Creative people from various corners of the country joined those from other parts of the world here on Friday to share their ideas on how the creative mind works.
Their rendezvous was The Week Hay Festival, produced by the Hay Festival, the United Kingdom, and Teamwork Productions, in association with Qatar Airways.
Open talks
The three-day festival features open talks with Vikram Seth, Miguel Syjuco, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Hannah Rothschild, K. Satchidanandan, O.N.V. Kurup, Sonia Faleiro, Michelle Paver, Menna Elfyn, Paul Henry, Bob Geldof and many others.
Kerala Minister for Education and Cultural Affairs M.A. Baby inaugurated the event and writer-diplomat-politician Sashi Tharoor delivered the keynote address.
Mr. Baby sought to present before the audience the rich tradition of Malayalam literature and the depth of world vision mirrored by it in the works of writers such as Thunchath Ezhuthachan and Sree Narayana Guru, the latter known more as a social reformer than a litterateur.
Mr. Baby said such coming together of writers and creative artistes from different parts of the world would be an enriching experience for all.
Mr. Tharoor said that he had seen in Kerala the urge of the mind to receive all, without reservations, and the very history of the State was a consistent affirmative statement to this quality of the people.
Actor Mammootty, who also addressed the inaugural session, asked why there should not be a branch of world literature in writing screen plays.
It was already an acknowledged branch of literature in Malayalam, with Jnanpith Award winner M.T. Vasudevan Nair and other talented story-tellers taking it to exalted levels.
In the session that followed, novelist-poet Vikram Seth answered questions on his writing from the verse classic The Golden Gate to An Equal Music , A Suitable Boy and Two Lives. Amrita Tripathi and Anita Nair read from their recent works and discussed their approach to the craft of writing.
Novel, craft discussed
In another session, Miguel Syjuco talked about Ilustrado , a novel covering a long and tumultuous period in the history of the Philippines, which won the Man Asian Literary Prize. Filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Hannah Rothschild discussed their craft at another session.
Teamwork managing director Sanjay Roy, executive producer Lyndy Cooke and Peter Florence of the Hay Festival were among those who addressed the inaugural session.
Poet Sugathakumari and The Week 's managing director Philip Mathew were among those who attended the function.
