2nd Day of Hindu Literary
Festival and the winner is ... Hindu
and HIRCO (Main sponsor of
the evening) for providing such an uplifting experience.
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| Rahul Bhattacharya recieving the prize for Best Fiction at Hindu "Lit For Life 2011" at Chennai Festival |
It was a pleasure to see a very talented and humble person and a new friend, Rahul
Bhattacharya winning ‘The
Hindu Literary Prize for Best Fiction 2011' for his lovely book
“The Sly Company of People Who Care”. The book tells the story about a young
Indian's Caribbean adventures in the company of a Guyanese diamond-hunter in a
very fresh way. As this post is about the Hindu “Lit For Life” festival, I will
restrict myself to the same but not before recommending everyone to read this
book, more so if you are planning to visit Guyana as it has the captured the
soul of the place and people.
In its Sunday Review Column, New
York Time’s Dinaw Mengestu says about the book, ‘But its (book’s) heart lies in
the exuberant and often arresting observations of a man plunging himself into a
world full of beauty, violence and cultural strife” (To read the full review, click
here...)
The Hindu Lit For Life Festival
2011 – Day Two
Scent of Paper
(Kavery Nambiar, K
Srilata)
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| Kaveri Nambiar, K Srilata in conversation with Parvati Nayar |
The session on the Sunday morning
felt like having a chat with friends with an aroma of freshly brewed filter
coffee in the air. The discussion about juggling two passions i.e. being a
writer as well as a surgeon, Kavita brought out her heartfelt thought, which I
could relate to. “As a writer, you are taking a tremendous risk in bringing out
into the open your inner feelings and thoughts”.
K Srilata, a professor of
Humanity at IIT, shared her lovely journey of being poet and a writer. “I began
as a poet and it has helped a lot in writing”.
Freeze Frame
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| Anjum Rajabali, Balu Mahendra, K Hariharan with Singeetham Srinivasa Rao |
This discussion was about transforming
words to image, about the essence of capturing the texture of society through
movie script and camera, which was very beautifully steered by K Hariharan,
who engaged stalwarts of Tamil Cinema and powerful script writer from Bollywood
Anjum Rajabali (who has given us movies like Gulam, Rajneeti, Aarakshan etc.)
effortlessly. It was a pleasure to see and hear the 80 year old Singeetham
Srinivasa reminiscing about the old days and how the movies were made at that
time. He advises, “The most important for good films is the back drop and
texture of the society.
Anjum Rajabali said, answering to Hariharan’s query about how he
gets started on writing a script for movie, “Usually it starts with a question
– What if...? e.g. in situation like a mother gets off from a bus to fetch
water for her child, what if the bus leaves before she gets back?. He says that
he usually writes what he would like to see on the screen.
Talking about
Pushpak, the director Mr. Singeetham said that there were innumerable pressures
from the producers, distributors to add some song or at least a dream sequence
in the movie which was without any dialogue, but I refused to do so as that
movie did not require it. But when I make a popular movie, I go all out to add
color and sound to it. He remembered that when the first time he saw
Chitralekha (a super hit movie Tamil Movie), he did not like it as he was
young, idealist and was full of perceptions about good movies. But years later
when he saw it again, he enjoyed it very much. He admits now that what took
seconds for the masses to appreciate, took me 25 years.
The Translation Workshop
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| Arunava Sinha and Mini Krishnan |
Well with
100’s of people in the jam packed hall at Hyatt Hotel, one can not really have a workshop. So it turned out to a kind discussion about and appreciation of the art of translating, which was very well handled by Mini
Krishnan.
The session had it's high points like sharing three different translation
of a Hindi paragraph from a very powerful 100 year old story – The chess Player
by the great Hindi writer Munshi Premchand. Arunava Sinha got the audience worked up to the point of being
equally divided, supporting all three versions. Personally I was sure that the
first version was the best as सिर
धुनना (Sar Dhun-na meaning slapping on the head with one’s own hand –
not as one of the lady from the audience said “scratching head”) in the context
only meant ‘utter sorrow’, like what one feels in case of the death of one’s
family member. That was the only time, I actually stood up to clarify, but by
the time I could catch attention of the moderator, the discussion had passed on
to other things.
Ultimately the session ended with the thought that there is no right or
wrong way to translate, only responsible way to convey the essence of the book.
