Mumbai: The Times of India Litfest is now in its fifth edition. It has been carefully designed around the passions of Mumbai: money and films, sports and spirituality, food and relationships, and so draws an eclectic audience. As always it is being held at the historic Mehboob Studios, whose magical indoor and outdoor spaces bring their own charm and mythology to the event.
The litfest has established itself on Mumbai's cultural calendar as well as in the global literary community. Last year, it attracted a highly engaged audience of 13,000.
The Keynote speakers this year are the economist, Thomas Piketty, his media scientist wife, Julia Cage, Harvard Professor Michael Sandel, 'brain-mapper' Tony Buzanand the writer, Vikram Seth, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, 2015.
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Nadeem Aslam, Sudha Murthy, Rohan Murthy, Fatima Bhutto, Jugnu Mohsin, Moni Mohsin, Vikram Chandra, Susan Abulhawa, Priya Parmar, Ronnie Screwvala, Kiran Nagarkar, Cyrus Broacha, Suhel Seth and Jairam Ramesh are among the nearly 100 eminent participants. The theme is ‘Enslaving Expression'; Najam Sethi, winner of the World Editors Forum Golden Pen award, will bring his courage and experience.
So will Indira Jaising who has used her formidable expertise to championing human rights as well as other activists from India and abroad. There are other panel topics too, all provocative, and discussed by authors, sociologists, film-makers, mythologists, even chefs.
In 2014, the Keynote speaker was Arianna Huffington; in 2013, Hanif Kureishi with Eve Ensler on the concluding day, and Suketu Mehta in 2012. The Lifetime Achievement award winners have been Anita Desai, Ruskin Bond and Rohinton Mistry. Among a host of panellists, who have graced the event are Pico Iyer, Anne Enright, Amish Tripathi, Vikram Chandra, Daniyal Mueenuddin, William Dalrymple, Mohammed Hanif, Mohsin Hamid, Fatima Bhutto, Mira Nair, Om Puri, Sourav Ganguly, Sania Mirza, Madhur Jaffrey and Vikas Khanna.
Hot-button concerns have always been central to this litfest which is promoted and supported by The Times of India's media reach. In the context of last year's game-changing Indian election results, it was ‘Power as Hero and Villain'. Previous themes were 'Greed, The City and the Pursuit of Happiness', and 'Romance, Love and Violence'.
