The Hindu Lit for Life 2015 – Day 1 (Highlights)

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Post-A-Letter
Visitors can post a letter to their favorite authors attending this year’s festival!

The Hindu Lit for Life is an annual literary festival organized by The Hindu (newspaper) in Chennai. They invite authors and notable literary/popular personalities from all over the world and organize book/literature-related speeches, readings, discussion sessions, author signings, etc. This year, The Hindu Lit for Life 2015 event is being held at Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall at Harrington Road, Chetpet. In this post, I present some highlights from the Day 1 of this event.

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Ram-Nayantara-Seghal
Ram from The Hindu inaugurated the event, while the Chief Guest Nayantara Sahgal conversed with her biographer Ritu Menon during a session.

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Eleanor-Catton-Parvathi-Nayar
Eleanor Catton, the author from New Zealand, and the youngest Booker Prize winner at 28, in conversation with Parvathy Nair.
 

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Jonathan-Gil-Harris
Jonathan Gil Harris, also from New Zealand, talking about Firangis who became Indian during the Mughal times and later on.
 

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-RajdeepSardesai-SanjayaBaru-VinodRai
Rajdeep Sardesai, Meghnad Desai, Sanjaya Baru and Vinod Rai discussing on Good Governance in India.
 

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Jung-Chang
Jung Chang on The Birth of Modern China, history of 19th Century Chinese ruler – Empress Dowager Cixi.
 

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Nirupama-Samanth-Subramanian-Salil-Tripathi
Nirupama Subramanian, Salil Tripathi and Samanth Subramanian discussing on India’s relationship with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
 

The-Hindu-Lit-For-Life-2015-Poetree
Poetree – visitors can pen a verse or haiku and hang it on the tree!

There were a few more sessions that I was unable to attend – Feminine Form: Site of Violence about the feminist movement in India, and hurdles faced to bring equality; Author Chetan Bhagat in conversation with Karthik Kumar, etc. Sessions are being held in two pavilions – The main pavilion and The Hindu pavilion  They are also conducting a few (writing/book-related) workshops during this event.

If you love books/literature, and you are in Chennai from Jan. 16 – 18, attending this event is a must. Entry is free for visitors but you may have to register in the lfl website. (Click on this link to get the schedule of events for all three days.)

Destination Infinity

Photo credit: By Destination8infinity (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

24 thoughts on “The Hindu Lit for Life 2015 – Day 1 (Highlights)

  1. Locomente

    Lucky you! Lit fests are fun…
    Have a great time there..
    And thanks for sharing 🙂

    1. Rajesh K

      Yes, the discussions were too good.

      Destination Infinity

  2. KP

    Thank you for the information about Hindu Lit.If one is inclined it would be fun listening to the discussions.

    1. Rajesh K

      The discussions are both fun and enlightening.

      Destination Infinity

  3. Neelesh

    Thanks DI. Missed it.

    1. Rajesh K

      No problem, I am sure there will be one near your place soon.

      Destination Infinity

  4. Manogna

    Lit fest?
    Never attended it.
    Loved the idea of letters to the author and the Poetree!
    I hope you had fun.
    😀
    Did they talk about how to write a successful book?
    😉

    1. Rajesh K

      A few authors did talk a bit, but it was more about their books, etc. There were discussion on varied topics ranging from movies to governance!

      Destination Infinity

  5. Sandhya Kumar

    I can see you enjoyed this lit fest. I went to one lecture by the historian/journalist, Romila Thapar, at Kalkshetra, sometimes last month. It was interesting, but I am not good at listening, I think. I just enjoyed there. I couldn’t write anything about it later.

    Enjoy these meets and let us enjoy reading via your posts!

    1. Rajesh K

      I think sometimes we should go to enjoy, and not think about writing. The second day, I did just that.

      Destination Infinity

  6. Rachna Chhabria

    Lit fests are fun. I attended 2 Bangalore Lit fests, but sadly, I had to give last year’s a miss. Love the idea of Letters to your Favourite Authors 🙂

    1. Rajesh K

      I hope my letter to Chetan Bhagat will reach him! 🙂

      Destination Infinity

  7. Nandhini

    I missed to be in Chennai for this event this year though I’ve marked it in my calendar. Posting letters to authors seems an interesting activity. But I wonder how they came to choose those handful of authors.

    1. Rajesh K

      No problem, there is always the next time. These authors are the ones who participated in the event, I guess.

      Destination Infinity

  8. Bikram

    when will we see DI sitting on one of those stages .. one day soon I wish and hope 🙂

    and I hope that when i write a letter to you , you reply back tooo

    Bikram’s

    1. Rajesh K

      I can reply back to your letter even now 🙂

      Destination Infinity

  9. Ramakant

    I wish something similar would happen in Bangalore. Lucking, the Book Club at our office is quite active. We had a book reading by Aroon Raman sometime back.

    1. Rajesh K

      I think there is a lit fest in Bangalore. There is a lit fest in almost every city nowadays!

      Destination Infinity

      1. Ramakant

        Will have to check it out.

        1. Rajesh K

          I think the Bangalore Lit Fest is in October.

  10. Jeevan

    When i come across this event’s articles on metro-plus, i anticipated you to be attending and you proved am not wrong. I could see many youngsters cheering the event in the metro-plus. Hope you find it interesting too.

    Love those colorful letter boxes

    1. Rajesh K

      Yes it was good. The letter boxes were attractive and a good idea! Not sure how many letters were actually delivered.

      Destination Infinity

  11. Lady Lilith

    That looks like such a fun great idea. I love the mail boxes to your favorite authors.

    1. Rajesh K

      Yes, those mail boxes were certainly a big attraction there.

      Destination Infinity

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