Those who love books, literature, and great conversations eagerly await the annual Pune International Literary Festival. In its sixth year, the PILF will kick off on September 28. The three-day festival will be held at its familiar venue – Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA), Raj Bhavan Complex, Baner Road.
At a press conference held on September 15, Dr Manjiri Prabhu, novelist, TV producer, filmmaker and the festival director, along with Bharat Agarwal, director, Vishwakarma Publications and Dr RM Chitnis, dean, Faculty of Management (UG), and director of MIT-World Peace University International Collaborations, and other members of the organising committee of the festival, spoke about the theme and the vision of the festival, and also gave insights into the sessions and keynote speakers among other things.
While Vishwakarma Publications is the title partner for the festival, MIT-WPU is the associate partner for PILF. The festival, which started from the college premises of MIT, has grown over the course of time and has recently been recognised as the top 7th literary festival in India.
“It takes a lot of sweat, and hard work to put up a festival like this together. The aim of PILF is glorification of words in all forms and create a platform for authors and readers to build a stage for creative people. The idea is to promote the culture of knowledge-based reading and learned appreciation of various arts and craft,” says Prabhu.
This year, the festival will also celebrate 70 years of Indo-Italian friendship and so, H E Lorenzo Angeloni, the Italian ambassador to India, will inaugurate the festival as a special guest. To give the festival an international feel and connect, international authors and speakers from Dubai, USA and New Zealand like Fadi Zaghmout (gender activist), Julia Kostova (senior publishing executive) Paul Cleave (award-winning mystery author) and Paula Morris (award-winning author) will be a part of the panel discussions too.
Prabhu further adds that the focus of the festival is also on co-existence, harmony, and inclusiveness. “There will be sessions on dogs as family members and dogs as therapists. One of the sessions will be conducted by Manjeet Hirani who will discuss her new book on her pet,” adds Prabhu. This year’s author exhibition is on the English writer of children and adult classics, Charles Dickens. It will showcase the legendary author’s life and works and has been curated by Dr Purnima and Sonia Prabhu.
The line up
There will be around 170 speakers and more than 70 sessions on various topics. When asked about this year’s theme on family, Prabhu says that family support is essential for every human being. “Behind every successful man or woman is his or her family. We believe that you can have the confidence to aim for the moon, if your family is on your side and that is why this year our social theme is ‘Family: The Core of Society.’ Family also includes pets and trees. Accordingly, we also have sessions with Vikas Amte and his family in a session titled Anandwanacha Vikas: A Family Legacy and Sanjay Khan and family, in a session titled Family Film Legacies — The Khans,” added Prabhu.
Agarwal, while talking about Vishwakarma Publications’ association with PILF for four consecutive years, says, “PILF has not only matched Pune city’s reputation as the cultural hub of India but it is also giving it a uniquely different dimension by bringing a diverse array of creative personalities to the city and attracting large audiences to interact with them.”
Some of the speakers who will be present at the upcoming festival include Shobhaa De, Honey Irani, Surender Mohan Pathak, Sanjay Khan, Zarine Khan, Zayed Khan, Anita Nair, Tehsin Poonawala, Gurcharan Das, Tuhin Sinha, Kunal Vijaykar etc.
Chitnis who was present at the event on behalf of Dr Vishwanath Karad, founder and director general, MIT, says that the festival is encouraging more and more youngsters to read books.
When asked how students of MIT, who have been among the organisers of the festival for many years, benefit from this participation, Chitnis says, “Students begin to inculcate the values and ideas shared during the sessions held during the festival. When they heard Rujuta Diwekar speak on the importance of eating healthy and the ill-effects of eating junk, they actually started being mindful of what they eat. Similarly, when they will hear people speak about loving and caring for street dogs, they will become more compassionate about animals. Apart from this, they definitely learn a lot about managing people and crowd through the fest.”
ST READER SERVICE
The sixth edition of Pune International Literary Festival will take place between September 28 and 30 at Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development
Administration (YASHADA), Rajbhavan Complex, Baner Road. Registrations will begin on its website (www.pilf.in). Entry to the festival is free
