Heads up on Dehradun Literature & The Arts Festival - ‘DLitFest’

Yet another Literature Festival?

There is a reason for a Literary Festival to exist and flourish in India. No, it is not the desire of professional authors and artists to interact with fellow authors and publishers etc. over wine and cheese events that dot the urban sector of literati. Instead, in my opinion, it is the young generation of Indian readers and cultural enthusiasts who are driving the success of Literary Festivals. They are looking for alternative avenues to decide what to like and read instead of being bewildered by the onslaught of marketing gurus pedaling cheap thrills in the garb of literature and culture.

So how this young educated Indian generation, (93.2 % projected enrollment in K-12 grade in 2017, announced by planning commission) faced with the marketing onslaught of big media houses find the right books to read, the right ideas to follow, right people to connect with. Thanks to widespread use smart phones and ease of connectivity, I believe the young Indians have intrinsically found a way out, without being manipulated by the marketing gurus. They check out You Tube, Follow Ted Talks and, as is the recent trend, attend literary festivals that are happening across India. 

From Bhutan to Goa, from Kashmir to Kerala and Lucknow, Patna, MP, Odisha etc. thrown in between, the young generation has a literary festival near by to attend. The popularity of literary festivals is due to the fact that it is found to be more authentic, score a lot more in content and interaction and is very convenient in terms of time and resources to attend. I have been closely watching the progress of our local Hindu Lit Festival in Chennai for years and I clearly see a tremendous growth of young generation attending this Lit festival. Hindu Lit Festival 2017 had a footfall of almost 25,000 people and majority of these attendees were students.

Dehradun Literature & The Arts (DELTA) festival: ‘DLitFest’ (17^th-19^th Nov, 2017)

Dehradun Airport

Dehradun is a beautiful city, surrounded by Himalayan peaks and tall deodar trees. Apart from being the home to famous educational institutes, Colleges and schools, Dehradun has 89% literacy rate among young generation, who are looking for a closer interaction with best in the field of arts, music, dance, theater, films and literature. The young generation of Dehradun was looking for a festival to call their own and to work and interact with the best in the creative field from across India and the world.  And as I interacted with Mrs. Rashmi Chopra - the driving force behind DELTA, over last few weeks, I realised that DLitFest is going to fill this gap.

 
The idea behind DELTA Festival is to create a platform that celebrates Dehradun’s heritage of literature and culture. Rashmi Ji said, “We wanted to encourage younger people to engage with books and authors. We want our students and teachers to develop sharp and critical minds through varied interaction and exposure with the best in the field of arts and literature. As there is substantial population of senior citizens in Dehradun, we also wanted to have an event to creatively engage them, share their experiences and to get them an exposure to the new genres of literature and arts.”

The DELTA team consists of book lovers, readers, reviewers, teachers, students, aspiring authors and lovers of Dehradun, who aspire to engage the young and old generation alike in creative and artistic pursuit as well as to bring awareness about the rich heritage, culture and natural diversity of Uttaranchal to the forefront - celebrating the spirit of Doon.

In last few months, the DELTA has secured the support of “The Shivalik Hills Foundation Trust” of ''The Chopras' - One of the largest career counselling and Education companies in India, in providing the seed funding. The SREI Foundation has ‘in-principle’ agreed to support the DELTA as the principle sponsor. The Garhwal Post is media partner and local teams of book lovers like The Book Nerds and Sanket Communications have joined in to work with 'DLitFest' as Event and Media Partners. The New Delhi based publisher Story Mirror has become one of the earliest sponsors of DLitFest - 2017

A great line up of prominent authors, artists and icons of the industry have given their consent to join the event and engage the participants in creative discourse over a period of few days in Nov, 2017.

Some of the programs that are tentatively scheduled for the event is as follows…

A) Sessions / Panel Discussions

Interaction with Signature Authors of Doon – Ruskin Bond, Alter, Nayantara Sehgal, I Alan Sealey, Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghosh, Ramachandra Guha, Vandana Shiva

Some of the confirmed author sessions from across India: Shashi Tharoor, Ruskin Bond, Rajdeep Sardesai, Mark Tully, Sanjeev Sanyal, K Vijay Kumar, Jerry Pinto, Rakhee Bakshi, L. S Bajpai, Satish, Anita Agnihotri, Raghav Chandra, Timeri N Murari, Chithra Madhavan, Capt Raghuraman, G S Cheema, Suchita Malik, Sheela Reddy, Khushwant Singh, Tarun Vijay, Shashidhar Sharma, Keshav, Captain Amrinder Singh, Juliet Reynolds...

