One magical setting.
Many spellbinding sessions.

Abdulrazak Gurnah 

Abdulrazak Gurnah is a Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic. He was born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s as a refugee during the Zanzibar Revolution. His novels include Paradise (1994), which was shortlisted for both the Booker and the Whitbread Prize; By the Sea (2001), which was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Desertion (2005), shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature for his ‘uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents’. He is an Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 11 am
Inauguration : Hon'ble Governor of West Bengal, Shri CV Ananda Bose inaugurates the 12th edition of the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet Guest of Honour: Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah

January 23, 2024 ● 11.40 am
A Life in Writing : Abdulrazak Gurnah on his celebrated works. In conversation with Nilanjana S Roy

January 26, 2024 ● 2.50 pm
Many Africas, Many Stories : Abdulrazak Gurnah, Damon Galgut and Mark Gevisser on how contemporary African literature eludes stereotyping to emerge as the continent of stories. In conversation with Sandip Roy 

Adip Dutta

Adip Dutta is an artist and an academic. He was closely associated with the veteran artist Meera Mukherjee through the mid-1980s and the whole of the 1990s, till her demise in January 1998. Dutta was in his formative years then and the memories of this close association with the sculptor Meera Mukherjee remain deeply imbedded in his mind. Intricate works on paper and the sculptural forms that constitute his main body of work extend Dutta’s practice of looking at forms and spaces. His gaze often attempts to propel the ‘everyday’ into the domain of higher disciplines like archaeology, architecture, drawing and art history. Dutta has been selectively writing on artistic practices from time to time. He has also conceptualised artistic presentations in the form of curated shows. He has been teaching for the last two decades now. He is a faculty member with the Department of Sculpture, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12 noon
Meera Mukherjee Centenary : Tapati Guha Thakurta, Adip Dutta and Sujaan Mukherjee on the legacy of the great sculptor. In conversation with Sumona Chakravarty

Aditi Maheshwari Goyal

Aditi Maheshwari Goyal is the Executive Director of the Vani Prakashan Group, one of the foremost publishers of Hindi writing in India. She is a publishing industry analyst, author of white papers, a columnist, a public speaker, a copyrights specialist, a marketing professional, a literature festival director, and also a book lover. Her work profile includes managing publishing lists and intellectual property; liaising with cultural offices at embassies and government bodies; and the commission, production, and promotion of books. As a third-generation publisher, she is passionate about taking forward her legacy, in a modern avatar.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
Duniya Ki Bhasha, Bhasha Ki Duniya : Daisy Rockwell, Alka Saraogi and Aditi Maheshwari on telling Hindi stories to the world. In conversation with Ved Raman Pandey

Agnijit Sen

Agnijit Sen, popularly known as Mirchi Agni, is a radio jockey with Mirchi 98.3 FM. He has been doing radio shows since 2016 and currently hosts the morning show. He has been one of the lead actors of the first Bangla social media viral series, O Maa Go. He is the perfect combination of wit and a sense of humour. He is a prolific on-stage host and has moderated a number of big events.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
A(nindya) Theke Chandrabindoo : Anindya Chatterjee, Sajjad Hussain and Rajarshi Dhara in conversation with Agnijit Sen

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope II - Pacheeshey Paa : Riddhi Sen, Surangana Bandyopadhyay and Ishaan Ghosh on the hopes and fears of the quarter lifers. In conversation with Agnijit Sen

AJ Thomas

AJ Thomas is an award-winning Indian English poet and translator. He has taught English at Benghazi University, Libya, from 2008 to 2014 and was also a senior consultant at IGNOU. He has co-edited, Best of Indian Literature, Sahitya Akademi. He has also selected and translated an anthology of fifty modern classic short stories in a volume titled The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told (November 2023).

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 6.20 pm
The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told : AJ Thomas, KR Meera and Anand Neelakantan in conversation with Malavika Banerjee

Alka Saraogi

Alka Saraogi is a Hindi author from Kolkata. Her first novel Kalikatha via Bypass won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2001. She has published six more novels and has been translated into many European languages like German, Italian, French, and Spanish as well as other regional languages of India. Her 2020 novel Kulbhushan Ka Naam Darj Kijiye grapples with the theme of the long displacement of people migrating to West Bengal between the Partition and the formation of Bangladesh.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
Duniya Ki Bhasha, Bhasha Ki Duniya : Daisy Rockwell, Alka Saraogi and Aditi Maheshwari on telling Hindi stories to the world. In conversation with Ved Raman Pandey

Amitav Ghosh

Winner of the 54th Jnanpith Award in 2018, India’s highest literary honour, Amitav Ghosh’s works have been translated into more than thirty languages. He has written fiction, historical novels, and also non-fiction works on colonialism and climate change. He holds two Lifetime Achievement Awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007, he received the Padma Shri from the Government of India. In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 4.50 pm
The Resource Curse : Amitav Ghosh on how the colonial exploitation of eastern India affected its history, economy and literature. In conversation with Sukanta Chaudhuri

January 26, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Great Padma : Amitav Ghosh and Kazi Khaleed Ashraf discuss the river’s impact on the region’s history and imagination. In conversation with Supriya Chaudhuri

Anand Neelakantan

Anand Neelakantan is an Indian author, columnist, screenwriter, television personality, cartoonist and motivational speaker. He is best known for writing mythological fiction and has authored eleven books in English and one in Malayalam. He follows the style of telling stories based on the perspective of the antagonists or supporting characters of a larger work. His debut work Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, was based on the Indian epic Ramayana, told from the perspective of Ravana. His books have been translated into different languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Assamese, English and Indonesian. He wrote the official prequel series of novels for the Baahubali film series. The book became a blockbuster and was shortlisted for the Crossword Popular Award 2018. His fifth book Vanara: The Legend of Baali, Sugreeva and Tara also follows the same pattern of voicing the defeated side. He is a prolific writer in Malayalam and regularly publishes stories in prestigious Malayalam magazines. He also writes a column for New Indian Express on current affairs and his fortnightly column is called Acute Angle.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Is Lord Ganesha Married? : Anand Neelakantan discusses how the epics and readings of ancient texts change across regions and eras. In conversation with Satyarth Nayak

January 25, 2024 ● 6.20 pm
The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told : AJ Thomas, KR Meera and Anand Neelakantan in conversation with Malavika Banerjee

Anindya Chatterjee

Anindya Chatterjee is a Bengali singer, writer, lyricist, composer, film director and actor. He is one of the lead singer-composers of the popular Bangla band Chandrabindoo. He is a recipient of the National Award for Best Lyrics for Pherari Mon from Antaheen (with fellow-band member Chandril Bhattacharya) and the Filmfare Best Lyricist Award (East) for the song Raat Jaaye from the film Alik Sukh. He published his first novel Niruddesh Somporke Ghoshona and directed the films Open Tee Bioscope, Projapoti Biskut and Manojder Adbhut Bari. He has also acted in the films Satyanweshi and Jaatishwar.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
A(nindya) Theke Chandrabindoo : Anindya Chatterjee, Sajjad Hussain and Rajarshi Dhara in conversation with Agnijit Sen

Anindya Paulchaudhuri

Anindya Paulchaudhuri is a seasoned Banking and Wealth Management Professional. After working for two decades in senior leadership positions across different MNC Banks (ABN AMRO, Standard Chartered and DBS ), he is now partner and Group CEO of WealthApp as an entrepreneur. He is an RK Mission pass-out and did his Executive Management course from IIM Kolkata and IIM Bangalore.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
Being Fearless : Examining entrepreneurship in today’s Bengali community. Jayanta Roy, Sucharita Basu and Rudra Chatterjee in conversation with Anindya Paulchaudhuri

Anindyo Roy

Anindyo Roy is Associate Professor Emeritus at Colby College, USA. The author of Civility and Empire, he has published several articles on Rudyard Kipling, Laurence Hope, EM Forster, the Bloomsbury Group and the contemporary Nigerian novelist, Helon Habila. Based on the travel journals of the nineteenth-century English illustrator and poet Edward Lear, The Viceroy’s Artist is his first attempt at writing fiction. He shuttles between Kolkata, Maine and the hills of Kalimpong, where he works on livelihood projects for small farmers affected by climate change.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
Edward Lear and the Kanchenjunga : Anindyo Roy discusses his tryst with Lear’s Himalayan obsession. In conversation with Deepika Jaidka.

