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The show must go on
Updated On: 02 August, 2020 07:40 AM IST | Mumbai | Jane Borges
"Say literary festival directors and publishers, who despite being conflicted about making the transition online, feel quality conversations about books and writers must continue in a post-pandemic world"
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Audience seen during the inaugural day of Zee Jaipur Literature Festival, at Hotel Diggi Palace in Jaipur this year. Pic/ Getty images
A week from now, on August 9, the Bengaluru Poetry Festival will open its doors to lovers of verse, albeit in a "new metre and with a different composition". Shinie Antony, festival director, in a first, has dared to take the event online. This was not part of the plan, at least not until a few months ago.
Like every year, work for the festival, which is backed by Atta Galatta founders Lakshmi and Subodh Sankar, began in January with the collation of a wish-list. Usually, towards August "the pace intensifies and stress levels pleasantly rise, as names on the list are constantly reviewed, on unavailability largely, but also because delicious new names are suddenly thrown at us, and we want to fill the festival with shocking content," says Antony, in an email interview. The challenge this time, however, was of another kind. The pandemic and the subsequent lockdown rules, which stressed that social distancing was to be the order of the day, meant that the festival either be shelved, or have a new life, online.
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