5th Edition of Kalinga Lit Fest From June 8 To Focus On Building A Just Society

5th Edition of Kalinga Lit Fest From June 8 To Focus On Building A Just Society

Bhubaneswar, June 1:  The city’s biggest literary fete, Kalinga Literary Festival, is set to begin and the numbers say a lot about the intellectual heft that will congregate at one place. Scheduled to commence from June 8, the fifth edition of the three-day festival will witness around 250 writers, poets, artists and performers deliberating on several issues ranging from youth to inclusion, transgender to equality, women to equity, and governance to justice.

The festival will have pleasant treats for the audience as eminent journalists and literary personalities such as Vinod Dua, Rajdeep Sardesai, Amish Tripathy, Rahat Indori, Nirupama Rao, Shobha De, Vijay Lakshmi Chhabra, Alka Saraogi, Chandrahas Chaudhary, Geetanjali Shree, KC Shankar, Leela Samson and Harish Bhimani will speak on life and society while providing a future perspective on the topics of discussion. Richard Mohapatra, Paramita Satapathy, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Pratibha Ray, Vineet Kumar, Saira Shah Halim, Shinie Antony and Shashwita Sharma will also be the some of the important speakers at the fest.

Meanwhile, more than 100 poets will be reading and reciting their poems during the Mystic Kalinga Poetry Sessions. Besides, boxer Gaurav Solanki, cricketer Yunus Khan, former Indian cricketer Ajay Sharma will also participate in a dedicated session during the festival.

Transgender voices will be seen highlighted in this edition for the first time with a special session on literature focusing on transgenders. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, Rudrani Chetrri and Kalki Subramaniam are some of the prominent transgender rights activists who will be attending the session.

Another dedicated platform, Kalinga Art Festival, will provide a unique platform for 30 artists from Odisha and outside the state to showcase their talent and connect their art to the central theme of the festival.

Informing about the event, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Founder – Director of KLF said, “This would be the largest literary event in the city before the start of the monsoon. It would be a complete package of discussion, debate related to literature, art, culture, politics, sports, social issues, among others. The central theme focuses on how to build a ‘Just Society’ and in doing this, the festival will explore how equality, equity and humanity have been presented, portrayed and picturised in our contemporary forms of literature and art. Several sessions on different themes will connect to the central theme of ‘Building a Just Society’.”

“To make the festival more interesting we have included a special session named ‘Mushaira Evenings’ by Rahat Indori and his team. For the first time, there will be a session devoted to the transgender community. This session will discuss the recent socio-economic and policy developments regarding the transgender community based on their experience of exclusion, discrimination and community engagement,” he added.

According to the itinerary shared by Parida, the festival will incorporate important sessions focused on the issues of youth, indigenous communities, mythology, history, governance, foreign relations, women, transgender, climate change, cinema, media and the radio. There will be several ‘One to One’ sessions with leading experts. Talking of exclusive additions, he said, “There will be story telling sessions that promise to add new flavour to the literary spirit of the festival.”

Artists, performers and writers from Philippines will join to add a vibrant zest of Southeast Asian culture to the function. A Filipino troupe of performers had joined during last year’s Mystic Kalinga as well.

Kalinga Literary Awards

This year, Amish Tripathi, Nirupama Rao and Padmaj Pal will be conferred with the prestigious Kalinga Literary Awards. While Kalinga Literary Award will be conferred to Padmaj Pal, Kalinga International Literary Award will be given to Amish Tripathi, whereas, Nirupama Rao, Indian Foreign Service officer from the Batch of 1973 who served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, will be honoured with Kalinga Karubaki Award.

That apart, 30 people have been selected for the Kalinga Literary Youth Award based on their excellent work at the district and regional levels. In its second year, these youth awards have created a movement in Odisha to recognise brilliant work at the grassroots level and encourage the next generation to engage in literary pursuits.