Anirban Bhattacharya

Anirban Bhattacharya is a popular and critically acclaimed stage and screen actor, singer and director. For the film Eagoler Chokh he received the Filmfare Award (East) for Best Actor in a supporting role. He made his directorial debut with the Bengali crime drama web-series Mandaar inspired from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. He received the Young Artist Scholarship in 2009 from the Cultural Ministry of the Government of India. In 2010, he was selected to work as a full-time professional actor at Minerva, the first State Repertoire in West Bengal. He acted in three eminent productions under Minerva Repertoire and then went on to work as a professional, freelance theatre actor. He continues to work in both film and stage with many eminent directors.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Mephisto : A play by Suman Mukhopadhyay featuring Anirban Bhattacharya, Riddhi Sen and others

Ankhi Mukherjee

Ankhi Mukherjee is Professor of English and World Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow in English at Wadham College. Her teaching and research specialisms lie in Victorian Literature, Culture, Postcolonial Studies and Intellectual History. She is currently teaching at the Institute of World Literature at Harvard University.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Decolonising The English Literary Curriculum : Sukanta Chaudhuri and Ankhi Mukherjee discuss her co-edited collection of essays in conversation with Madhavi Menon

January 26, 2024 ● 12.45 pm
Arctic Summer and Forster’s India : Damon Galgut discusses his tryst with EM Forster’s unfinished novel and A Passage To India’s centenary. In conversation with Ankhi Mukherjee 

Anupam Roy

Anupam Roy is a well-known and popular Indian singer-songwriter and music director. He has composed, written lyrics and sung for many Bengali films. In 2015, he made his Bollywood debut with the film Piku for which he won a Filmfare Award for best background score. Winner of four Filmfare Awards, he has also received a National Film Award for Best Lyrics for the song Tumi Jake Bhalobasho from the film Praktan. He is also a prolific writer and has been published in various online and print magazines and newspapers.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Binoyer Brahmadarshan : Anupam Roy discusses his short story collection with Srijato

January 26, 2024 ● 7 pm
Eka Anupam : Performance by Anupam Roy

Anuradha Roy

Anuradha Roy is a writer and potter whose books have been widely translated and won several honours including the Sahitya Akademi Award and the DSC Prize for Fiction. She has been lon­glisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlis­ted for the International Dublin Literary Award. She has also been a visiting speaker at Cornell and Cordoba Universities; a Hawthornden Writing Fellow at Casa Ecco, Italy and Writer-in-Residence at St-Nazaire, France.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 4.50 pm
The Seventh Son : Sebastian Faulks discusses his new novel with Anuradha Roy

Aparajita Dasgupta

Aparajita Dasgupta is an academician who has taught in various government colleges in West Bengal. She has also been a Fulbright Visiting Professor at St Mary’s University, USA. Her creative writing in Bengali includes novels, autobiographical vignettes, a book of short stories, a collection of essays and a children’s book. She has also edited and annotated her grandmother Mina Dasgupta’s autobiography Rita’r Jiban.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 4.45 pm
Nayika Sangbad : Senjuti Roy Mukherjee and Poulami Chatterjee Bose on Women in Bangla Group Theatre. In conversation with Aparajita Dasgupta

Appupen

Appupen is a comics creator, artist and musician who tells stories from the mythical world Halahala. His first graphic novel Moonward published in 2009 was selected for the Angouleme festival in France. He reached a wider audience through his second silent graphic novel Legends of Halahala, touted as India’s first silent graphic novel. His comic art has appeared in many magazines and a few renowned art galleries. His paintings and commissioned murals can be seen in many cities across India.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 4.20 pm
Dream Machine : Appupen discusses his new graphic novel on Artificial Intelligence. In conversation with Pinaki De

Arghya Sengupta

Arghya Sengupta is Founder and Research Director at Vidhi. His areas of specialization are constitutional law and regulation of the digital economy. He has served on a number of government committees including a committee of experts on a data protection framework for India. He has, to his credit, a number of academic publications on the Supreme Court and the Constitution in leading law journals such as Law Quarterly Review and Public Law. He is also a columnist at The Telegraph and The Times of India.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 2.50 pm
The Colonial Constitution : Arghya Sengupta discusses his new examination of constitutional history. In conversation with Monideepa Banerjie

Arunava Sinha

An award-winning translator, Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and non-fiction from Bangladesh and India into English. He also translates fiction from English into Bengali. So far, over eighty of his translations have been published in India, the UK and the USA. He teaches creative writing at Ashoka University where he is also the co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation. He is the Books Editor at scroll.in.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 5.40 pm
Firebird : JCB Prize winner Perumal Murugan discusses his prize-winning novel with Arunava Sinha and SV Raman

January 25, 2024 ● 4.15 pm
The Hymns of Tukaram : Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto discuss the timeless wisdom of the Bhakti poet. Readings and conversation with Arunava Sinha

January 26, 2024 ● 4.20 pm
Found in Translation : Daisy Rockwell and Daniel Hahn on bringing new readers to different literary worlds. In conversation with Arunava Sinha

January 27, 2024 ● 12.40 pm
Goynar Baksho/The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die : Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Arunava Sinha discuss the novel that refuses to grow old. In conversation with Sanchari Mookherjee

Asha Sahay Choudhry

Lt Bharati ‘Asha’ Sahay Choudhry was born in Kobe, Japan, in 1928 and joined the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army at the age of seventeen. Her father, Anand Mohan Sahay, was a minister in the cabinet of the Azad Hind Government and a political adviser to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Japan. After the war, she was held under camp arrest before being released and reunited with her father in 1946. Written in Japanese between 1943 and 1947, The War Diary of Asha-san is a memoir of courage, honour and love by a young girl who had to grow up quickly in the midst of war.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3 pm
The War Diary of Asha-san : Asha Sahay Choudhry remembers her time as part of the INA

Ashok Ferrey

Ashok Ferrey is Sri Lanka’s best-selling local author writing in the English language. He graduated with a degree in Pure Mathematics from Oxford University before becoming a writer. He has come out with two short story collections (Colpetty People and The Good Little Ceylonese Girl) and four novels (Serendipity, The Professional, The Ceaseless Chatter of Demons and The Unmarriageable Man). The Unmarriageable Man won the Gratiaen Prize, Sri Lanka’s premier literary award founded by Michael Ondaatje. In a parallel world, he is a designer and builder of houses, his most recent – the Cricket Club Café in Colombo – having been nominated for a Geoffrey Bawa Award. By day, Ashok is also a personal trainer.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 11.50 am
The Unmarriagable Man : Ashok Ferrey in conversation with Sampad Patnaik

Ashoke Vishwanathan

Ashoke Viswanathan is a multiple national and international award-winning filmmaker who has been Dean and Professor of Producing for Film and Television at Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, Kolkata. He has directed more than 150 film projects including feature films, documentaries, shorts and television shows. His films have been shown at Dhaka International Film Festival, New Jersey International Film Festival, Commonwealth Film Festival (Manchester) and Pyongyang International Film Festival, among others. He has acted in nearly thirty films besides television and OTT productions in English, Bangla, Malayalam and Hindi. He is also a theatre director and theatre scholar with more than forty plays to his credit. He has made a nine-part series titled Theatre Through The Ages. His latest production is a solo performance called Shakespeare in Venice. He writes regularly in mainstream media as well as in academic journals on film and theatre. He is a published poet and an author with one book and one volume of verse to his credit besides numerous contributions to anthologies of poetry.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.15 pm
Poetry Medley : Renu Roy, Laksmisree Banerjee and Ajanta Paul in conversation with Ashoke Vishwanathan. Readings and discussion.