- The Making of Uttarakhand: conversations with development professionals and his colleagues in government

- The story of the Everest – Tribute to Sikdar

- Short films on Environment

- Vijayanagar Dynasty

- Symbolism in ancient Painting & Sculptures

B) Art & Entertainment

Music, Mushaira and Movies

C) Book Launches and Literary Awards

D) Workshops

Creativity, Poetry, Haiku, Writing, Theater, Movie Making, Photography

The festival organizers have tentative schedule of interesting sessions on South India. Dr. Chithra Madhavan will be holding a session on “Vijaya Nagar Empire’. The Hindu Cartoonist and Krishna Devotee, Mr. Keshav will be taking the audience through ‘Symbolism found in Ancient Painting”.

Authors from Chennai

Authors from Chennai, Mr. Timeri N Murari and Mr. K Vijay Kumar (Ex Chennai Police Commissioner and author of the bestseller “Veerappan - Chasing The Brigand”) have confirmed their participation and the organizers are in talk with another Chennai author Meena Kandasamy for participating in the festival. In the end, it is an honour for me to be invited by Dehradun Literature & Arts to give a talk and share my own journey.

So I look forward to three days of knowledge sharing, learning and artistic awareness amongst the best in the field of literature & art and sincerely hope to see you all there as well…

For Updates on DELTA @ DLitFest, connect at the following links...
Website
FB Page
Twitter

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Shashi 

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Hindu Lit for Life 2017 - Day 1                                                  

SPOTLIGHT: ‘Rikta' by Manisha Sree

Spotlight is my small effort to support upcoming authors in their effort to reach their readers. And yes, it is FREE, however to be featured in this section, you need to go through a selection process, please click here for details.

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“Don’t know who tagged women as devious human beings, they are mostly simpletons" - Manisha Sri

My publisher ‘Story Mirror’ requested my views about ‘Rikta - Towards Completeness’ to be published along with the book, as it falls into the kind of genre I love reading. Fortunately, the book was also released along with my book ‘Kuhase Ke Geet’ at Mumbai University. last month, when I promised Deven Bhai - Founding Partner of Story Mirror, that I will write a proper review as well. After a long tour and many workshops later, finally I could find some time to write about it. So here it is and hope you all will like it.

My interaction with Rikta, over long distance calls from Malaysia, where the author Manisha currently lives, I did realise the passion she has for writing and sharing her stories. Her unique story telling style in simple Hindi/English mix language - coined as Hinglish, makes it a good read. As it comes straight from author inner reflection, I am sure many of the young women will relate to it at a deeper level. Well that does not mean I did not connect as well. I enjoyed reading it and more so my interaction with her, trying to probe her thought process that provides the foundation to her writing.

“For me, writing stories is speaking heart, speaking pain and the joy which is dancing around me all the time.” - Manisha Sri

Manish says that 'Rikta' is the story of the emptiness that lies in each of us, with hope that someone, somewhere will be able to complete it and fill the void. 'Rikta' is not merely a story it is like the very life, the air everyone breathes. The characters of 'Rikta' are people like you and me and that makes 'Rikta' a story, not of its characters but ours too. It's a story of a mother's struggle in Mumbai and her discovery of herself.

BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Manisha Sri is a scientist, did her M-Tech from IIT - Roorkee and went on to work on various Oil Exploring firms like Essar. Before this book, she has also written Zindagi Ke Gullak, based upon her poetry. She also writes for various radio talk shows. She currently lives in Malaysia with her husband and a child.

HER INSPIRATIONS

Life…dancing around me is the only inspiration. I can see all these emotions but when it comes to express my pen is my only lifesaver.

CHALLENGES

Some characters are really confused. I wanted to sort them out but then the originality comes into challenge. Life is all about confusion and there sorting…. Rikta - the novel is the best example of this.

QUOTES FROM THE BOOK

a.      Tear drops have their own karma; some dry out as drops of salt while some turn out to be precious pearls.

b.     Time cannot stand by too much happiness; it has to intervene.

c.     You cannot question the existence of anything just on the basis of the fact that you haven't ever seen it.

d.     Humans have always been puppets in the hands of the Devas, subjugated and terrorized by the Asuras. But not anymore

THE STORY

Rikta is the story, which I experience around me when I was in Mumbai…. It’s not my story. It’s everyone's story …story of every couple who are struggling for their needs but not understanding there needs…once they understand ….yes, the journey of Rikta is complete.

