Kannada lit fest: Visitors navigating sprawling event face inconveniences

Mandya: The 87th Akhila Bharatha Kannada Sahitya Sammelana has turned into a cultural fair, besides being a literary fair, but the participants are put through several inconveniences, despite the event being held in a grand manner.

H Shivalingiah, a resident of Maddur, said, that while it is good that the Sammelana is being held in a big way and people are participating in huge numbers, "organisers have not considered the practical problems of the people."

He said, "Starting from the restrictions on the movement of vehicles, on certain stretches of the roads, till the temporary toilets, there are a lot of problems. As the venue is huge, we have to walk long distances, after parking our vehicles, to reach the dais. The distance from the dais to the food counter is also long. It takes at least one hour to walk to the counter, to join the queue, to get the food, consume it and then return."

S Jayalakshmi from Mandya city said, among the book stalls, there are other commercial stalls, which causes crowding and inconvenience to those looking for books. “However, I was happy to see so many book stalls (over 450) at one place. There was a wide variety and I was spoilt for choice. Most of the stalls offered attractive discounts,” she said.

A B Nagesh, a participant from Tumakuru, said, the internet and mobile phone network was horrible. “The entire venue of the literary festival had turned into a no-network zone. It was difficult to even make digital payments for our purchases. Thus, the stall owners were are also inconvenienced. We could make a call or use the internet only for small durations, by chance only,” he said.

“The temporary toilets are also not satisfactory. They are placed at long distances from the dais. The people should also be blamed, for not maintaining cleanliness. However, the effort of the authorities concerned and the civic workers, to keep the entire venue clean, is commendable. As they were clearing the garbage, the people were littering from behind,” said Nanjegowda from Bengaluru.

Nanjegowda’s wife Bhagya said, “Non availability of drinking water, on the premises of the dais and outside, was stark. We are also from Mandya and we were following the arrangements. The authorities had declared that the festival will be plastic-free. But, to our disappointment, plastic bottles were found littered everywhere”.

CFTRI stall ransacked

Some miscreants also ransacked the stall of the Central Food Technological Institute (CFTRI) on the premises of the festival on Saturday.

The staff of the Mysuru-based CFTRI, who were present in the stall, said that they too do not know who it was. “They claimed to be Kannada activists and objected to the display of our products and technologies in English,” they said.

“The display was in Kannada also and the students, visiting the stall, evinced interest in our products and technologies. But, we had to wind up, as the miscreants abused us and pulled down the displays,” they said.