Bangalore Literature Festival wears a mask

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.