The closing of the Book Brahma Literature Festival 2024 saw exuberant faces of speakers and listeners alike expressing joy at the first-of-its-kind South Indian literature festival celebrating the rich diversity the region has to offer.
Early visitors were serenaded by a Hindustani vocal performance by Pandit M Venkatesh Kumar, accompanied by Satish Kolli on the harmonium and Keshav Joshi on the tabla.
Before they could catch a breath, actor Prakash Raj and his team performed poetry in a piece called ‘Diverse Languages Same Feeling’ featuring poems from Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu.
In a later session, S N Sridhar, author and academic, explained that since Karnataka presents to people an amalgamation of different languages and cultures, it is a microcosm of Indian diversity in itself. He noted that the government must constitute a team of experts to survey multilingualism in India, more so in Karnataka, in a long-term project.
“This attitude of imposing a language on everyone did not exist in the past. There was always democracy, which allowed this pluralism to flourish in Karnataka. Sari (right) Kannada will not go very far; there is no academy of the “right” Kannada in the first place,” he said.
Senior journalist, author, and storyteller Raghunatha Cha Ha asked panelists if literature was inevitable for cinema, to which Girish Kasaravalli, renowned director, cited French-Swiss film director Jean Luc-Goddard to emphasis his point that while literature used in the traditional sense is not required for cinema, literariness is required to convey a story.
A session on novels, prolific writer Benyamin noted that while novel writing is not the only form of writing, it allows one the freedom to wear another’s shoes. Additionally, one would not be a writer if they were truly happy and satisfied in society. Pain, he believes, is the reason writers become who they are. His advice to writers was to continue writing without any fear of upsetting powers that be.
Published 12 August 2024, 03:14 IST