It’s interesting, how much literature can mean, and where its pursuit, and love, can lead you. It can gather within its fold so much more than you expect, and before you know it, you can’t see why you thought theatre and dermatology and food and art and stand-up comedy weren’t part of the world of books.
The Hindu Lit for Life discovered this space quite early in its journey. Conceived as a natural next step after The Literary Review’s 20th anniversary, the festival widened its scope after the first year, including in its line-up sessions on a range of disciplines, bringing together the threads usually separated and creating a richer, fuller tapestry. This year won’t be any different, and in less than a week, the fifth edition of the Hindu Lit for Life will once again become a gathering not only of some of the brightest stars among international and Indian literary names, but also veterans from other fields. Working with the idea that literature can never be esoteric or isolated, the festival’s curator Nirmala Lakshman believes that it can become a space to understand, challenge and critique ideas and conventions. It is this belief that leads to a number of panels with intermingling disciplines, which see literature in juxtaposition with other arts, exchanging ideas, styles, forms and theories.
This year’s instalment promises to be a rich, packed one, offering a palette at once diverse and harmonious, creating a sort balance that lends itself to innumerable new spaces for discussions and dialogues.
Of course, the three packed days at the festival will first and foremost revolve around books. There is no denying that Lit for Life promises to be a bibliophile’s paradise. Should you happen to find yourself in Chennai, and then at the festival, you will no doubt find the air charged with a sort of excitement booklovers usually reserve for first editions, great second-hand book deals or a favourite author’s signing. You may run into complete strangers with a penchant for the same genres you find irresistible, or find that an author whose work you love has a bit of time to stay and chat over a cup of filter coffee about his latest book. No doubt, Lit for Life centres around that common theme, that shared love for the written word.
But in between browsing stacks of beautiful spines and listening to authors, you can catch a session on the environment or photography or art. In “Green Wars: Dispatches from a Vanishing World”, environmental journalist and editor Bahar Dutt gives an illustrated talk, while in “Skin: A Biography” Sharad Paul delivers a lecture on dermatology and skin health.
This year also finds Dayanita Singh presenting what is perhaps one of the most exciting new collaborations between photography and books. Bringing both her loves together, Dayanita has created what is essentially a book on the wall. Devising a frame that will allow her to mount her book as a photograph on the wall, she has arrived at a place where she can now create her own gallery, and exercise control over how her books are displayed and sold. Already known for pushing the envelope and finding new ways to express and practice her art, Dayanita will be in conversation with another experimental artist, musician T. M. Krishna. Excited about talking to another artist who wants to push the limits, she hopes that her talk will open new dialogues between the two disciplines, each benefitting from the other, and each trying to understand what it means to take risks and demand more from itself.
Performance art too finds a great deal of space in the festival, and “Lotus Lines, Water Words: A Reading Performance” directed by Prasanna Ramaswamy will see participants like P.C. Ramakrishna, Anita Ratnam, R. Rohini, Nellai Manikandan, Niran Viktor Benjamin, Sushila Ravindranath.
From food (“Shaped by Food Memories” — a panel discussion on our complex relationship with food featuring Chef Aditya Bal, Chef Kunal Kapur and Chef Manu Chandra) to movies (“Starlight” featuring Nimrat Kaur and Tisca Chopra in conversation with Latha Menon), from regional theatre (Tamil Theatre: The Voices and Forms Pralayan, Gnani Sankaran, Living Smile Vidya, Na Muthusamy and K. Parthibaraja) to the visual arts, the festival serves up a well balanced diet.
