"Looking forward to the Bangalore Lit Fest this weekend. What a super line-up! BLF off to a good start. This one is a Lit Fest. Not a Lit Circus" - it was this tweet from Shobhaa De kicked off the maiden edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF) in December 2012.
BLF is an annual flagship event in the cultural calendar of the city, celebrating its creative spirit and commemorating the literary diversity it offers; bringing it in conversation with the best minds in the world of literature. This entirely community-funded and inspired event that has kept away from large corporate houses and sponsorships has been an initiative of Bangalore based authors Vikram Sampath and Shinie Antony and social venture professional Srikrishna Ramamoorthy. The objective of the Bangalore Literature Festival is to put together a literary experience that brings writers - both established and aspiring, readers, publishers, students and young professionals and other stakeholders of the city together on a common platform and create a compelling space for engaging and thought-provoking discussions on literature and life.
The second edition is from September 27 to September 29 that the Crowne Plaza at Velankani Park in Electronics City. Building on the successful 2012 debut edition, this year BLF will feature close to 125 authors and speakers, including several distinguished literary names like Gulzar, Ramachandra Guha, William Dalrymple, UR Ananthamurthy, Rajmohan Gandhi, Chandrashekhara Kambara, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra,Farhan Akhtar, David Davidar, Wendell Rodricks, Prasoon Joshi, Sri Sri Ravi shankar,Shashi Deshpande, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Nissar Ahmed, Madhu Kishwar, HS Venkatesh Murthy, Prasad Bidapa, Ashokamitran, K Satchidanandan, Nilanjana Roy, Kishwar Desai, Anita Nair, Ian Jack, Shobhaa De, Karthika VK, KapishMehra, and several others.
This year BLF will witness authors engaging the audiences with diverse themes. Highlights include commemorating 100 years of Indian cinema with a discussion on the adaptation of biographies to bio-pics featuring one of India's most critically acclaimed actors Farhan Akhtar, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and lyricist-writer Prasoon Joshi, whose 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' was a stellar success in 2013; discussions on cinema writing featuring veterans in the field like Baradwaj Rangan, Sidharth Bhatia, Sharmishta Gooptu, MK Raghavendra, Kishwar Desai, Bhawana Somaaya, and others. Poet Gulzar who wowed audiences at BLF 2012, and loved being there himself, will participate in 2013 too in a discussion on film lyrics with Prasoon Joshi. Two of his books 'Hindi for Heart' and 'I swallowed the moon' would be launched at the Festival.
For this edition BLF is collaborating with the Goethe-Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore to feature Germany as a focus country. Authors from Germany, including the celebrated slam poet Bas Botcher, Tilman Rammstedt, Chirstopher Kloebel, Saskya Jain and Abbas Khider will be participating, as will be Ian Jack of Granta and Mofussil Junction fame, and Aurélia Lassaque the French/Occitan poet. BLF 2013 also throws the spotlight on South Asian Writing in association with HIMAL, featuring authors from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka: Babar Ayaz, Mira Hashmi, Kanak Mani Dixit, Farah Ghuznavi and Ashok Ferry.
This second edition of the Fesival also has sessions planned on Kannada literature featuring stalwarts like Chandrashekhara Kambara, UR Ananthamurthy, HS Venkatesh Murthy, Nissar Ahmed, Venkatachala Shastry, Narahalli Balasubrahmanya, Viveka Rai, KS Bhagwan, Jayant Kaikini, Mamta Sagar, Giraddi Govindaraju, CN Ramachandran, MM Kalburgi, Padekal Vishnu Bhatt and several others speaking on a host of issues relevant to the language. Another unique and interesting element of BLF is the emphasis on oral literary languages of Karnataka including Beary, Tulu, Kodava and Konkani, as also a special panel on the village of Mathoor and its success with making Sanskrit all pervasive there.
Bangalore Literature Festival 2013 is also supported by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, in helping bring together many stalwarts and upcoming Indian language authors, some of them for the first time to Bangalore. Names include NabaneetaDevSen (Bengali), Ashokamitran (Tamil), Ashok Vajpeyi (Hindi), Govind Mishra (Hindi), K Satchidanandan (Malayalam), Vempalli Gangadhara (Telugu), Farooq Shaheen (Kashmiri), Dharmakirti Sumant (Marathi), Arindam Borkataki (Assamese) and others.
True to the Festival's moorings, several city authors are supporting the event and participating in the Festival. Leading names include Shashi Deshpande, Usha KR, Anita Nair, Gita Aravamudan, Varun Agarwal, Lavanya Sankaran, Nandita Bose,Swar Thounaojam, Jahnavi Barua, Athena Kashyap, Nilanjan Choudhury, Minal Hajratwala and others.
Other key attractions that audiences can look forward to at BLF in 2013 include a session on Spirituality and Writing by renowned Guru, Sri Sri Ravishankar; interesting presentations and lectures by eminent historians Ramachandra Guha and William Dalrymple; nuances of fashion writing with Wendell Rodricks and much more.
This year's edition of BLF also promises to be bigger and better for children and young adults too. In association with Pratham Books, Bookalore and Amar Chitra Katha, several children's sessions and activity corners have been organized at the 'Makkala Koota' tent at the event venue.
The Festival opens at 10 am on the three days with sessions going on through the day across three tents at the charming and picturesque lawns of Crowne Plaza @ Velankani Park, Electronics City. Other interesting sidelights include an evening Carnatic violin performance by the Mysore Brothers - Dr Manjunath and ShriNagaraj; the famous Veeragase dance folk form of Karnataka, a Hindustani Flute recital by Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia, Kabir Poetry recitals by Shabnam Virmani and Vipul Rikhi, performance poetry sessions; Slam poetry workshops; a Hyde Park style Speakers' Corner, short film screenings, stand-up comedy, book-nooks for literature lovers, a Festival bookshop by Oxford Bookstore along with several Kannada and Indian language book stalls to browse and buy books; book launches and author signing sessions; a unique spatial setup to explore and inhabit, film poster and memorabilia exhibitions, food and beverage outlets with street food, local and international cuisine - all making for a unique literary and cultural extravaganza and a true celebration of 'Literature in the Park'.
Entry is free and open to all via registration on the website Write your review and win prizes or via Facebook/Twitter. Write your review and win prizes and Write your review and win prizes. Pre-registration is highly recommended. Full list of events, schedule, participating author bios and other information is also available on the website. True to its Bangalore roots, BLF will also take advantage of technology and all sessions will be streamed live through partnerships with AuthorTV and Radiowalla.
Speaking about the Festival author/historian and one of the Founder Directors Vikram Sampath says: "Bangalore truly lives up to its cosmopolitan status and we have strived to reflect this in our programming of the Festival too. This year the focus is on being experimental yet inclusive with more languages, a blend of serious and light writing, intense &diverse themes coupled with celebrity attendance and general interest panels. We believe we've put together something for everyone and look forward to high levels of participation from namma Bengaluru,"
In its attempt to put Bangalore on the international literary map and create a new locus of literature in the country, the Bangalore Literature Festival steps into its second ambitious outing. Be there in large numbers and soak into the literary and cultural extravaganza!
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