Atrayee Sanyal

Atreyee S Sanyal is Vice-President HRM at Tata Steel. From the world of Marketing and Sales, she has reached a leadership position in Human Resource Management in a legendary organisation- Tata Steel. Wearing the cap of Chief Diversity Officer reminds her that the journey is not even half done. Her most important identity still remains that of a mother who is moulding her children to serve this world and make it a better place.

Attending Session

Bappaditya Biswas

Bappaditya Biswas is one of India’s foremost textile experts and has been creating masterly weaves over the last decade and more; weaves that have redefined Bengal handloom and given the textiles of the state a new look and feel. He has created the brand Bai Lou as well as the iconic store Byloomin Kolkata. Bappaditya has traveled the world to study the traditions of weaving and dyeing and one of his weaves has also won the Unesco Seal of Excellence.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope IV - Yarns of Resilience : Laila Tyabji and Bappaditya Biswas on how artisans are forging a path ahead amid diverse challenges. In conversation with Nandita Palchoudhuri

Bickram Ghosh

Maestro Bickram Ghosh is widely considered one of India’s greatest versatile artists. He excels in three musical fields – Indian classical, fusion and film scoring. He has a formidable reputation as one of the world’s greatest classical tabla players. He has received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Performing Arts. He has played on four Grammy-nominated albums and one Grammy-awarded album – Full Circle with maestro Ravi Shankar. He has received two Filmfare awards for his film compositions, a Silver Medal at the Global Music Awards 2018 for his album Maya and three Global Indian Music Awards. He performed at the finale of the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and in 2012, recreated the Indian National Song Vande Mataram with twenty-two of India’s greatest musicians and performed at the finale of the Commonwealth Games in 2010. He also represented India for the 150 years’ celebration of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth at UNESCO, Paris in 2012. He composed and presented an extravaganza with 120 artists for the T20 World Cup finals in 2016.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 7.10 pm
All The World’s A Stage : Jacek Luminski, Suman Mukhopadhyay and Bickram Ghosh discuss how cultural exchanges between countries can become deeper and more meaningful. In conversation with Vikram Iyengar 

Biswajit Ray

Biswajit Ray is an Associate Professor of Bengali from Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan. His publications on Rabindranath Tagore include Sachalatar Gan, Rabindranath O Vivekananda: Swadeshe Samakale and Rabindranath and His Times (Cambridge Companion to Rabindranath Tagore). A well-known columnist, he writes regularly for Anandabazar Patrika about various socio-cultural aspects of Bengali life. He received the Rupali Sahitya Samman in 2017 and the Nilanjana Sen Smriti Puraskar in 2019.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 2.20 pm
Michael Madhusudhaner Dwishatabarsho : Biswajit Ray discusses the brilliance of the polymath and his engagement with the West and East. In conversation with Somshankar Ray

Chandril Bhattacharya

Chandril Bhattacharya is a popular Bengali columnist, lyricist, poet, singer and director. He is one of the main lyricists of the Bengali band Chandrabindoo and also occasionally sings for them. Chandril, together with Anindya Chatterjee, won the 2010 National Film Award for Best Lyrics for the song Pherari Mon from the film Antaheen. His Uttam Madhyam columns for Anandabazar Patrika were compiled in a book. Later, he began to air his views in the weekly Robbar Pratidin in a column titled Du Chhokka Pnaach. His satirical perspective addresses cultural phenomena, national and international current affairs, human psychology and social norms. He coins peculiar idioms, playful jargon, spoonerisms and reconstructs colloquial Bengali phrases and expressions to formulate absurdist humorous puns in most of his articles.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 5.50 pm
Moti Nandy’r Dhulokhela : Chandril Bhattacharya on the non-sports gems of the author’s body of work

Chinmoy Guha

Chinmoy Guhais Professor of English and Former Head, Department of English, at the University of Calcutta. He has also been the Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, and the Director of Publications, Embassy of France in India in New Delhi. A leading essayist in Bengali and a distinguished translator of French literature, he was the editor of book reviews of the Bengali literary magazines, Desh and Boier Desh. His latest works include two new collections of essays in Bengali (Chilekothhar Unmadini and Garho Shankher Khonje), The Tower and the Sea, Romain Rolland-Kalidas Nag Correspondence and two new anthologies of 20th century French poetry. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Knighthood of Academic Palms from France. 

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 6.15 pm
Between Two Worlds : Mihaela Gligor and Chinmoy Guha discuss Bengal’s influence on the writings of Mircea Eliade. In conversation with Sagnik Bhattacharya

CV Ananda Bose 

CV Ananda Bose is the Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal. He has held the rank of Secretary to Government of India, Chief Secretary and University Vice-Chancellor. He is the Chairman of the Habitat Alliance, in consultative status with the UN, and was member of the UN Habitat Governing Council. He is the founder of many innovative movements and institutions in the field of affordable housing, good governance, health care, science and technology, rural development, education, gender mainstreaming, and communal harmony. He has published many books in English, Malayalam and Hindi including novels, short stories, poems and essays.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 11 am
Inauguration : Hon'ble Governor of West Bengal, Shri CV Ananda Bose inaugurates the 12th edition of the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet Guest of Honour: Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah

January 24, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
State of Focus: Kerala
Literature's Own Country : Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal, Shri CV Ananda Bose, talks about the literary heritage of Kerala. Opens inaugural State of Focus programme. Reading by Roopsha Dasguupta and musical presentations

Daisy Rockwell

Daisy Rockwell is an American painter and an acclaimed translator of Hindi and Urdu literature. Her 2021 translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand was the first South Asian book to win the International Booker Prize. Her other works include translations of Upendranath Ashk’s Falling Walls, Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas and Khadija Mastur’s The Women’s Courtyard. She has also published The Little Book of Terror: a volume of paintings and essays on the global war on terror.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
Duniya Ki Bhasha, Bhasha Ki Duniya : Daisy Rockwell, Alka Saraogi and Aditi Maheshwari on telling Hindi stories to the world. In conversation with Ved Raman Pandey

January 26, 2024 ● 4.20 pm
Found in Translation : Daisy Rockwell and Daniel Hahn on bringing new readers to different literary worlds. In conversation with Arunava Sinha

