When the iconic Victoria Memorial becomes the venue for a meeting of minds, through days of glorious winter sunshine and moonlit evenings, the medium truly becomes the message. The five-day Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet which concluded on the 29th of January, saw 75 sessions with over 140 speakers on a wide ranging topics where authors and musicians, politicians and sportspeople, poets and activists, film makers and film stars, diplomats and media persons and a Booker Prize winner came from many parts of India and the rest of the world to debate, discuss, divulge and deconstruct before diverse audiences. Topics as varied as geopolitics, and history, sport, cinema, regional literature, thrillers and short stories, peppered with readings, recitations and performances.

For instance, Sunil Gavaskar at the Litfest was an unusual happening, but very relevant. Because he is a writer of several bestselling books, a regular columnist as well as a man about whom many books have been written. In conversation with him was well known author, journalist and broadcaster Kishore Bhimani who had been on most of his tours and followed his controversies and his successes in equal measure. And highly inspirational, touching too, was the appearance of para-Olympian silver medalist Deepa Malik on stage sharing her story.

Political figures like P. Chidambaram discussing the Color of Money made the audience hungry for his views on demonetization. Rajdeep Sardesai doing a brilliant job of interviewing the former Finance Minister elicited some gems – for instances – India has now joined the disreputable troika of N. Korea, Zimbabwe and Libya as the only other countries in the past 7 years to demonetize. The manner in which this shocking event occurred has caused the RBI governor to become “a pawn in the hands of the PM” and what is needed is the “end of political funding” through the establishment of “electoral trusts”.

Booker Prize winners Kiran Desai and Paul Beatty, in conversation with Arunava Sinha, provided an interesting discourse on the relationship of writing with change. The talk was rightly named ‘Write the Change’, and both renowned authors provided valuable insights regarding their perception of writing to transform the world. When asked how the dynamics of the political world in 2016 affected both writers, the responses received were varying. While Desai expressed displeasure upon being distracted from her work for she compulsively kept reading the news, being so engrossed that it kept her from finishing the novel she’s been working on for the past ten years, Beatty said that he wasn’t really thrown off track. Both writers expressed their indifference towards Trump upon being questioned on the subject.

When the iconic Victoria Memorial becomes the venue for a meeting of minds, through days of glorious winter sunshine and moonlit evenings, the medium truly becomes the message. The five-day Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet which concluded on the 29th of January, saw 75 sessions with over 1