If December is the season of music and dance in Chennai, then January surely is the month when words reign supreme. Shortly after the New Year, the city welcomes The Hindu Lit For Life and its panoply of lectures, readings and panel discussions – all ranging around the fascination with the word.
This year, as usual, the Pongal weekend will see authors, politicians, journalists, artists, filmmakers, theatrepersons and others hold the city in thrall for three days. In fact The Hindu Lit For Life 2016 is dedicated to the city. In Cities Under Water, Dr. Saleem Beg, Prof. S. Janakarajan, Nityanand Jayaraman and Gopalkrishna Gandhi will discuss the impact of and lessons from the recent floods; while December Deluge and the Spirit of Chennai will feature the voices of the people who played a valiant role in helping the city get back onto its feet.
Chennai’s link with the arts has not been forgotten. In Sing My Song, Chennai boy Sanjay Subrahmanyam will talk about performance and creativity in a conversation with Dr. Nirmala Lakshman while R.B. Bhaskaran, S.G. Vasudev and V. Viswanadhan and A.S. Paneerselvan will talk about the Madras School of Art in Mapping the Madras Line. Star Trek: Following M.S. Subbulakshmi is a tribute to the legendary musician in her centenary year conceptualised by writer and playwright Gowri Ramnarayan.
The keynote address will be delivered by Omar Abdullah, former Chief Minister of J&K. Apart from this, the festival brings to the city a number of renowned names: authors Colm Toibin, Philip Hensher, Alexander McCall Smith and Lionel Shriver, historians Ferdinand Mount and Rudrangshu Mukherjee, photographer Raghu Rai, artists Gulammohammed Sheikh and Vivan Sundaram among others. Other popular and well-known names include Amish, Amitava Kumar, Amrita Narayanan, Anant Padmanabhan, Chitra Madhavan, Deepa Dhanraj, Kanishk Tharoor, Kannan Sundaram, Lavanya Mohan, Margaret Mascarenhas, Maria Reimondez, Nandini Krishnan, Prema Revathi, R.V. Ramani, Rajini Sarma Balachandran, Rubin D’ Cruz, Sadanand Menon, Sharan Apparao, Srilata K., Sushila Ravindranath, Tamizhachi Thangapandian, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Venkatesh Chakravarthy, Vinutha Mallya and Yousuf Saeed.
Audiences will also see the influence of major events – both global and Indian – in the line-up. War has been a huge feature in the news in 2015 and, in Fighting Words, Raghu Karnad, Susan Abulhawa and Shiv Kunal Verma exchange stories of war with Sashi Kumar. The debate on religious intolerance gets a look in as Devdutt Pattanaik, Laila Tyabji and N. Ram discuss about The Uses and Abuses of Religion. Avirook Sen, Tanvir Ahmed Mir and Geeta Ramaseshan focus on how the Aarushi murder case was handled. Shashi Tharoor will give a lecture on India and the Networked World and also be a part of the panel discussion on Making India Work along with A.S. Dulat, T.N. Ninan, Jayanthi Natarajan and N. Ram. Barkha Dutt will talk about India’s fault lines in This Unquiet Land. Urbanisation and its impact is the subject of two sessions: Dilemmas of Existence, in which Lawrence Surendra, Navroz Mody and Neha Sumitran look at how human aspirations affect ecosystem survival and Aham Puram, where award-winning Tamil writers Sa Kandhasamy, S. Ramakrishnan, Prapanchan and D.I. Aravindhan talk about how this is reflected in Tamil literature.
Issues like addiction, gender sensitivity and caste also feature in the festival. Diya Sethi, Vidya Singh and Dr. Vijay Nagaswami will discuss The Addict; while Coming Out features Sandip Roy, Living Smile Vidya, Philip Hensher and Manil Suri on what governments and society at large should do to make the world a more liberal space for those whose sexual persuasion and choice is not that of the majority’s. Thol Thirumavalavan, Ravikumar, K.A. Gunasekaran and Justice K. Chandru will talk about Dalit aesthetics and identity.
Children’s writing hasn’t been forgotten. While Shailaja Menon, Sujata Noronha, Anil Menon and Vidya Mani figure out what constitutes A Good Book for children; Paro Anand will focus on Teens on Edge.
In a session that is sure to resonate with the Chennai audience, Gopalkrishna Gandhi will be in conversation with A.R. Venkatachalapathy over The Kural while Tiruvarur Ganesh will render a few verses set to tune by Chitravina N. Ravikiran.
Continuing with this theme of ancient works is the one on the poetry of Andal and Akkamahadevi, where Anita Ratnam, Arundhathi Subramaniam and Madhu Natraj discuss the ‘crazy’ words that drove away the taboos.
Last, but not the least, the festival will also see the awarding of The Hindu Prize 2015 on January 16. The shortlisted books are Odysseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhuri's Odysseus Abroad, Amitav Ghosh's Flood of Fire, Anuradha Roy's Sleeping on Jupiter, Easterine Kire's When the River Sleeps, Janice Pariat's Seahorse and Siddhartha Chowdhury's The Patna Manual of Style. The panel of judges – K. Satchidanandan, Arshia Sattar, Antara Dev Sen, Susie Tharu and Pradeep Sebastian – will select the winner.
So what are you waiting for? Block your dates today!
Entry is free to all. To reserve a complimentary pass; SMS LFL<space>Name, Age to 53030.
Dates: January 15, 16 & 17, 2016
Venue: Sir Mutha Venkatasubbarao Concert Hall, Harrington Road, Cheput, Chennai
Website: www.thehindulfl.com
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