13th edition of Hyderabad Literary Festival concludes
Hyderabad: The three-day Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) concluded on Sunday, which had something for everyone in this multi-disciplinary event. With over 13 various sessions related to poetry, films, stage talks, workshops, storytelling, the 13th edition proved to be a festival of ideas, conversations with works of favourite authors and space for city residents for community engagement.
Describing about the festival while speaking to the Hans India, T Vijay Kumar, one of the directors of the festival said, "We were apprehensive about the festival as the visitors may have lost interest, however, it is gratifying to see that all the events witnessed the gathering in large numbers". The last day of the festival attracted huge crowd from the city. In Dr Reddy's Pavillion, the venue for the literary sessions of the festival, there were sessions on works of Manreet Sodhi Someshwar on 'Hyderabad: Book 2 of the Partition Trilogy', which narrated the history of the city in its turbulent and complex years of 1947 and 1948. The festival also hosted a session on CYIENT, founder BVR Mohan Reddy on his work, 'Engineered in India: From Dreams to Billion Dollar', in conversation with Jayesh Ranjan, principal secretary (industries and IT). Reddy stated that India's demographic dividend is its huge asset, and there is a need to focus on the start-up eco system in the country.
As part of 'Kaavya Dhaara', there were multiple poetry reading sessions by various poets such as Jhilam Chattraj, K Srilata, Manya Cherabuddi, Tamaara Nambiar, and others. The festival witnessed the launch of 'Hum Aiseich Bolte', (This is just how we speak) by Usha Akella, an anthology of 35 poets celebrating Hyderabad, traced from Sarojini Naidu to well known Hyderabad based poets namely Hoshang Merchant, Meena Alexander, Srinivas Rayaprol, Shiv Kumar Sharma, and others. The book was launched in the presence of Jayesh Ranjan.
The workshops and storytelling sessions for children continued to engage them in various activities. In the event of Stage Talks, a session on 'Why Cook?', by Archana Pidathala, engaged the participants on her 11,500 km journey across India, where she met several women and explored why they cook and how cooking and food anchor them in their life journeys was discussed.
Also, the Moving Images talkies screened a film Nachom-i-Kumpasar ( Let's Dance To The Rhythm) directed by Bardoy Barretto, is a Konkani musical drama based on the lives of two jazz musicians, Chris Perry and Lorna, where the story is told through 20 popular Konkani songs from the 1960s and 70s. The festival culminated by paying tribute to Ajay Gandhi, one of the founding directors of the festival, who passed away in 2021.