To paraphrase T. S. Eliot, December is the cruellest month, breeding disaster out of water in Chennai. The city drowns and slowly revives, to the tune of music and anklets.
Then, in January, timed with Pongal, comes Lit for Life, The Hindu’s seven-year-old event that harvests books and reading in a manner quite its own. The speakers are an eclectic selection from various walks of life, not just literature, which adds a certain intellectual piquancy. And Chennaites, in turn, seem to revel in the annual jamboree, turning out in large numbers, happily queuing for autographed copies, selfies with writers, and filter kaapi . It looks and feels like a fair, and the Chennai sun is obligingly mild.
This year promises to be more of the same. Says Rachna Singh, the festival’s Delhi-based programme director, “We’ve designed it to be as much about books as about ideas and the arts.”
So, as Ms. Singh says, you will “encounter perspectives different from yours, insights that pique your interest and opinions that trigger debate and reflection.”
In Chennai, cultural programmer Prasanna Ramaswamy is the consultant for Lit for Life (LFL) and she has planned sessions on Gandhi and Partition to celebrate 70 years of Independence. She is also bringing in facets from cinema and music, with Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli and a session on Balamuralikrishna. “The fest’s USP is that it brings all artistic disciplines into the discourse, rather than as peripheral embellishment,” says Ms. Ramaswamy.
Curatorial challenges
With 60 sessions and 150 speakers spread over three days, LFL must be a nightmare to organise, but it runs like clockwork. This is thanks to an excellent organising team that begins work as early as the previous March.
“I make lists of writers, set up meetings, sift publisher catalogues, meet literary agents and so on,” says Ms. Singh.
The curatorial challenge is to find the right mix of authors and subjects. With sessions on politics, romance, music, feminism, cinema, art, and business, the fest manages this rather well.
With over 100 literary festivals in India alone, the difficulty is to stay fresh and relevant. Although many lit fests have melted into fondue pots with everything bar fire-eaters, LFL has managed to stay focussed and simple.
Ms. Singh attributes two reasons for this. “Our sessions are strong enough to appeal to audiences on the power of writing and ideas alone without embellishments. Second, Chennai is different from other cities; the audiences appreciate the opportunity to listen to and interact with some of the finest writers and thinkers of our time.”
Importantly, the fest seamlessly melds in writing from other languages. Tamil, Urdu, Kannada and Norwegian writing will feature this year, as will translations as a genre. One of the other attractions is LFL’s workshops, and the line-up includes sessions on theatre, art, music, temple sculpture, translation and cinema.
Add-ons this year
LFL targets younger audiences this year with a children’s fest as well as an Adopt a Book scheme, a Book Exchange scheme, a Roald Dahl Wall of Dreams, an open-air library, and a children’s choir performance. Isha Project Green Hands will hand over 5,000 native tree saplings as part of The Hindu’s Bring Back Green project.
Conceptualised by festival director Nirmala Lakshman in 2010, LFL has blossomed to occupy rather a niche spot in not just the city’s calendar but in that of writers’ as well.
Chennai might not end its year well, but it sure does have good beginnings.
For details, click on www.thehindulfl.com
