PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, March 5: Ranchi – the land of forest; the city of waterfalls; is all ready to embrace the literary festival breaking the virtual barrier at the Tata Steel Jharkhand Literary Meet.
The capital is all set to celebrate the meet after normalcy since February 2020 when it witnessed the last event.
The literary meet will be organised at the Audrey House, on March 5 and 6 (Saturday and Sunday).
India’s most significant biographers in recent times and a host of poets, novelists and men and women from the arts will converge at the Tata Steel Jharkhand Literary Meet.
The festival will begin with Jharkhand’s revered poet Mahadev Toppo inaugurating the festival alongside popular novelist and columnist Gurcharan Das.
Thereafter, a variety of programmes is lined up, featuring popular stand-up Abhijit Ganguly, the launch of Kunal Basu’s new novel, a session on cricket and cricket writing with former cricketer Kirti Azad and veteran journalist Pradeep Magazine, and eminent biographer/Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh’s book on Buddhism’s journey across the world through a poem.
Ramesh’s new publication is a rare biography of a literary work, Edwin Arnold’s ‘The Light of Asia,’ the epic poem that made the public in America and Europe learn about Buddhism.
The evening culminates with Shaam-e-Sufiyana, a performance by Sonam Kalra.
Sunday, March 6 will feature the biographers of superstars Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee in conversation with well-known lyricist and writer Chandril Bhattacharya. Before that, popular author Satya Vyas will speak on the evolutions and changes in Hindi in the era of smartphones.
The second half of Sunday will feature a session on how Hindi cinema villains have changed from the 1950s to the present, a tribute to Satyajit Ray on his centenary featuring two of his heroes Mohan Agashe and Barun Chanda in conversation with award-winning filmmaker Suman Ghosh.
The literary programme will conclude with the launch of Patthalgarhi by Anuj Lugun and the festival finale is a dance performance by acclaimed Bharatnatyam exponent and Padma Bhushan awardee Mallika Sarabhai.
She will be giving a rare performance alongside her son Revanta Sarabhai.
Tata Steel’s Vice-President Corporate Services, Mr Chanakya Chaudhary said, “We are delighted to resume our literary journey after such challenging times. Tata Steel is excited to return to Ranchi with the 4th edition of the Jharkhand Literary Meet. The lineup is a sparkling one and ranges from pure literature to popular books and from classical arts to stand-up. There is a flavour of local tastes as well as a reflection of the city’s curiosity about what’s happening in the literary world.”
Festival director Malavika Banerjee said, “One of the unique features of our literature festival in Ranchi is that we can programme in many languages. There is Hindi and English, but alongside these, there is Santhali, Nagpuri, Khalifa, Bengali and a bit of Urdu as well. It is to Ranchi’s credit that we can celebrate all these languages on one platform.”