Damon Galgut

Damon Galgut is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise making him the 3rd winner from South Africa. He has also written several plays and short stories. He wrote his first novel A Sinless Season at the age of 17. His second book, a collection of short stories called Small Circle of Beings, includes an eponymous novella that describes a mother’s struggle with her son’s illness. His novel The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs won the Central News Agency Literary Award in 1992. His next novel, The Quarry, was made into a feature film. A second feature film version was released in 2020. After The Good Doctor, his fifth novel, was published in 2003, Galgut’s work became better known outside South Africa. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book: Africa in 2003. His novel In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the 2010 Booker Prize for fiction.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 4 pm
Galgutnama : Damon Galgut discusses his novels and a changing South Africa. In conversation with Malavika Banerjee

January 26, 2024 ● 12.45 pm
Arctic Summer and Forster’s India : Damon Galgut discusses his tryst with EM Forster’s unfinished novel and A Passage To India’s centenary. In conversation with Ankhi Mukherjee 

January 26, 2024 ● 2.50 pm
Many Africas, Many Stories : Abdulrazak Gurnah, Damon Galgut and Mark Gevisser on how contemporary African literature eludes stereotyping to emerge as the continent of stories. In conversation with Sandip Roy 

Daniel Hahn

Daniel Hahn is a British writer, editor and translator.He has authored a number of non-fiction works as well as a series of reading guides for children and teenagers. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the ‘Society of Authors’ and a number of other organizations working with literature, literacy and free expression. In 2017, he donated half his winnings from the International Dublin Literary Award to help establish a new prize for debut literary translation. He won the 2023 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 4.20 pm
Found in Translation : Daisy Rockwell and Daniel Hahn on bringing new readers to different literary worlds. In conversation with Arunava Sinha

Debnita Chakravarti

Debnita Chakravarti is Associate Professor of English at Shri Shikshayatan College where she tries to get students who are reading to learn, to learn to read as well. She has been a Charles Wallace scholar with a visiting fellowship at the University of Southampton. She has taught at Presidency College and Calcutta University and has also taught French to management students. Alongside presenting and publishing academic papers, she enjoys freelancing as a creative writer.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 7 pm
Kerala Chronicles II : S Hareesh discusses his award-winning novel Meesha (The Moustache). In conversation with Debnita Chakravarti

January 26, 2024 ● 6 pm
Caribbean Ink : Denise deCaires Narain on writings from the isles beyond the Nobel laureates. In conversation with Debnita Chakravarti

Deborah Baker

Deborah Baker was born in Charlottesville and grew up in Virginia, Puerto Rico, and New England. After working many years as a book editor and publisher, in 1990 she wrote In Extremis; The Life of Laura Riding. Published by Grove Press and Hamish Hamilton in the UK, it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1994. Her third book, A Blue Hand: The Beats in India was published by Penguin Press USA and Penguin India in 2008. The Convert, another acclaimed book by Baker, was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award in Non-Fiction. In August 2018, she published her fifth work of non-fiction, The Last Englishmen: Love, War and the End of Empire.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 4.10 pm
The Everest Obsession : Deborah Baker and Stephen Alter on the magic pull of the Everest and the centenary of George Mallory’s expedition. In conversation with Sujaan Mukherjee

Deepika Jaidka

Deepika Jaidka has a BA (Hons) degree from Loreto College, Calcutta and studied International Relations at Jadavpur University. Deepika has worked in various capacities for Citibank, WWF-India, Kipling Camp and British Airways. Whilst Administrator of the Calcutta School of Music, she also managed the erstwhile Calcutta Chamber Orchestra. Active in debating and amateur dramatics throughout school and college, she trod the Calcutta stage with The Amateurs and has acted in Club productions such as All My Sons, The Importance of Being Earnest, Blithe Spirit, The Mahabharata and also in musicals such as My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. Self taught at the age of 68, she has held two exhibitions of her digital paintings in Calcutta. She has also had one children’s book published and is working on a second book. Having spent most of her childhood in Darjeeling, she has a strong interest in Edward Lear’s nonsense verses and his paintings. 

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
Edward Lear and the Kanchenjunga : Anindyo Roy discusses his tryst with Lear’s Himalayan obsession. In conversation with Deepika Jaidka.

Denise deCaires Narain

Denise deCaires Narain is Reader in Postcolonial Literature in the School of English at the University of Sussex. She is currently the Director of CHASE (consortium for the humanities and arts in the south east). She has published widely on Caribbean women’s writing and also on the gendered implications of debates about orality, sexuality and popular culture in the Caribbean and in the ongoing contestation over the relevance of the categories ‘postcolonial’ and ‘queer’ within the region.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 6 pm
Caribbean Ink : Denise deCaires Narain on writings from the isles beyond the Nobel laureates. In conversation with Debnita Chakravarti

Deval Tibrewalla

Deval Tibrewalla is a fifth generation entrepreneur, CEO and Director of Hotel Polo Towers Group, north-east India’s largest hospitality chain with nine hotels. He is passionate about long-distance driving, investing and reading.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 1.30 pm
Work 3.0 : Sucharita Basu and Soumyajit Ghosh discuss Avik Chanda's final book. In conversation with Deval Tibrewall

Devdan Mitra

Devdan Mitra is a journalist who has spent almost his entire professional career at The Telegraph, Kolkata. He has worked across News functions, heading the Newsdesk and going on to launch editions in Jharkhand, North Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar and Odisha. He also did a stint as part of the MD’s strategy team before going on to take charge of outstation bureaus. For the past four years, he has been heading the sports section of the newspaper, an area he is passionate about, along with films and film music.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Day I Became A Runner : Sohini Chattopadhyay and Supriya Chaudhuri discuss women in sport. In conversation with Devdan Mitra

Devika Rege

Devika Rege is a writer from Pune. Her award-winning debut novel Quarterlife was published in India in 2023 and will be released in the States and Italy this year. A political bildungsroman set in contemporary India, it has been praised as ‘a landmark novel’ by the Indian Express. Her work also has appeared in publications including The Bombay Literary Magazineand Asia Literary Review.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 2.20 pm
Look Ahead in Anger : Siddhartha Deb and Devika Rege discuss their new novels on contemporary times. In conversation with Payal Mohanka

Dipika Mukherjee

Dipika Mukherjee’s collection of travel essays Writer’s Postcards was published in October 2023. Her work is included in The Best Small Fictions 2019 and appears in many prestigious journals and magazines. She has been translated into French, Portuguese, Bengali and Mandarin Chinese. She is the author of the novels Shambala Junction, which won the Virginia Prize for Fictionand Ode To Broken Things, which was longlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize as well as the story collection Rules Of Desire. Her latest poetry collection Dialect Of Distant Harbors won the Quill and Ink Award. She has received numerous grants and fellowships. She has taught in the United States, India, China, The Netherlands, Malaysia and Singapore. She was Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Shanghai International Studies University, China, Affiliated Fellow of the International Institute of Asian Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands, and affiliated to the Roberta Buffet Centre for Global Studies at Northwestern University, USA. She is currently core faculty at StoryStudio Chicago and teaches at the Graham School at University of Chicago.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
Writer’s Postcards, Writer’s Dispatches : Dipika Mukherjee and Diya Kohli on travel writing. In conversation with Seema Mohanchandran

Diya Kohli

Diya Kohli is currently the Features Director at Conde Nast Traveller India. In her fifteen-year career as a journalist and editor, she has reported on a variety of topics for newspapers and magazines across India. Her work focuses on India’s diversity and cultural heritage told via stories of food, people and the places they belong to. She shuttles between Kolkata and Mumbai and is happiest exploring old streets in new places.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Everything the Light Touches : Janice Pariat in conversation with Diya Kohli 

January 26, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
Writer’s Postcards, Writer’s Dispatches : Dipika Mukherjee and Diya Kohli on travel writing. In conversation with Seema Mohanchandran

Ajanta Paul

Ajanta Paul is a widely published poet, short story writer, and literary critic. She is currently the Principal at Women’s Christian College, Kolkata. A Pushcart nominee, she has been published in literary journals including Spadina Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, Of Course, The Statesman, The Wild Word, Verse-Virtual, Setu, Kitaab, The Punch Magazine, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. She has, to her credit, a collection of ecocritical poems called Earth Elegies and her latest poetry volume is titled Beached Driftwood.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.15 pm
Poetry Medley : Renu Roy, Laksmisree Banerjee and Ajanta Paul in conversation with Ashoke Vishwanathan. Readings and discussion.

