The agenda is fixed, the speakers have confirmed and the organisers are getting set for the fourth edition of the Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) being held from September 2 to 4 at the Yashwantrao Chavan Academy for Development Administration (Yashda) in Baner. Manjiri Prabhu, founder and director of PILF addressed the media on Wednesday to unveil this year’s theme as well as present an overview of the fest. “Though over 70 literary festivals are hosted every year in India across various cities, Pune never had one. So with an intention to give the city its own literary festival of English literature, we started PILF three years ago.” The festival has aimed at and been successful as well in bringing together authors, writers, creative personalities from all media to share their expertise.
Says Prabhu, “We have Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy as our chief guest at the inauguration ceremony. However difficult it is to bring so many personalities under one roof, we still managed to get 122 authors.” The list of speakers to be present at this year’s three-day event include Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, Shobhaa De, Rajdeep Sardesai, Anupam Kher, Ashwin Sanghi, Prasoon Joshi, Archie Comics CEO Nancy Silberkleit, hair dresser Jawed Habib, Arshia Sattar, Avirook Sen and Josy Joseph to name a few.
Continuing its tradition since its second year, this time the social theme will be ‘Children’s Rights’. An attempt would be made to create awareness about the same through various activities such as street plays by Save the Children organisation and Unicef. Much thought went into deciding this year’s theme which was a choice between women empowerment and children’s rights, says Prabhu. “We felt why should only NGOs work for the betterment of society, PILF could be used as a platform to do so as well. The reason we chose this year’s theme is because I feel that we have to start from children to make a difference to society. It needs more attention.”
Keeping the social cause in mind, PILF along with Vishwakarma Publications will publish free-of-cost a book called The Flickering Flame. The book of short stories is compiled by students of St Mary’s School who are under the age of 14. “The aim is to encourage and support young talent and provide a platform for them to showcase their work,” adds Prabhu.
A highlight of this year’s PILF is a special exhibition on Enid Blyton. Some of the panel discussions that PILF will organise this year include, The Changing Trends of Marathi Cinema, 60 Years of Frankfurt Book Fair, Relevance in Recreation – Mythology and Ramayana, Marathi Literature in Changing Time, Poetry from Heart to Heart, Challenging Global Leaders, Women Relationships and Law. According to Prabhu, an interesting session to look out for this time is the one with the CEO of Archie Comics.
In order to fulfil her promise of PILF being an event for knowledge, fun and entertainment this year a number of outdoor activities have been planned. Elaborating further, Leena Prabhu (a member of organising committee) says, “We have a host of parallel sessions from which people can choose which they would like to attend. We have introduced more activities such as yoga, dance and music.”
A number of organisations such as the MIT Group of Institutions and Vishwakarma Publications will continue offering their support to the fest. This year the organisers have also tied up with global partners such as Salzburg Global Seminar and Frankfurt Book Fair. Prabhu sees this collaboration as a big achievement not only for the fest but for the city as well, “This can open an avenue of opportunities for exchanging contacts and networking.”
Sabina Sanghvi, a member of the advisory board was also present at the event. Talking about PILF 2016, she said, “I have been associated with PILF for a long time now. The fest has grown immensely and sustained due to the innovation and passion of the core team. I just hope that it garners a lot more support from the media, government, corporates and individuals.”
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