Bangalore Literature Festival wears a mask

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In these times of fledgling hope – generated by the word ‘vaccine’ – perhaps it is natural to dream that life may just go back to where we left it in March. Every city, reeling under the utter overhaul of interactions, has been walking a new tightrope in recent times – that of the masses thronging the malls with masks around the neck and rising COVID casualties. How does one remain safe and yet social, stay alive and feel alive? If the virus won’t skip town, can we grab our land back?

So here comes the Bangalore Literature Festival to pause you mid-step. The festival this year is both online and offline, giving you the choice to be or not to be there. Most authors and audience will be there in person, but for those who want to opt for the cautious side, there is always their couch at home and zoom.

The ‘when’ of this festival overrides the why and how. The city’s slide into cultural silence in its intersections and the realisation that the world won’t change to fit around us brought us back to our planning desk: how to make this happen with all the new realities in place. For the festival team – Ravichandar, Srikrishna Ramamoorthy, Subodh Sankar, Lakshmi Subodh, Shrabonti Bagchi, Sadhana Rao – it seemed an apt moment to sit up. Not just the venue, internal arrangements had to be scrutinised, being safe as vital as being meaningful. The content must still surprise, as always; the drama cannot be the festival itself.

Of course, the festival programme has to address current realities. A session called ‘The Masked Intruder: Pandemic and You’, will look at health, both mental and physical, in the current aftermath, and a session on permanent addresses will examine the notion of home in today's climate.

Writers Alexander McCall Smith, Jeffrey Archer, Moni Mohsin, Declan Walsh will join in from around the world, while Milind Soman, Sudha Murty, Rohini Nilekani and Chetan Bhagat will log in from within the country. City-based writers like Anuja Chauhan, Usha KR, Vasudhendra, Zac O’Yeah, Madhavi S Mahadevan, Amandeep Sandhu, Milan Vohra, Andaleeb Wajid, Aruna Nambiar will rub shoulders with poets Mani Rao, Mamta Sagar, Prathibha Nandakumar, Nandita Bose, etc. at the venue.

Experts in various fields, like Anna Chandy, Bruce Guthrie, Neena Gopal, Niret Alva, MK Raghavendra, Vidyashankar N, Priya Ramani, Samar Halarnkar, Chandan Gowda, Lynne Fernandez, Tim Brinkman and Varun Gupta will be in the room or on zoom.

Since the festival is up in both offline and online viewership formats, it actually embraces all audiences everywhere. With safety protocols in place – event venues are ventilated spaces and will be filled to only 50 percent of the designated capacity – and sanitation breaks between sessions, the Bangalore International Centre hopes to see a hardcore breed of book lovers this weekend.

Never before have we missed the open warmth of literature more. The festival this year, coming to you in person, is a small step towards reclaiming life as we knew it. Walk in or log on.

Register at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeIUshc29rV4cPBe5B54rQ-lGgDYGDD0kFvIPevova78c-7Lg/viewform