INDIAN EXPRESS: On Tuesday, the world of literature paid homage to Charles Dickens on his 200th birth anniversary. In Pune, students and staff of the Department of English, Nowrosjee Wadia College, organised a day of celebrations to remember the creator of Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. A birthday cake was cut and part of the writer’s Hard Times was enacted .

“I happened to read novels by Charles Dickens only in my first year of college in 1965. Since then, Dickens has been an integral part of my life,” said Professor V Madge, a senior English professor. “I am so surprised that despite Pune being termed as the Oxford of the East, Dickens’ birthday isn’t being celebrated elsewhere,” said Madge, who feels that the works of Shakespeare and Dickens should be included in undergraduate syllabus of English Literature so students may draw inspiration from these literary giants.

Professor Manoj Bhise, the head of the Department of English, took the initiative to celebrate Dickens’ birth anniversary along with students. He directed a scene from Dickens’ shortest novel Hard Times in which Madge played Thomas Gradgrind, the founder of an educational system in Coketown, while Professor A P Dani, former head of the Department of English at Fergusson College, got into the shoes of the school inspector.

Speaking of Dickens’ personal life, Madge said, “Dickens’ house in the UK is living proof of his ‘struggle to collect every penny to fulfill his father’s dream. ”Dickens had the ability to interact with characters he created. I have read how his daughter was scared after hearing strange cries from Dickens’ room. She went in to see that her father was talking to himself and enacting dialogues from his novels,” Madge added.