The third edition of the Ooty Literary Festival (OLF) began with a Badaga dance outside the 159-year-old Nilgiri Library, the venue for the event. Festival advisor and writer Jerry Pinto danced along with them. Giving him company were other invitees to the festival, including author Paro Anand and a group of students from Bengaluru.
‘One of its kind’
Shernaz Sethna welcomed the gathering into the hallowed library and described the festival as one of the youngest literature festivals in the country, and perhaps the only one of its kind to be held inside a heritage library. Geeta Sreenivasan, president of the Ooty Library, spoke briefly about its history, and said the idea of holding a literature festival in its premises came about because, “Heritage cannot be preserved in isolation.”
The day’s programme began with the felicitation of writer and translator Shanta Gokhale by Jerry Pinto and poet Ranjit Hoskote. They spoke of her with admiration and affection and called her their mentor and role model, who taught them the importance of always writing with empathy and intellect.
Ms. Gokhale was then honoured with the Ooty Literary Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.
In her keynote address, Ms. Gokhale spoke of the real and present danger of censorship. “If we write what we think and what we see we might offend,” she said. She spoke of a miasma of fear that cloaked everything. She went back to the euphoria of post-Independence writing and the nightmarish Emergency days that woke journalists from the slumber they were in.
“Today’s truth tellers are not safe,” she said, and gave examples of Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie and Naguib Mahfouz, all of whom had been targeted for their opinions.
Ms. Gokhale’s address concluded with the release of the book The Engaged Observer , a selection of her writings edited by Jerry Pinto.
Writing histories
Biographer and historian Patrick French and Jerry Pinto then discussed the contentious business of writing histories. Mr. French regaled the audience with anecdotes of writing V.S. Naipaul’s biography, and the challenges of writing about such a “talented and tragically flawed” man.
After history, it was the turn of verse as Mr. Hoskote, Mustansir Dalvi and Srividya Sivakumar read out their poems, which ranged from the sombre to the funny, and were received with applause and even whistles.
Writing can be for anyone was the consensus reached by a helicopter pilot from the Indian Air Force (IAF) Nitin Sathe, and two doctors V. Srinivas and Peeyush Maniyambath, who have published books far removed from their professions. Theirs was a funny and poignant session as each described what motivated him to write.
Environmentalist and green writer Pankaj Sekhsaria gave the gathering a reality check about the ecological state of the planet.
The day’s final session was an intense discussion on the role of social media in journalism. N. Ram, Chairman of The Hindu Group Publishing Private Ltd, spoke about the toxic effect of fake news and fielded questions on the seeming loss of faith in mainstream media in recent times.
Speaking to writer Sameera Khan, he said accountability, credibility and a critical and analytical approach were prerequisites to professional journalism.
Mr. Ram reiterated that the only way to counter irresponsible journalism was to always be sceptical and not accept anything at face value. It was time to reclaim the truth-telling function of journalism, he concluded.
The second day of the OLF will have sessions with Paro Anand, Sameera Khan and Shanta Gokhale, followed by sessions on writing for children, and on art. OLF will conclude with a conversation between Patrick French and Christopher Penn about the latter’s great-grandfather A.T.W. Penn and his photographs of the Nilgiris.
