Sharing: LITOMANIA 2014 DAY 2

L-R: Christopher Doyle, Shubha Vilas Das, Meghna Pant, Anand Neelakantan & Shatrujeet Nath

On the second day, I decided to go to Litomania only in the afternoon. Luckily for me, I remembered to take my camera. I had expected the shows to run late like the earlier day. But they were only late by a few minutes. I went to Does mythology need a twist? By Christopher Doyle, Shubha Vilas Das, Shatrujeet Nath and Anand Neelakantan. The moderator was Meghna Pant. I have to mention here that she was excellent, asking the right questions and being an intelligent listener. 

I am familiar with Anand Neelakantan’s writing as I am reading his book Ajaya in which Duryodhana is the protagonist. Author Anand Neelakantan is well known for his contrarian views as he takes the sides of the ‘supposed’ villains from mythology. His first book is Asura which tells the story from Ravana’s view point. 

After attending this programme, I am keen to read Christopher Doyle’s books too. Swami Shuba Vilas Das spoke really well and it was fascinating listening to him. 

Meghna Pant & Anand Neelakantan

The last part of the programme was just Anand Neelakantan and Meghna Pant as they spoke about the author’s latest book – The Rise of Kali – that continues with Duryodhanan’s story. The author explained why he felt the need to tell the story from what people considered the ‘villain’s’ view point. Amazing!

L-R: Vikram Sathaye, Parul Sharma, Sorabh Pant & Rishi Piparaiya

The next programme was Do happy people make great humour writers? I must say that this was the best one that I attended. I was sitting in the second row and laughed non-stop, almost falling out of my seat a few times, for the whole hour.  It was Sorabh Pant, Parul Sharma and Rishi Piparaiya – all authors – with Vikram Sathaye playing moderator. While Parul is quietly humorous, Rishi spoke very little. It was Sorabh who stole the show along with Vikram. Every time Sorabh opened his mouth, the audience were in splits. He was simply howlarious! And so was Vikram with his jokes on the cricket team. While making people laugh, Sorabh Pant also had many intelligent things to share – like how ‘chaos’ and ‘adrenaline rush’ make him what he is – a very successful stand-up comedian. It was the most awesome one-hour session. Loved it!

L-R: Shoma Narayanan, Leena Varghese, Sudeep Nagarkar & Sachin Garg

I crashed midway into Are Romance Novels just a Happy Bubble? Does reality often burst it? In conversation with Shoma Narayanan, Sudeep Nagarkar, Leena Varghese and Sachin Garg. The discussion was kind of tanda after that humour session. I liked a number of things I heard from Leena Varghese. Very mature stuff about how relationships depend on accepting the other for what he/she is. Very valid points indeed! What surprised me was the number of male romance authors that I came upon during the lit fest. After Ravinder Singh the earlier day, it was Sudeep Nagarkar and Sachin Garg on the second day. And believe me, they are all super successful. Sudeep has done his engineering, not enjoying it at all. It was only after he received the printed copy of his first book that his family got to know about his becoming a published author. The three-book old Sachin Garg also happens to own a publishing house. Impressive! 

I got out at the tail end of the programme as it was question time and I was getting quite late. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the 2-day Litomania lit fest organised by Think WhyNot. Kudos guys! 

Sharing: LITOMANIA 2014 DAY 1

Pic Courtesy: Litomania FB page

I was pretty excited when I saw the listing for Litomania in Mumbai Mirror. Having never attended a lit fest ever, I decided to go for this one as it was held quite close to home. I registered immediately online for it and chalked out the programmes I wanted to attend. Preeti Arora – we used to work together at Buzz18 – called to tell me about Litomania and we both decided to meet there.

The first day – October 11, 2014 – inauguration, etc., began late and all the shows were subsequently late.

Without meaning to, I attended the inauguration and after that came the programme – What is India reading? It was a discussion by Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian and Ravinder Singh. I have read Amish’s Shiva Trilogy; The Rozabal Line, Chanakya Chants & The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi; If God is a Banker & Devil in Pinstripes by Ravi Subramanian. I got to know that day that Ravinder Singh is a romance author and has written a few books that are very popular with the younger generation. Click Here to know more about this author.

Author Ravinder Singh Pic Courtesy: http://www.thenational.ae/

It was an interesting discussion on how Modern India is keener to read Indian authors who write about Indian characters unlike the older generation who grew up on Western authors. I must say it was a very interesting and absorbing group discussion with all the four authors participating in equal measures.

The next programme I attended was a group discussion on the Romance Genre and I was sure I would find a lot of useful inputs here. The participants were Author Madhuri Banerjee; Author Bhaavna Arora and Author-Publisher Amrita Chowdhury with moderator Rachel Lopez. Topic was Is India exploring the 50 shades?

Author Madhuri Banerjee Pic Courtesy: http://www.fuccha.in/

Only after sitting for some time I realised that this was only about writing explicit scenes in romances. I haven’t read the Fifty Shades series and that obviously was the reason for my gaffe. When the discussion got to the stage of writing about same sex relationship and relationship with animals (yep, you read right), Preeti and I had had enough and left the hall.

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor Pic Courtesy: http://zoinkmediablog.files.wordpress.com/

Preeti had an invite to Ravi Subramanian’s Masterclass on How to write a book and get it published. I checked at the reception if I could attend and as they had no objection, we both went to the hall allotted for the lecture immediately after lunch. Without meaning to we landed at Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s India’s obsession with gastronomy along with Pooja Dhingra and Shipra Khanna. I must say that Sanjeev Kapoor held the audience’s attention as he spoke about his career growth from learning to be a chef, his culinary show on Doordarshan to penning his first recipe book. Today, he has sold more than two and a half million copies of his books. Amazing!

Author Ravi Subramanian Pic Courtesy: http://iyatingupta.com/ 

Next was Ravi Subramanian’s class. He held the audience spell bound as he took us through the session first talking about how to write and then how to get your work published. I liked it when he said that a writer must write every day and should make time for it maybe by giving up on TV time or even sleep. It was sound advice and I have decided to follow it – to write every day. So far so good!

I went to meet the author and introduced myself, congratulating him on his awesome books. I was pretty thrilled when he recognised my name when I told him that I had sent him his book reviews on my blog. Ravi S did promise to help me with the print publishing of my books. Let’s see.

The last class I attended that day was on When writing mythology, does the writing change the writer? Participants were Amish Tripathi and Ashwin Sanghi while the moderator was Rachel Lopez. I had missed half the discussion as the earlier programme had got delayed. But I still found the discussion very interesting.

What a day!

More info on Day 2 in the next blog