A three-day litfest at TISS hopes to encourage debate and dialogue across a variety of subjects including environment, social media and mythology
Anushka Ravishankar, Karishma Attari
An earlier workshop by Terribly Tiny Tales
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The celebrated literary festivals of Mumbai have wrapped up their year-end editions, but the words keep flowing through the city. The TISS Literature Festival, which began last year as a closed gathering and platform for literature enthusiasts at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, is now a three-day affair with panel discussions, storytelling, music performances, workshops and poetry slams.
Anushka Ravishankar
Kicking off the fest is a pre-event talk on Changing Literary Landscape In Technological Era by Kaartikeya Bajpai, founder and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine, The Bombay Review. "For our seven panel discussions, we have tried to keep a mix of established as well as emerging writers," informs Sagar Kumar Patra, literary secretary of the institute's student union. While poet and fabulist Suniti Namjoshi is part of the panel discussing whether mythology can illuminate science, authors Meghna Pant and Karishma Attari will talk about dissociating from patriarchy while writing. Ravi Chellam, veteran environmentalist and Greenpeace India's executive director will discuss eco criticism. Other panelists include screenplay writer and art critic, Shama Zaidi, children's literature author Anushka Ravishankar, and journalist Urmilesh among others.
Karishma Attari
A host of interesting workshops are part of the line-up. "Open Sky Slam from Bengaluru, a platform for artistes in the field of poetry, music, dance, theatre, magic and art, is coming down. We also have a workshop where students will learn to write stories within 140 characters," shares Patra. "The attention span of a typical youngster is shrinking. We wanted to keep stories alive given the transition," says Chintan Ruparel, co-founder of Terribly Tiny Tales, a platform that brings together writers to create very short stories, conductors of the workshop.