Short story festival to celebrate Ugadi

On the occasion of Ugadi, Ranga Shankara is organising ‘Ranga Yugadi’ next weekend.

The one-day celebration titled ‘Katha Kaala’ is a tribute to Kannada literature.

“We’ve been celebrating Ugadi at Ranga Shankara for the past 14 years. We use the festival to celebrate literature and everything that comes along with it. Over the years, we’ve themed the event around popular literary personalities, playwrights, and Kannada poets and poetry. This time the focus is on Kannada short stories,” says S Surendranath, trustee.

This year, the event will feature three Kannada plays based on popular short stories — ‘Chandravadanaa’, ‘No Presents Please’ and ‘Saraswathiya Facebook Prasanga’.

‘Chandravadanaa’,based on Masti Venkatesha Iyengar’s story and directed by Vinay Shastry, is set in the early 1900s and revolves around the lives of actors of that generation. ‘No Presents Please’ is based on a short story by Jayant Kaikini and is directed by N Mangala. It follows the story of two orphans set to get married in Mumbai. ‘Saraswathiya Facebook Prasanga’, written by Sunanda Kadame and directed by Chitra Venkataraju, narrates the tale of a middle class woman who uses Facebook to break out of the shackles of her family.

Ranga Shankara is also organising two story reading sessions. In the afternoon, Krishnamoorthy Hanuru and Bertie Olivera will read folk stories — ‘Shravana Doreya Kathe’ and ‘Janapada Mahabharata’. “In the evening, at 5 pm, about 19 leading Kannada story writers will come together to read one short story,” he shares. S Diwakar, T N Seetharam, Jayashree Kasaravalli, and Shridevi Kalasad will participate in this session.

‘Ranga Yugadi’, April 7, Ranga Shankara, J P Nagar. For details, visit @rangashankara on Instagram.