Somshankar Ray

Somshankar Ray has a Masters and PhD in History from the University of Calcutta and is currently an Assistant Professor at Vidyasagar College for Women, Kolkata. He has also taught at Presidency University. A former student of the Presidency College, he writes on nano-history, sports history and intellectual historiography. He publishes from India and abroad. He is a creative writer of historical fiction as well.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 2.20 pm
Michael Madhusudhaner Dwishatabarsho : Biswajit Ray discusses the brilliance of the polymath and his engagement with the West and East. In conversation with Somshankar Ray

Firoz Meeran

Firoz Meeran is the Vice-Chairman at Group Meeran and ME Meeran Foundation and Deputy CEO at Eastern Condiments Private Limited. He also serves as Director of several Group Meeran companies including Eastern Mattress, Eastea, Amethyst Suits Private Limited and Locus Constructions. He supervises investments in startups that hold promise. He is an investor of WeTruck, a digital automated shipping marketplace and CloudSEK, a leading AI-powered digital risk management enterprise. He is passionate about youth-based sports development at the grassroots level and is building opportunities for talent discovery, sports training, coaching and overall development of the sports environment through strategic collaborations with relevant sporting bodies, sports infrastructure investments and corporate partnerships with companies like Scoreline. He aligns Group Meeran’s startup acceleration initiatives with the Group’s goal to serve communities and encourage inclusive growth and urgent social and ecological transformation.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3.50 pm
Beyond Three Generations : MSA Kumar and Firoz Meeran on family businesses. In conversation with Janet Gasper Chowdhury

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator and diplomat who served as the 22nd Governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009. As a former IAS officer, he served as Secretary to the President of India and as High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka, among other administrative and diplomatic posts. He is Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University, India. He is also an eminent author and translator, and has been feted with numerous prestigious awards and honorary degrees. 

Attending Sessions

January 27, 2024 ● 2.30 pm
The Great Flap of 1942 : Gopalkrishna Gandhi introduces Mukund Padmanabhan’s debut book. The author will be in conversation with Krishnan Srinivasan

January 27, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
I Am An Ordinary Man : Gopalkrishna Gandhi speaks about The Mahatma in the years leading to Independence. Release of new edition of Mahatma Gandhi's I Am An Ordinary Man: India’s Struggle For Freedom (1914-1948) 

Gurcharan Das

Gurcharan Das is the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, India, and a regular columnist for The Times of India. He is also a periodic contributor to the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He is the author of a much acclaimed trilogy based on the classical Indian ideals of life’s goals. At fifty, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He is a speaker to some of the world’s largest corporations. His other books include India Grows at Night: A liberal case for a strong state, a novel A Fine Family, a book of essays, an anthology and a prize-winning play about the British in India, which was presented at the Edinburgh Festival. 

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 7.10 pm
Another sort of Freedom : Gurcharan Das discusses his memoirs with Milee Ashwarya 

Heeba Shah

Heeba Shah is an Indian film and theatre actress known for her impressive performances in a variety of roles. She started acting in plays at a young age and eventually became a part of the famous theatre group, Motley, founded by Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani. Among television audiences, she gained recognition with the TV series Balika Vadhu. She made her Bollywood debut in 2002 with the film Mango Souffle. She has also worked in the films Missed Call (2005), Ravi Goes to School (2007), Poorna (2017) and Ghost Stories (2020), amongst others. Her theatre credits include Mughal Bachcha, Chhui Muee and Gharwali. She has also performed in a solo play called, Ekant Ke Rang.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 7 pm
Ismat Apa Ke Naam : Featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and Heeba Shah

Huma Qureshi

Huma Qureshi is a popular and critically-acclaimed Indian actress, model and producer working primarily in Hindi-language cinema. She has received several awards including the Filmfare OTT and Stardust Awards as well as several Filmfare Award nominations. She made her screen debut with Anurag Kashyap’s 2012 crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur. She has played the lead in the romance Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana followed by a role in Ek Thi Daayan. Her other notable works include the black comedy Dedh Ishqiya, the revenge drama Badlapur and the Marathi road drama Highway. She later appeared in films like Jolly LLB 2 and Dobaara: See Your Evil. After appearing in the Tamil film Valimai, she received high praise for her portrayal in the crime thriller Monica, O My Darling. The latest feather in her cap is the publication of her debut fantasy fiction novel Zeba: The Accidental Superhero in 2023.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 1 pm
Zeba The Accidental Superhero : Huma Qureshi on her debut book and the need for feisty heroines in Young Adult writing. In conversation with Janet Gasper Chowdhury

Ishaan Ghosh

Ishaan Ghosh stands out as a front-ranking young tabla player of India. He is the worthy representative of one of the most illustrious families of Indian music. A child prodigy, over the years, he has carved a niche for himself as a dynamic soloist as well as a co-artiste, having performed with various stalwarts in the industry. His novel collaborations with master musicians of genres as diverse as jazz, electronica, Persian, Chinese, Scandinavian and Afro-Cuban have put him in a league of his own. He has conceptualized ARAJ – one of the most popular neoclassical bands of India, which has been rapidly gaining a global following for their power packed performances and innovative musical ideas. Besides, he is regularly invited by global platforms like TEDx as a speaker as well as at youth festivals in universities across the country and abroad. In 2023, he represented India at the United Nations in Geneva and performed as part of UNITAR’s 60th Anniversary Celebrations. He was awarded the Baba Allauddin Khan Yuva Puraskar by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 2012, the Rising Star Award in 2019 and the Kalashree Samman from the Government of Maharashtra in 2020.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope II - Pacheeshey Paa : Riddhi Sen, Surangana Bandyopadhyay and Ishaan Ghosh on the hopes and fears of the quarter lifers. In conversation with Agnijit Sen

Jacek Łumiński

Jacek Łumiński is a dancer and choreographer. He founded the Silesian Dance Theater, which is the first contemporary dance company in Poland that focuses on the development and promotion of dance art, both nationally and internationally. He developed educational and social programmes to create and build a dance audience in Bytom, a city of workers. He began his regional and national ‘crusade’, advocating for the recognition and support of contemporary dance. He has also organized seminars on contemporary dance, criticism and dance history, art management as well as the annual International Contemporary Dance Conference and Performance Festival, one of the most important festivals in Central Europe.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 7.15 pm
What I Have Not Seen Before : An Indo-Polish dance collaboration by Sudarshan Chakravorty (Sapphire) and Jacek Luminski (Luminski Dance Project)

