The Great Indian Literary Festival– Celebrating Regional Writers and Local Lingos

Amidst plethora of LitFests, there is a festival solely dedicated to celebrating vernacular authors who write in regional languages. Taking place in the royal land of Udaipur until March 4, 2017, its setting amplifies the overall charm of the gathering, with sessions on how budding regional writers can flourish and how senior authors play a crucial role in preserving these age-old languages.

Remember those movies where a handful of brazen revolutionaries in college are seen discussing intellectual strategies to make the independence movement stronger in India? Well, the Great Indian Literary Festival’s 1st session, Huff and Puff, delivered the same energetic vibes – towards the goal of uplifting Indian languages– except for the fact that the revolutionaries here didn’t proclaim to boycott English goods, or the English language, in the process. The discussion revolved around the current state of regional literature in India. The panellists were so empathetic with the vision of the festival’s founder Amit Shankar –to elevate regional writers and languages – that at some point during the conversation they literally argued with each other, not to prove their point right, but to become the urgent voice of those struggling authors who dedicate their life solely to regional literature. The panel included learned delegates like CP Deval, Piyush Daiya, Hemant Shesh, Anamica Shrivastava and other brainy beings, including the Padma Shri awardee mathematician Dinesh Singh, who suggested, “Young authors should focus more on delivering right content rather than concern themselves so much with the issue of getting published. Imagine our state of literature if TulsidasJi had been discouraged by the comments of Sanskrit scholars, if he had refused to go against the norm while writing Ramcharitmanas in vernacular Hindi rather than in ornamental Sanskrit.” Discussions of a similar inspiring vein – right from how social media is a healthy portal for budding artists to publicise their work to how children should be encouraged to feel pride while communicating in their mother tongue – elevated the pulse of the overall festival to another level.

The Great Indian Literary Festival is taking place in the royal land of Udaipur until March 4, 2017, and the selected locations for the sessions have undoubtedly amplified the overall charm of the gathering.

Rather than calling it a literary festival, it would be more reasonable to call this an intimate gathering where like-minded and enthusiastic literary adorers, who care about the dying art of writing vernacular languages, have been mobilised at one place. While the event was progressing, the planned topics were flawlessly delivered, the panellists were highly learned, and their opinions were gilded in terms of their aesthetic value. Particulary of interest was the 2nd Panel discussion – ‘The Missing 24 FPS’ – on why works of literature are not adapted into motion picutre these days. While young as well as veteran authors, television actress Pankhuri Awasthi and other television persona delivered their points well, the conversation was fixated on the mediums of television and movies, a little focus on the emerging regional content on mediums of web would have added value to the ongoing discourse.

Overall, the festival is highly intriguing, and we at CreativeYatra will be here on Day 2 also. The second days line up shows promise of continued cerebral stimulation, sessions to look forward are – ‘Dying art of writing’ and ‘Digital – The new Platter’.

Await the review of day 2 of The Great Indian Literature Festival.

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Images Courtesy : TGILF FB page