Hyderabad: “How do you do that?” a young girl asks the man weaving a Pochampalli sari on the loom in the central courtyard at the Hyderabad Literary Festival. Then, she watches entranced as the master weaver keeps the shuttle moving with a delicate touch at the end of each cycle and a pattern begins to emerge. Others join in. In another stall, a Kalamkari artist explains how the various substances like leaves, tamarind twigs, seeds, flowers and alum (hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate) are transformed into various colours while another artist applies the colours with a quill on the off-white cloth.
These were just two of the offerings at the LitFest as eager-beaver students kept trooping in and out of the Hyderabad Public School venue soaking in the mood that ranged from the fun at one end of the school at Youngistan Nukkad to the serious discussions about nation, identity, literature, movies and art. The college students at the Youngistan Nukkad switched between teaching guitar riffs to school children to entertaining them with beatbox rhythm to mime and mimicry.
Serious tasks
But it was not all fun. “We are giving the children papers taken from a novel. The students have to mark out words, create patterns and colour them to create works of art. It shows how they think,” informed Akshay Verma of Jxtapose, while conducting a workshop for school children along with his colleagues.
The central space with the backdrop of the school fountain was taken over by Aishwarya Manivannan and her troupe who showed a few tricks of Silambam, the age-old martial art form from Tamil Nadu that looked like a ballet when the stick swingers swung in air. “Nobody can come near you if you know this,” said Aishwarya confidently to young girls who chatted her up after she showed them a bit of stick swinging with her troupe members from Power Pandian Aasan Silambam Team.
One of the surprises at the LitFest has been the absence of announcements about switching off cellphones. There was no need. And that perhaps is one of indices of its success of the LitFest.
