Literature carnival to enrich Mahotsava repertoire

Lucknow: A peep into the conversations between Javed Akhtar and his uncle Majaz Lakhnavi, the personal life of actor-director Guru Dutt and an interactive session with the cast and crew of Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’ are some of the treats in store at Lucknow Literature Carnival 2014.
With an amalgamation of English, Urdu and Hindi authors, panelists and performers within its spectrum, the second edition of the literature carnival will be from November 28-30 at Sant Gadgeji Maharaj Auditorium of UP Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Lucknow Expressions society has joined hands with the UP Government to make the literature carnival an elaborate part of the Lucknow Mahotsava. Since the pre-carnival events will be launched from November 22, the festival set on the lines of the Jaipur Lit Fest will have Madhuri Dixit visiting Lucknow as UNICEF’s goodwill ambassador as part of the 25 years of child rights initiative by UNICEF. Following closely would be rejuvenation of the art of Baitbazi (a verbal game played by composing pieces of urdu poetry) on November 23 followed by launch of Naseeruddin Shah’s autobiography ‘And then one day: A memoir’ on November 25.
The 3-day literary carnival from November 28-30 will see convergence of more than 100 exemplary writers as also a stage will be provided to young writers with an out of the box approach towards writing, breaking stereotypes. The days will see meeting of great minds when personalities such as Shyam Benegal, Om Puri, Mark Tully, Tom Alter, Waseem Barelvi, Saeed Naqvi, Srinivasan Jain, Sharib Rudalvi, Muzaffar Ali and Toby Sinclair to name a few will share chairs talking about things close to their hearts while also interacting closely with the audience.
A line of tributes have also been planned featuring one for Begum Akhtar in her birth centenary year, Majaz Lakhnavi, Ali Sardar Jafri and the doyens of Hindi literature the trio of Amrit Lal Nagar, Yashpal, and Bhagwati Charan Verma, informed Jayant Krishna and Kanak R Chauhan, founder chairman and director of Lucknow Literature Carnival, respectively.
The literature carnival is an attempt to encourage literary, cultural, musical, social and intellectual activities in the path of rediscovering Lucknow’s cultural heritage as also to pave way for its cultural renaissance. It will also host an exhibit of rare photos of Lucknow, the original prints of painter Raja Ravi Verma’s creations and photographs by Lucknow Expressions’ member Ajaish Jaiswal.