A fulfilling experience, says litfest organiser

Vikram Sampath, the chief organiser of the Bangalore Literature Festival that concluded on Sunday shared with Deccan Herald the travails and fulfilment after “plugging a gap in the cultural calendar of the city.”

After the successful conclusion of the three-day festival without any hiccups, how has the experience been?
It took us almost an year organising this festival. We thought it was great labour we had put in. But these three days showed us how worthy it was. We are overwhelmed by the response that the city gave us. The bibliophiles of the City have re-confirmed the trust we had reposed in them.

List out some of the flaws that you have come across and would like to improvise on in future editions.

We aim to improvise on both form and content in the coming editions of the festival. This year we had featured 80 authors from across the country and the world.

From next year, we plan to feature a particular country every year. For example, if we feature France, we will have the happening French writers and provide them an opportunity to exchange ideas. From being platforms to just listen to your authors, such festivals can also act as agents that introduce you to new authors and literature.

The other important feature of the fest wasKannada. Yes, we wanted to bring the local and the English literature on the same platform, facilitate exchange of ideas and introduce Kannada literature to the IT-BT crowd of the City.

How was the response?

The response is good both from the Kannada cultural world and also from the bibliophiles of the City. But, some of the Kannada authors took a stand that they will not utter a single English word. This defeated in some parts the objective of these sessions – communication. It would have been nice if they had mixed a bit of English and Kannada and reached out to the audience.

There were also suggestions to bring in other South Indian languages at least.
Yes. We are thinking on those lines. We want to at first feature the other major South Indian languages like Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. Later on, we can feature the Hindi heartland languages. It is a project in the making.