The perfect setting for her to write is complete silence and peace of mind. In the relative calm of her character’s life dancing around in her mind, she can type away stories, poetry and fiction to her hearts content. Manisha says that she is writing because she cannot shout or raise her voice but her words do that. They are strong and loud too.

When I asked her if some one asked her to stop writing, she responded that she might stop for the world but no one can stop her thought process. She believes that we all have tiny writer living in our hearts, hiding from the outside world. The only difference is that some can express it so they are writing and some only think about it.

“I might stop writing and join the different club, in which I will think and store my thought till the time that person will understand that he is taking my breath away by stopping me to write. Trust me if the person is really loveable and respectful he will understand one day and will never let me die. I may stop writing because relations are above dreams. Dreams can be seen and fulfilled later, but not the love.” - Manisha

Given an opportunity and time she would like to write each and every unsaid story and present it to the world. She wants to write that part of love story which is said many times but still some portions are left unheard.

Listen to Manisha speak about her book Rikta... Click here

TWO BIG THINGS OF HER LIFE

First is to born as daughter and second is to born as mother.

HER FAVORITES

GENRE:

I love poetry and fiction both

BOOKS:

My faviorite books are “Chodah Fere” by Shivani, “Gunaho ka Devta” by Dharmveer Bharti  and “Raseedi Tiket” by Amrita Pritam.

TO BUY HER BOOK “RIKTA - Towards Completeness” … CLICK BELOW
@ Story Mirror
@ Amazon
@ Pustak Mandi

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– by Shashi 

CEO & Partner Interior Contracts Firm ICUBE Projects

Speaker | Author of “Songs of the Mist” & "Kuhase Ke Geet "
Haiku Poet | Writes India’s #1 Spiritual Blog “Shadow Dancing With Mind”
(Global Ranking #36)

List of SPOTLIGHT authors of Jan and Feb '17

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Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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"The Resurrection of Evil" Neelabh | Juliette Power's Death Desire Destiny

SPOTLIGHT: ‘The Resurrection of Evil’ - Neelabh Pratap Singh

Spotlight is my small effort to support upcoming authors in their effort to reach their readers. And yes, it is FREE, however to be featured in this section, you need to go through a selection process, please click here for details.

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“You cannot question the existence of anything just on the basis of the fact that you haven't ever seen it” - says Neelabh, Author of “The Resurrection of Evil”

When I met Neelabh in Story Mirror’s Youth Conclave (The Book is Published by Story Mirror - one of the most vibrant and upcoming Publisher from Delhi), where I was conducting a workshops at Delhi University, he gave me his book “The Resurrection of Evil” to read and review but as the luck would have had it, it travelled from Delhi to Mumbai with another friend. Finally last month, Neelabh caught up with me at Story Mirror office with another book, as he knew that I still have not got it back from its all India tour. During our conversation, I tried to find his views about the book, his style of writing and the purpose he has written the book. So here is the interaction. Hope you will like it.

Me and Neelabh at Publisher Story Mirror's Office

The Resurrection of Evil : A fast-paced mythological thriller weaved around the battle of Good vs. Ancient Evil.

To begin with, I must let you all know that I am biased, as the genre - Mythological Thriller, he has written in, is my favorite genre. As is usual, I always ask any author about the reason he / she has written the book. Is there a purpose behind the book? As Neelabh settled down, he relives his young days. His love for reading developed in his early twenties. he loved to share his interest with his friends. He would gift his friends his favourite books on their birthdays. But later on, he realised that they wouldn’t read the book as they believed ‘Reading’ to be quite a ‘nerdy’ thing. It wasn’t cool. So, when it came to write a book, he wanted to write in a way that makes a non-reader intrigued by the story. It should be as entertaining to a non-reader as they would find a movie or a game.

“In a way, the purpose of my book is to promote reading.” - Neelabh Pratap Singh

He quotes cricketer Yuvraj Singh who said after one of his brilliant T20 knocks, “I just wanted to express myself”, in the same way writing entertaining and interesting stories is a way of expressing myself, And that’s the first and the major reason for him to write. Although he admits with mischievous smile with another quote, this time of George Orwell, “It is humbug to pretend Ego is not a motive, and a strong one,” that In introspection, ego could also be a reason for him to write.

When I asked him, if some one he respects and love a lot, ask him to stop writing, he said that he can not and will try lots of reasoning to convince the person. But if the push comes to shove, he will survive by reading at least.

BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neelabh Pratap Singh is a mechanical engineer by profession. He hails from holy city of Varanasi. He has spent his school life in the steel city, Bhilai and pursued engineering from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra. He has been associated with premium motorcycle manufacturers like Honda and Triumph. Being a technocrat by the day, he has to resort to the nights to follow his passion for storytelling. He is a great lover of action thrillers and is highly impressed by Indian mythology. Hence, his debut book, The Resurrection of Evil, is an amalgamation of both.

HIS INSPIRATIONS

I was a storyteller right from the childhood. I would sketch comics on notebook papers, color it with crayons, and would give them to my friends to read. As I grew up, I left comic book making. But the stories would still develop inside my head and poke me to get out in front of the world. That desire of sharing the stories dwelling deep inside my head with the world inspired me to become a writer. Till this date, it is this desire, which inspires me every day to write.

CHALLENGES

I had no prior experience of writing before this book. I had never written anything creative before. I had no hope at all that I would ever be able to write a novel. But I knew one thing for sure that the destination of writing can be met by the path of reading. And hence, I started my love affair with books. Even after the research and plot outlining, I had a doubt whether I would be able to convert it into a full-fledged novel. But the till then, the books had given me enough confidence to conquer my fears and take a plunge into the world of writing.

QUOTES FROM THE BOOK

a.         The gods are heroes and daemons the villains only because of their Karma.

b.         No matter how powerful one is, he will always be perceived and treated as his Karma drives people to feel about him.

c.         You cannot question the existence of anything just on the basis of the fact that you haven't ever seen it.

d.         Humans have always been puppets in the hands of the Devas, subjugated and terrorized by the Asuras. But not anymore

THE STORY

When an antique artifact is stolen from National Museum, Delhi, a reckless and stubborn police officer, ACP Aryan, is placed at the helm of the case. Uncovering each layer of the truth, Aryan discovers that the people on the hunt for the artifact are the descendants of those who are found only in the scriptures of Indian mythology—The Asuras.

From the gateway of Lord Vishnu—Haridwar—to God's own country—Kerala, from fiery pursuits to narrow escapes, the mystery of the artifact draws Aryan into a lethal maze of vengeance, betrayal, and dreadful secrets. With time slipping out of hands like sand, Aryan must unravel the secret motive of his adversaries. Else, this story of Good vs. Ancient Evil might not end with the victory of Good.

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Neelabh says that it took him three years to complete the first book, right from idea generation to writing the last word. He dedicated the first year for research, homework, and plot outlining. The next two years took him to write the book.

Being a technocrat and working for a multinational company like Honda, he had to find time and places to write his book on the sidelines of his work. His first book “Resurrection of Evil” was written at random places like office, airports, and flights on laptop or mobile phone.

“Now, many would find it weird but I did it on purpose. Procrastination is something, which gets the better of many writers, and it started to get the better of me too. To counter it, I completely dissolved the requirement of right spot and right atmosphere for writing.” - Neelabh

SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT NEELABH PRATAP SINGH

I mentioned before that I was never a writer. But I had been associated with various art forms right from the childhood. I loved sketching and painting (I used to sketch comic books). In college, I was a passionate dancer. My friends were actually expecting me to do something in the field of dancing. But destiny had its own plan. I still take out some time for sketching and dancing.

TWO BIG THINGS OF HIS LIFE

I consider this book’s publishing as the biggest achievement, and there isn’t any other thing which can be compared to this one. However, there are two achievements which I can consider here, for they were life changing for me; both being academic. First one was during the first stage of my career when I competed for All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE) and secured a seat in National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra. Second one is when I bagged a job in premium motorcycle manufacturer—Honda motorcycles—during college campus placement.

HIS FAVORITES

GENRE: Thrillers

This genre is multi-dimensional. They are engaging and entertaining. They display extreme side of emotions. When they are coupled with different subjects, they teach us about those subjects in a very entertaining way.

BOOKS:

THE DA VINCI CODE: I love Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”. It was an absolute entertainer, and along with entertainment, it taught us various things about Christianity.

THE KRISHNA KEY: I also loved Ashwin Sanghi’s “The Krishna Key”. It gave some great insight about Lord Krishna being a historical figure rather than a mythical.

TO BUY HIS BOOK "The Resurrection of Evil” - by Neelabh Pratap Singh … CLICK HERE.

– Shashi 

CEO & Partner ICUBE Projects

Speaker | Author of “Songs of the Mist” | Haiku Poet

Writes India’s #1 Spiritual Blog “Shadow Dancing With Mind”

List of SPOTLIGHT authors of Dec '16

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ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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Mock, Stalk & Quarrel - ReadoMania             The Other Side of Him - Alice Rene