January 26, 2024 ● 7.10 pm
All The World’s A Stage : Jacek Luminski, Suman Mukhopadhyay and Bickram Ghosh discuss how cultural exchanges between countries can become deeper and more meaningful. In conversation with Vikram Iyengar 

Janam Mukherjee

Janam Mukherjee is an Associate Professor of History at Toronto Metropolitan University. He holds a PhD in Anthropology and History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His book, Hungry Bengal: War, Famine, Riots and the End of Empire, incorporates extensive archival and oral history research to draw structural links between war, famine, social upheaval and civil violence in mid-twentieth century Bengal. He is also an anti-war activist, musician and creative writer.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 11.50 am
Hungry Bengal : Janam Mukherjee on the Bengal Famine and the way it shaped history

Janet Gasper Chowdhury

Janet Gasper Chowdhury is a self-proclaimed ‘kaleidoscope’, a cool mom to two independent-minded teenagers and a demanding professional to a high performing team. She, along with her husband, leads an organisation that runs ICSE and CBSE co-ed schools educating over 6500 students as well as a free evening school for underprivileged girl students. She enjoys designing interiors, writing poetry and challenging herself with golf, badminton and recently by playing cricket. With little or no exposure to Hindu mythology while growing up, Amish’s Shiva Trilogy opened up a new world for her and she’s been a fan ever since.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 1 pm
Zeba The Accidental Superhero : Huma Qureshi on her debut book and the need for feisty heroines in Young Adult writing. In conversation with Janet Gasper Chowdhury

January 24, 2024 ● 3.50 pm
Beyond Three Generations : MSA Kumar and Firoz Meeran on family businesses. In conversation with Janet Gasper Chowdhury

Janice Pariat

Janice Pariat is an award-winning author. Among her many honours is the Young Writer Award from the Sahitya Akademi. Her novella The Nine Chambered-Heart was published in the UK and in ten other languages including Italian, Spanish, French and German. Her works include art reviews, book reviews, fiction and poetry and has featured in a wide selection of national magazines and newspapers. Her novel Everything the Light Touches won the Auther Award for Best Fiction in 2023, was longlisted for the JCB Prize, shortlisted for the TATA Lit Live Award and the AttaGallata BLR Best Fiction, and was listed in The New Yorker’s ‘Best Books of 2022’. 

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Everything the Light Touches : Janice Pariat in conversation with Diya Kohli 

Jashodhara Chakraborti

Jashodhara Chakraborti is an alumna of Lady Shri Ram College and IIM Calcutta. She writes, translates and teaches a course on storytelling.  She is the author of two books of The Wordkeepers Trilogy – The Wordkeepers and Skyserpents – the first, a bestseller on debut. She has been a columnist on Scroll.in. In 2019, she created a concept and Bible for a web series with Disney+Hotstar. She recently serialized a translation of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s opera, The Illusion Game, on the digital platform Scrollstack. Her translation of Hemendra Kumar Roy’s iconic adventure, Jawker Dhawn, was published as The Treasure Of The Khasi Hills by Talking Cub Books in 2023.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 5.40 pm
The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas : John Boyne discusses his timeless classic. In conversation with Jashodhara Chakraborti 

January 24, 2024 ● 5.45 pm
Bhoot Bangla - Ghost Stories of Bengal : Jashodhara Chakraborti and Prasun Roy discuss the joys and challenges of translating ghost stories of Hemendra Kumar Roy and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. In conversation with Sanjna Ray

Jayanta Roy

Jayanta Roy is the MD of Peerless General Finance & Investment Company Limited, the parent company of the Peerless Group, which has interests in finance, healthcare, hospitality, real estate and securities. With over twenty-three years of experience in the industry, he leads the overall Group across all businesses. He has initiated and driven diversification plans, reforms and growth strategies with entrepreneurial orientation and youthful energy. He is a former President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
Being Fearless : Examining entrepreneurship in today’s Bengali community. Jayanta Roy, Sucharita Basu and Rudra Chatterjee in conversation with Anindya Paulchaudhuri

Jayanta Sengupta

Jayanta Sengupta is the Director of the Alipore Museum in Kolkata and the former Director of Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata. He taught History at Jadavpur University and previously at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of At the Margins: Discourses of Development, Democracy and Regionalism in Orissa (2015), Those Noble Edifices: The Raj Bhavans of Bengal (Victoria Memorial Hall, 2019) and two books in Bengali named Itihas o Samosomoy: Samaj, Sanskriti, Rajniti (2022) and Hensheldarpan: Bangalir Hanrir Khobor (2023). He has also co-edited The Long History of Partition in Bengal: Event, Memory, Representations (2024).

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 4.30 pm
The First Firangs : Jonathan Gil Harris and Jayanta Sengupta discuss stories of the first European journeymen into India. In conversation with Priyadarshinee Guha

Jerry Pinto

Jerry Pinto is a Mumbai-based poet, novelist, short story writer, translator and journalist. He has a liberal arts as well as a law degree. For his 2006 book Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb on the acclaimed dancer-actress Helen, he went on to receive the National Film Award for the Best Book on Cinema. His debut novel, Em and The Big Hoom, won him a plethora of honours including the Hindu Literary Prize, the Crossword Book Award, the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for fiction and the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 4.10 pm
Shanta Gokhale - A Life In Writing : Shanta Gokhale on her writings in Marathi and English. In conversation with Jerry Pinto

January 25, 2024 ● 4.15 pm
The Hymns of Tukaram : Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto discuss the timeless wisdom of the Bhakti poet. Readings and conversation with Arunava Sinha

John Boyne

John Boyne is the author of fourteen novels for adults, six for younger readers and a collection of short stories. His novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has sold more than eleven million copies worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet and opera. His many international bestsellers include The Heart’s Invisible Furies and A Ladder to the Sky. His novels have been published in fifty-nine languages making him the most translated Irish author of all time.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 5.40 pm
The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas : John Boyne discusses his timeless classic. In conversation with Jashodhara Chakraborti 

January 24, 2024 ● 7.20 pm
Revisiting a classic, sculpting a sequel : Sebastian Faulks and John Boyne on writing sequels to their well-loved classics after more than a decade. In conversation with Pratiti Ganatra 

Jonathan Gil Harris

Jonathan Gil Harris is Professor of English at Ashoka University, India. His research interests include Shakespeare, early modern English theatre, travel literature in the age of colonialism, early modern English writing about India, medieval and early modern silk road culture and global Jewish history. He is also an avid follower of Hindi cinema and his articles on Bollywood and globalization have been published in the Hindustan Times.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 4.30 pm
The First Firangs : Jonathan Gil Harris and Jayanta Sengupta discuss stories of the first European journeymen into India. In conversation with Priyadarshinee Guha

Kamal Shah

When kidney failure struck twenty-one-year-old Kamal Shah in 1997 and threatened to derail his life, he fought back to take control. Dealing with each setback life threw at him with stoic bravery, he figured a way out each time. With lessons learnt dealing with the disease, he co-founded NephroPlus, a patient-centric dialysis company along with Vikram Vuppala, a healthcare strategy consultant. They revolutionized dialysis care in India and beyond to become India’s largest dialysis services company. He has a widely-read blog about his travails with kidney disease and wrote Silver Lining where he recounts his entire journey.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope III - Against All Odds : Kamal Shah and Minu Budhia on living with medical challenges and accepting the differently abled. In conversation with Shruti Mohta

