The Shillong Literary Festival, in a nutshell

At Ward’s Lake, conversations on literature beguiled literary enthusiasts for three days during the fourth edition of Shillong Literary Festival, with authors like Vikram Seth, Shobha De and Sanjoy Hazarika

In the landscape of Shillong’s picturesque, cherry blossom-lined Ward’s Lake, conversations on literature flowed, spilled and beguiled literary enthusiasts for three days, November 18 to 20. Though a smattering of North-East’s cultural bounty, a host of food, wine and handicraft stalls serving Khasi specialties became an auxiliary centrepoint where these conversations took an informal tone off-stage and were occasionally accompanied with swigs of Cherrapunji gin and rice beer.

No wonder then, author-poet Vikram Seth mentioned in his inaugural address: “I was only told last night that I have to speak, which I think was very unfair since I hate speaking. I think I should lay down two conditions: a bottle of rice beer in one hand and a sprig of cherry blossom in the other. Unfortunately, I have been provided with neither, but I think I would treat this shawl around my neck as a kind of earnest of future things to come.”

He said, “I discovered I had a connection with Shillong, which I didn’t realise till five minutes ago. Tagore apparently was in Shillong and it was the basis of the inspiration for his book Shesher kobita, or The Last Poem, which my mother read when she was pregnant with me.”  He adds, “I came here by chance. I was perfectly happy writing my novel when a friend sort of kidnapped me and took me off to Arunachal Pradesh for two weeks. I didn’t want to go back to Delhi without visiting the seven sisters. I wanted to go to Manipur, but I was advised against it. It’s odd to be here where everything is full of cherry blossoms, peace and singing CMs and have this curious feeling of being in two places, one where there’s a lot of bloodshed and the other where all one can think about is the ineptitude of driving and the beauty of cherry blossom.”

Columnist and writer Shobha De termed the lit fest as the “prettiest” lit fest that she has ever attended. Highlights from the first day included an array of sessions by Vikram Seth, Shobha De, Jerry Pinto, Kynoham S Nongkynrih, Sabir Hussain, Arupjyoti Saikia, and Amabel Susngi, among others.

The sessions started with Folklore as Fiction: The Haunting World of The Distaste of the Earth, where author Kynpham S Nongkynrih delved into folklore’s transformation into fiction alongside Kanishka Gupta, who set up literary agency Writer’s Side in 2010.

Vikram returned to the spotlight with A Suitable Author: Reading & Reminiscences, where he engaged with Malavika Banerjee to explore his iconic works and the art of storytelling. Admittedly, he is writing A Suitable Girl the release date of which is under wraps, because he does not wish to “jinx it” by assigning a deadline to it. The evening also featured De Light, a session that saw Shobhaa De in conversation with Jerry Pinto.

Following an attendance of over 3,500 people in various sessions on the first day, the second day of the festival concluded with a footfall of over 5,000 people.