Analysis of 12 Lit. works, 2] Critical Notes on 15 important literary issues and 3] 15 full-fledged articles. Overall literary ethos in Marathi from 1960 to 2000 is reflected in this book. Today we talk of literature as a part of Culture Study and about the interdisciplinary approach in all studies. But let me tell you that I have been following this approach in my criticism since 1960.

My book is dedicated to Sant Dnyaneshwar, the first & foremost critic in Marathi who secularised and aestheticized medieval religious and literary movements in Marathi. The book is jointly dedicated to the Common Man of R. K. Laxman, who sees what we must see or what we should have already seen. Sant Dnyaneshwar & Common Man are a perennial source of inspiration to the critic in me.

A few words about the role of the literary critics in today's society. The literary critic is progressively confounded, day by day, by the plethora of numerous theories, ideologies, and scientific and technical ideas. Along with the critic, creative writing is also subjected to this onslaught of knowledge. Post-modernism, globalization, consumerism, various isms, media, market, and neo-capitalist inputs and outputs are suffocating the creative individual who is a real soul of arts and literature. In this scenario, I feel that the concepts of Tradition and Individual Talent have to be revived, revised, and revitalize in context of the today's extension and abbreviation of the creative Individuality and the expansions and ideological implications of the Tradition as a total culture. A critic has to prepare a balance-sheet of loss and gain in terms of aesthetic individual and cultural tradition.

A critic's business today is not only to identify unity in diversity but also to recognize the panqs of aesthetic individual amidst the heavily burdened social concerns and demands. It is a painful journey in this age of multiple confusion. Thank you once again

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