Kazi Khaleed Ashraf

Kazi Khaleed Ashraf is an architect, urbanist and architectural historian and critic. He is currently the Director-General of Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Working between speculative design and reflective writings, he has authored books and essays, conducted research and design projects, mobilized programmes for the public realm and taught and practiced architecture in Bangladesh and the US. His publications on Bangladesh have provided a theoretical ground for understanding both the historical and contemporary forms of architecture in that region. His work and that of his team’s at Bengal Institute has established new norms for thinking about deltaic settlements and their present and future. He is also a co-founder of the popular Bangla humor magazine, Unmad, established in 1978, in which he contributed as a caricaturist. His editorial drawings have appeared in The Nation, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Great Padma : Amitav Ghosh and Kazi Khaleed Ashraf discuss the river’s impact on the region’s history and imagination. In conversation with Supriya Chaudhuri

KR Meera

KR Meera is an Indian author and journalist who writes in Malayalam. She started writing fiction in 2001 and her first short story collection Ormayude Njarambu was published in 2002. Since then she has published five collections of short stories, two novellas, five novels and two children’s books. For her short story Ave Maria, she won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009. Her novel Aarachaar is widely regarded as one of the best literary works produced in the Malayalam language and was shortlisted for the 2016 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 6.15 pm
State of Focus: Kerala
Kerala Chronicles I : KR Meera discusses her new novel The Assassin with Sampad Patnaik

January 25, 2024 ● 6.20 pm
The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told : AJ Thomas, KR Meera and Anand Neelakantan in conversation with Malavika Banerjee

Krishnan Srinivasan

Krishnan Srinivasan is a retired Indian diplomat, historian, author, former Indian Foreign Secretary and Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he has also been India’s Ambassador/High Commissioner to Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, The Netherlands and Bangladesh. He is a regular columnist and book reviewer and has  written books on world politics and detective novels. His articles appear in leading newspapers and periodicals. Among many prestigious honours, he has been a member of Christ Church, Oxford’s Senior Common Room and High Table from 1998 to 2016; Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge (2002–05); Fellow of the Centre for International Studies Cambridge (2002–05); Fellow of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies London (2002–08); Fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (2003–04); Fellow of the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata from 2006 to 2015; and Fellow of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study at Uppsala in 2008 and 2012–13. He was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Valeur (Cameroon) in 2007.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 2.30 pm
The Great Flap of 1942 : Gopalkrishna Gandhi introduces Mukund Padmanabhan’s debut book. The author will be in conversation with Krishnan Srinivasan

Laila Tyabji

Laila Tyabji is social worker, designer, author and Chairperson and founder member of Dastkar, an NGO working with crafts and craftspeople all over India. Her work with artisans over the last forty-five years includes the Chikan workers of SEWA Lucknow, Lambani tribals in Karnataka as well as Ari, mirror-work, Sujni, and Kantha craftswomen in Kashmir, Kutch, Bihar and Bengal. Some of her most rewarding and exciting projects involve creating new employment avenues through crafts for pastoral and marginalised rural communities – bonded labour in Bihar, displaced villages in Ranthambore and victims of insurgency in Kashmir. She writes and speaks regularly on craft, design and social issues and is part of numerous government and non-government committees and think-tanks on crafts, culture and development. She has received several prestigious awards including the Aid to Artisans’ Preservation of Craft Award in 2003, the NIFT Lifetime Achievement Award and the Padma Shri in 2012.

Attending Sessions

January 26, 2024 ● 11 am
Indian by Design : Laila Tyabji and Tarun Tahiliani discuss how India’s textile traditions can speak through haute couture. In conversation with Malavika Banerjee  

January 27, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope IV - Yarns of Resilience : Laila Tyabji and Bappaditya Biswas on how artisans are forging a path ahead amid diverse challenges. In conversation with Nandita Palchoudhuri

Laksmisree Banerjee

Laksmisree Banerjee is a multiple award-winning poet, author, literary critic, educationist, editor and practicing radio and TV vocalist. She is an International Senior Fulbright Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar and National Scholar from the Calcutta University as well as a UGC Post-Doctoral Research Awardee and Former Vice-Chancellor and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Kolhan University, Eastern India. She has eleven poetry collections and innumerable academic publications to her credit. 

Among her many awards are two international awards for lifetime achievement in art and literature, International Panorama Award for Poetry, Kala Ratnam Award, Asian Literary Society Women Achievers’ Award and the Sahitya Akademi’s Avishkar Award. An active Rotarian and a former nominee of the Indian Rashtrapati on several central university boards, she is passionate about using the potency of her pen and voice for social transformations and international peace.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.15 pm
Poetry Medley : Renu Roy, Laksmisree Banerjee and Ajanta Paul in conversation with Ashoke Vishwanathan. Readings and discussion.

MSA Kumar

MSA Kumar, an IIMA alumnus, is a family business adviser and a CEO coach, with expertise in managing family dynamics when scaling up. He worked in multinationals like Bayer and Sandoz and Indian Family businesses like AVT Thomas & Co. He was the Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Kerala and President of TiE, Kerala.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3.50 pm
Beyond Three Generations : MSA Kumar and Firoz Meeran on family businesses. In conversation with Janet Gasper Chowdhury

Madhavi Menon

Madhavi Menon is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality at Ashoka University, India. She is the author of several books on Shakespeare and queer theory and editor of Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare (2011). Her other books include Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India (2018) and The Law of Desire: Rulings on Sex and Sexuality in India (2021).

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Decolonising The English Literary Curriculum : Sukanta Chaudhuri and Ankhi Mukherjee discuss her co-edited collection of essays in conversation with Madhavi Menon

January 25, 2024 ● 6 pm
The Laws of Desire : Madhavi Menon discusses her deep dive into the court rulings and the Constitution’s stand on matters of gender and sexuality. In conversation with Monideepa Banerjie

Maharghya Chakraborty

Maharghya Chakraborty is a teacher, literary translator and has also worked extensively as a social media and communications consultant. His interests in cinema and archiving as part of his research concerns included a tenure of working as a digital archivist in the Media Lab of Jadavpur University as well as working as a freelance writer of film subtitles. He has translated works by Taslima Nasrin, Gulzar, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay and many others. At present, he is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies and Cultural Studies in the Department of Multimedia at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 5 pm
Prothom Mudron, Bhalobasha/A House of Rain and Snow : Srijato and Maharghya Chakraborty discuss the novel and its translation. In conversation with Somak Ghosh

Manoj Mohanka

Manoj Mohanka is ostensibly a businessman but far more interested in affairs of the state and the state of affairs. He serves on the board of several corporations both in India and abroad across genres. In all these companies he has played a variety of roles including formulating business strategy, building management teams, raising capital and negotiating foreign collaborations and IPOs. He is also keen on sports and has been the President of Calcutta Racket Club, India’s oldest squash club. In addition, he runs a charitable trust for the education of Muslim girl children.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Adman Madman : Prahlad Kakar speaks about his memoirs, iconic advertising and brand India. In conversation with Manoj Mohanka

January 27, 2024 ● 6 pm
Fire On The Ganges : Radhika Iyengar discusses her book on the Doms of Benares with Manoj Mohanka

Mark Gevisser

Mark Gevisser is an award-winning South African author and journalist. His most recent book is The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers, which has a chapter on India. His other books include Lost and Found in Johannesburg; A Memoir, A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream, and the pioneering anthology Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. His journalism and commentary has been published in the New York Times,The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, Granta, The Observerand elsewhere. He has also made an award-winning documentary, The Man Who Drove WIth Mandela, and worked as a heritage curator. He is currently writing a biography of the German-Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who visited Kolkata as part of a ten-week lecture tour of India in 1931. He lives outside Cape Town with his husband.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 6.50 pm
The Pink Line : Mark Gevisser, Niladri R Chatterjee and Sandip Roy discuss chronicling and discovering queer stories across the globe. In conversation with Sampad Patnaik