“Yes, when you pour perfume from one bottle to another, you are bound to lose
some of its essence” as Shabana Azmi pointed out in the very next session...
Unlimited spirit
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| Shabana Azmi |
Clad in very beautiful sari,
Shabana Azmi was grace personified. And as she went on to talk about the
beautiful book “Kaifi and I” written by her mother Shaukat Azmi, she shared
that the love for sari she had inherited from her mother. After landing at Chennai
Airport, she took time off to change into sari to come to this festival.
“I learned acting from my mother
as she was very focussed and sincere actor who will sink into the character
days before the play and keep repeating the dialogues, wherever she was” says
Shabana Azmi and goes to share a lovely story about how her mother kept
everyone in the household on tenterhooks when she was preparing for the role of
“Pagli” – A mad woman. She says that her focus on social work was inspired by
the thought of her father that “the art should be used for social change” and
triggered by one of the women from a slum, who she got to know (and later on
became a good friend), when she was acting as one.
“No, there was no pressure at all
from my father, Kaifi Azmi for doing social work, as he was convinced that the soil
is ready (by the samskaras, he has passed on to his children) and at the right
moment, the plant will take root” answered Shabana Azmi to a question, if there
was pressure growing up as child of a political activist.
Moving on, let’s talk Cricket with
veteran’s of Cricket Journalism – a passion equally shared by Mr. Shashi Tharoor
who was the chief guest of the day.
Unlimited Spirit
A really gifted gathering in
terms of sports journalism with veterans like Mukul and Rahul Bhattacharya along
with Shashi Tharoor, who has been passionate about cricket since long. There was
much sharing of anecdotes and memories about sports in general and about
cricket in specific, but I am leaving you with two in particular here.
In response to the sentiments of
one of the audience, that we should not waste time in playing, watching or
talking about cricket, when there is poverty to eradicate, social issues to
tackle etc, Shashi Tharoor says, “Would you say that people should not listen
and watch the music festival that happens in for almost a month in every December
in Chennai. Yes there is poverty, there are other issues and challenges facing
the country, but cricket is something that inspires people too, makes the
gifted one’s to reach heights that would not have been possible otherwise for
people who come from very different back ground like Dhoni, Irfan and so many
more”
“20-20 matches are like
continuous orgasmic crescendo” - Mukul Kesavan
And the show goes on... leaving
you with some thoughts and images from the upcoming two sessions and final
culmination of the two days of Hindu Literary festival “Lit For Life 2011” into
the award function.
Rivered Earth
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| Nisha Susan and Vikram Seth |
With Nisha Susan as gracious host
and a very humble and down to earth guest, Vikram Seth, the session was
uplifting for the jam packed hall at Hyatt hotel with crowd lining along the
wall as well as filling the lobby where a large LCD was placed for people who
could not get space inside. With poetry and music, Vikram Seth kept the crowd
asking for more... and then came the final crescendo, with Vikram getting up
and reciting “Fire, Faayar, Faayaar...” to thunderous round of applause... The
session was too beautiful to convey by mere words, so I am leaving you with
some images...
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| Vikram Seth reading from book Rivered Earth |
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| Vikram Seth reading his fiery poetry... |
All in all, it was a tremendous experience for me, to see, learn and assimilate various thoughts from the stalwarts of literature, media and movie in two days of the Hindu Literary Festival 2011.
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| Some thoughts and some questions.. |
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| Time to reflect... Saugata and Arunava |
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| Many moods, many colors... Shabana Azmi and Vikram Seth |
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| Overflowing to the wings and the lobby... |
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| Sumeet Shetty with Vikram Seth |
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| ... and that's me with Rahul |
This post is for the people who
have missed to be there at the festival, although I could not upload all the images that I have
had taken, to share. If you like any one of the images up there, let me know, I would send the HIGH Resolution images.
I hope you have enjoyed the journey with me at Hindu Literary Festival 2011 – Chennai and to read the first day's going on, please click here...
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On the side lines of festival...
It was actually very funny to see, the clock work performance of “Attention seeking three musketeers”, as one of the lady aptly named the kind. They will be invariably up at one time or another, in each of the session of the festival, to grab the mike and ask, in their own very typical way, some banal, pseudo intellectual questions.
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ॐ
नमः
शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
Hindu “Lit For Life” Part I
