The making of a literary treat

Puneites are waiting with bated breath for the city’s first ever Literary Fest, organised in association with dna this weekend, which will have over 100 authors participating in it.

However, to organise an event of such huge stature has certainly not been an easy task for city-based authors Sonja Chandrachud and Manjiri Prabhu, who have been working very hard over the last nine months.

“When we stumbled upon the idea of coming up with Pune’s first-ever literary festival, way back in January this year, we were quite surprised to realise that this city, which has such strong literary and cultural history, has never had a fest of its own before. Since then, we faced a lot of challenges like getting together sponsors and spreading the word across to build in the enthusiasm among people,” said Chandrachud, adding that the immediate response they got from Puneites, encouraged them to carry on, despite the roadblocks on the way.

Prabhu said that they wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without the support of the publishers, PIFL Advisory Committee that comprises author Shobhaa De, film producer Siddhartha Jain and Rahul Karad, executive director of MAEER’s MIT School of Business, who came forward to provide his college as the venue for the three-day event.

Sharing about MIT’s association with the literary fest, Karad said, “For a renowned college like MIT to host the first-ever literary fest is a matter of great pride. It is aimed at infusing the joy of reading, writing and soaking in the world of verse and words in every form in the city. Many students of our college are working to make this event a huge success.”

Apart from them, young professionals with an avid passion for literature, have volunteered in helping the duo with the entire behind-the-scenes work.

“We have volunteers handling the social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, the blog posts and the website. Since the beginning of the year, we have gone all out in promoting the event and these young boys and girls are volunteering in every way possible to make it a big event. There are some who are also going around the city putting up posters,” said Chandrachud, adding that Murudkar Jhendewale, the city’s old shop, is also contributing in a big way by giving out about 100 uparnas (satin stoles- 50 blue and 50 saffron) as a goodwill gesture towards the event.