Mysuru Literature Festival ‘begins’ on a 'positive' note

The virtual Mysuru Literature Festival, the fourth edition since 2017, began on a positive note, with just a couple of technical glitches, amid negative news of Covid cases.

The opening session of the festival was on ‘Writers on Their Beginnings’. Despite a lukewarm response by the online audience, ranging from 40 to 90 at a given point of time, the discussion revolved on the beginnings of the novels authored by the panelists. The literary festival is hosted by Mysuru Literary Forum and Charitable Trust and Mysuru Book Clubs - 2015.

The sessions will be held on weekends up to September 5. On Saturday, August 15, the session on “Writing about Place” will begin at 8 pm. Mathangi Subramanian from Denver, the United States; and Rohini Mohan and Andaleeb Wajid from Bengaluru, will be on the panel. Earlier, the festivals were held in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Among four panelists, Preeta Samarasan, spoke from France, while the remaining spoke from the USA — V V Ganeshananthan, Minneapolis; Soniah Kamal, Atlanta; and Tania James Washington, DC. Preeta is a Malaysian Tamil, Ganeshananthan is a Sri Lankan Tamil, Tania is a US born Malayali and Soniah is from Pakistan.

The session was a cross-culture understanding, besides tracing the stories behind the beginnings of their respective novels. With just four of the panelists discussing among themselves, acting as moderators for each other, the session was set in a homely environment. It has to be noted that the writers were speaking from the comforts of their homes, thanks to the Covid-19 crisis.

The talk began with Soniah anchoring Preetha. Soniah was trying to get her pronunciation of the names Chellam and Muniandy, characters, right. Preetha said, she tried various beginnings, but zeroed in on the description of her homeland Malaysia in her novel “Evening Is The Whole Day”.

“I began chronologically, but changed the sequence to suit the story-telling, over many drafts. Like the beginning, choosing the end, to decide where to stop, is also a challenge,” she said.

Ganeshananthan said, even though her novel is in the first person, the beginning is in the third person, to give the apt narration in her novel “Love Marriage”. “It is a challenge to narrate culture-specific details, as most of the readers would be unaware of their significance.”

Tania, also a filmmaker, said how the beginning in a movie is used to create an atmosphere, very different from the beginning in a book. She explained how writing was a self-entertaining experience, in her novel “The Tusk That Did the Damage.”

Soniah said she experimented ‘text within the text’ in her novel “Unmarriageable: Pride & Prejudice in Pakistan”. She said, as she was retelling Jane Austen’s novel, she was actually narrating two novels and, balancing was a challenge. Register on: http://www.mysuruliteraturefestival.com/registration/. The webinar will be streamed live on YouTube.