Bengaluru, with people from all southern states of India giving it a rich and diverse linguistic heritage cannot be called anything less than the cultural capital of south India. However, a closer look at the city’s blossoming literary fests shows that they are more tilted towards English and Kannada while there being little room for other languages.
Breaking this language barrier is Book Brahma’s inaugural festival Soul of South: Book Brahma Festival- an energetic event that celebrates writers’ voices from all over the south Indian languages, concluded last week in St. John’s Auditorium, Koramangala.
The “Soul of South” three-day festival was held at six venues within one campus. Every section featured panel discussions, performances, book launches and interactive sessions which attracted different readers across the 3 days.
Music begins
On the final day first things first began with soulful Hindustani classical vocal performance by Pt. M Venkatesh Kumar accompanied by Satish Kolli on harmonium and Keshav Joshi on tabla.
After this was an act where Prakash Raj performed titled Diverse Languages, Same Feeling drawing poems in Kannada, Telugu Tamil and Malayalam to highlight common elements shared in India’s diverse linguistic landscape as well as a discussion about Malayalam poetry today alongside another session discussing literature-cinema crossover work in Knnada with Girish Kasaravalli and Sumana Kittur both being eminent directors. Other discussions held during the festival include those on Telugu short stories and emerging trends in tamil novels all meant to popularize regional literature.
Key talks
Some other key sessions during these three days were on contemporary Kannada novels; subaltern voices in Telugu literature; pluralistic dimensions of Karnataka’s languages. Notably one captivating panel discussed generative AI for Indian writing focusing on how technology is shaping literature going forward.
The festival also focused on Karnataka’s many languages, the future of story-telling and contemporary theater, poetry in film music and cinema songs. A talk on the global potential for South Indian literature was held with reference to the role of literary agents and editors in Indian languages publishing.
A roundtable discussion involving international experts alongside south Indian publishers drew attention to the challenges and opportunities of sourcing regional literature to an international audience. There was a dedicated space within the campus that catered for storytelling, art master classes, traditional board games and arts competition for children.
In a conversation with The Hindu, Devu Pattar said that through the three days the organisers had been overwhelmed. “This is probably the first literature festival that has included all major South Indian languages. I have attended many literature festivals across the country but most of these festivals are primarily focused on English literature or in one’s own mother tongue. We have so far managed to bring together authors and poets who write in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam,” he said.
The other important thing about this festival is its representation from different backgrounds. “We had authors and poets who write in languages such as Tulu, Kodava, Byari and Konkani under one roof sharing about their language; its origin; how it was started among others.” He added saying: “We invited activists from LGBTQIA+ community such as Akkai Padmashali, Manjamma Jogathi, Malavika, Rumi Harish.”
Beyond Kannada
Pattar reveals also that Book Brahma intends to keep hosting an annual festival every year with next one slated for August 2025. “We intend to spread our work over all South Indian states soonest possible after 2016. They have been a platform for Kannada writers including authors, poets and publishers. We have promoted them through interviews over five years thereby forming a community of Kannada writing enthusiasts. Now we want to work with other South Indian states and promote/exchange their literature in different languages” he said.
