Jaipur Literature Festival to feature Telugu writer Volga

With the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival just a week away, a special evening was hosted in Mumbai to mark the countdown to the world’s largest free literary gathering. The organisers of the Festival along with partners Avid Learning hosted a soiree dedicated to music and poetry in literature. After a welcome speech by Asad Lall, SVP, CEO Avid Learning, the Essar Group, the evening featured a special panel that explored music and poetry within the context of literature.

Aptly named ‘Blowing in the Wind: Voice Music and Lyric Poetry, it addressed the public spaces for literature and brings together the voice and the word. Following Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, this session looked at eminent poets and their interactions with popular music with the panel comprising poet lyricist Gulzar along with lyricist, poet and playback singer Swanand Kirkire.

To mark a grand finale to the event, singer and songwriter Geetu Hinduja entranced the audience in a power packed musical performance. Both Gulzar and SwanandKirkire are slated to attend the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2017 which runs from January 18 to January 23 at the Diggi Palace Hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

With around 30 languages represented from India and across the world, the Festival will feature authors writing in Indian regional languages including the popular Volga in Telugu, SL Bhyrappa and Vivek Shanbhag in Kannada, Kaajal Oza Vaidya in Gujarati, CP Deval and Hari Ram Meena in Rajasthani, Kanak Mani Dixit and Binod Chaudhary in Nepali, Dhruba Jyoti Borah in Assamese, Gulzar and Javed Akhtar in Urdu, Jatindra K Nayak in Oriya, NaseemShafaie and Neerja Mattoo in Kashmiri, Arunava Sinha and Radha Chakravarty in Bengali and Arshia Sattar, AND Haksar, and Roberto Calasso in Sanskrit. Writers in Hindi include Ajay Navaria, Anu Singh Choudhary, Manav Kaul, MrinalPande, Narendra Kohli and Yatindra Mishra.

Festival Speakers from Mumbai set to attend this year include one of India’s most popular film stars Rishi Kapoor, writer Ashwin Sanghi, writer and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar, writer, playwright, actor and director Manav Kaul, lyricist, poet and advertising professional Prasoon Joshi, director Sudhir Mishra; and director and screen writer Imtiaz Ali among others.