Hoshiarpur all set to dot the lit fest map

Hoshiarpur is all set to be on the literature festival map with its first one-day Writers’ Festival to be held in the picturesque rural landscape at the Citrus County on November 23. The event is being hosted by Hoshiarpur Literary Society, which has been active in organising meets with writers for over a year.

Hoshiarpur has had a long tradition of institutes of higher learning and many prominent writers of Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi have come from this city, but the Literary Society has also turned its attention to contemporary writing in English. Society president Sanna K Gupta told journalists here on Friday, “We started in a small way pooling money to register the society and bringing cakes and bakes from our homes for events”.

Author Khushwant Singh, the moving spirit behind the endeavour, adds: “It got going with sharing obituaries, if you please, with journalist Rahul Bedi talking about his book ‘The Last Word’, an anthology of 100 obituaries written by him over long years. The event was held in a dhaba and was a great hit”.

Interaction with Sheela Reddy, author of ‘Mr and Mr Jinnah: The Marriage that Shook India’ and a creative writing workshop by author Neel Kamal Puri were among the other events. Sessions with writers like William Dalrymple, Vir Sanghvi and Daman Singh attracted large audience.

Prominent writers, filmmakers and actors are featuring in this one-day festival.

A session to look forward to is an interaction with well-known writer Upmanyu Chatterjee of the ‘English August’ fame. Editor-publisher Ravi Singh will discuss his new book ‘The Assassins of Indira Gandhi and other short stories’. Literary historian Rakhshanda Jalil will talk about her acclaimed book of essays ‘But you don’t look like a Muslim’. The grand finale will be a session of Punjabi poetry with celebrated poet Surjit Patar titled ‘Punjab through a poet’s eye’.

Sanna says that there will be a session on ‘The Future of Entertainment in the World of Web’, with actor Ranvir Shorey and former Viacom COO Raj Nayak. Versatile actor Shorey made his presence felt in the latest blockbuster web series, ‘Sacred Games’. There will also be a session on the future of Punjabi Cinema. The participants are actors Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi and Navneet Dhillon, director Anurag Singh and writer Jatinder Mauhr.

The curtain raiser for the Writers’ Festival was presided over by Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh earlier this month where he launched the Punjabi translation of his biography, ‘The People’s Maharaja’.