January 26, 2024 ● 2.50 pm
Many Africas, Many Stories : Abdulrazak Gurnah, Damon Galgut and Mark Gevisser on how contemporary African literature eludes stereotyping to emerge as the continent of stories. In conversation with Sandip Roy 

Mihaela Gligor

Mihaela Gligor is a Senior Scientific Researcher in the field of Philosophy of Culture at The Romanian Academy, Director and Founder of Cluj Center for Indian Studies from Babes-Bolyai University and a part of many other prestigious institutes. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Romanian Journal of Indian Studies. Among several other publications, she is the editor of Tagore Beyond Borders: Essays on His Influence and Cultural Legacy.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 6.15 pm
Between Two Worlds : Mihaela Gligor and Chinmoy Guha discuss Bengal’s influence on the writings of Mircea Eliade. In conversation with Sagnik Bhattacharya

Milee Ashwarya

Milee Ashwarya is the Publisher of the Adult Publishing Group at Penguin Random House India. In her role, she leads the frontlist and backlist publishing programmes for the group under imprints like Allen Lane, Vintage, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Ebury Press, Penguin Business, Penguin Ananda, Penguin Classics and so on.  An award-winning publisher, her focus has been on championing diverse voices, discovering talented debut writers and building on the inclusive programme at Penguin Random House India.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 7.10 pm
Another sort of Freedom : Gurcharan Das discusses his memoirs with Milee Ashwarya 

January 27, 2024 ● 11 am
Moulding The Future : Raghuram Rajan talks to GenNext about future hopes and challenges. In conversation with Milee Ashwarya

Minu Budhia

Psychotherapist and counselor Minu Budhia is also a popular columnist and TEDx speaker. Passionate about mental healthcare and special needs education, she is the Founder-Director of Caring Minds (Institute of Mental Health), ICanFlyy (Institute for Special Needs) and Café ICanFlyy (Empowering the Specially Abled). She is also Director at Patton Group and AddLife Fitness & Spa. A staunch believer in ‘happiness is an inside job’ and a fitness enthusiast, she has authored a memoir Death of a Caterpillar, which explores her battle with depression and her journey as a special needs mother.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope III - Against All Odds : Kamal Shah and Minu Budhia on living with medical challenges and accepting the differently abled. In conversation with Shruti Mohta

Monideepa Banerjie

Monideepa Banerjie Is a Kolkata-based journalist reporting on contemporary politics in West Bengal. She is, in fact, the most familiar face of Kolkata on National TV, having covered everything east for India’s premier news channel NDTV for the last twenty-eight years. She began her career with The Telegraph, was one of the earliest journalists in the country to transition to television and is a Chevening Scholar (1997) and a Fulbright Fellow (2001). She remains a newshound today, working independently across platforms and watching the media in India march to drum beats that have certainly changed since she joined the profession forty years ago!

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 6 pm
The Laws of Desire : Madhavi Menon discusses her deep dive into the court rulings and the Constitution’s stand on matters of gender and sexuality. In conversation with Monideepa Banerjie

January 26, 2024 ● 2.50 pm
The Colonial Constitution : Arghya Sengupta discusses his new examination of constitutional history. In conversation with Monideepa Banerjie

Mukund Padmanabhan

Mukund Padmanabhan is former editor of The Hindu and the Hindu BusinessLine. He has also worked for The Indian Express in Chennai and for Sunday magazine in Kolkata. He has written extensively on political, legal and literary subjects. He is currently a Visiting Professor of Practice at the newly-established Krea University where he teaches Philosophy and related disciplines. He was an adjunct faculty at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines where he taught media law and advanced writing for postgraduate students from all over Asia. He is the Chairman of the World Editors Forum (South Asia chapter) of the World Association of Newspapers. The Great Flap of 1942 is his first book.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 2.30 pm
The Great Flap of 1942 : Gopalkrishna Gandhi introduces Mukund Padmanabhan’s debut book. The author will be in conversation with Krishnan Srinivasan

Nandita Palchoudhuri

Nandita Palchoudhuri is a social entrepreneur curating and consulting internationally in the field of Indian folk art, craft and performance practices. She has worked on large-scale craft-based projects using Chandannagar lights, sholapith sculpture, giant animal puppets, Kumartulli clay images and storytelling scrolls of Naya. These have been presented across India, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and the United States. She is a Clore-Chevening Scholar in Cultural Leadership, UK. She is also ex-Chairperson and Trustee, India Foundation for the Arts;  Member, FICCI-Art and Culture Committee and Ford Foundation – International Initiative for Social Philanthropy; and Trustee of Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta School of Music, Alliance Francaise and Neemrana Music Foundation, amongst others. She is trained in Indian classical vocal music under Padma Vibhushan Smt Girija Devi.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope IV - Yarns of Resilience : Laila Tyabji and Bappaditya Biswas on how artisans are forging a path ahead amid diverse challenges. In conversation with Nandita Palchoudhuri

Naseeruddin Shah

Widely regarded as one of the finest actors in World Cinema, Naseeruddin Shah has featured in innumerable Indian films as well as in various international productions. He has received three National Film Awards, three Filmfare Awards, and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. For his contribution to Indian cinema, the Government of India has honoured him with the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan. Alongside films, he has acted and directed extensively on stage, directed a feature film and short films, and written his memoir titled And Then One Day.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 7 pm
Ismat Apa Ke Naam : Featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and Heeba Shah

Natasha Celmi

Natasha Celmi is a chef, cookbook author and entrepreneur. Her work revolves around the concept of ‘smart cooking’- minimum effort with maximum flavour. Her book Fast Fresh Flavourful has been a tremendous success and won the Gourmand Cookbook Awards 2020. She emphasizes international flavours with quick and easy recipes using local ingredients. She believes that good food should be a balance of flavours and nutrition using fresh seasonal produce. Her experience in the food industry started in 2005 with the Mama Mia chain of gelato shops in India offering gourmet artisan ice creams and desserts. While she enjoys all types of cuisines, she has a soft spot for the Italian and Mediterranean kitchens. 

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 11.30 am
My Mediterranean Table : Natasha Celmi discusses her tryst with Italian cuisine. In conversation with Poorna Banerjee 

Niladri R Chatterjee

Niladri R Chatterjee is Professor of English at the University of Kalyani in West Bengal. He has co-edited The Muffled Heart: Stories of the Disempowered Male and Naribhav: Androgyny and Female Impersonation in India. He is also the author of a novel called The Scholar. Since March 2020, he has started posting videos on his YouTube channel. His areas of interest are masculinity studies and queer studies. His latest book is Entering the Maze: Queer Fiction of Krishnagopal Mallick, a translation of the queer narratives of the Bengali writer Krishnagopal Mallick. This book has now been shortlisted in the Fiction category of the 2023 Rainbow Awards for Literature and Journalism.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 6.50 pm
The Pink Line : Mark Gevisser, Niladri R Chatterjee and Sandip Roy discuss chronicling and discovering queer stories across the globe. In conversation with Sampad Patnaik

Nilanjana S Roy

Nilanjana S Roy is a writer and editor. Her novels include the award-winning The Wilding series. Her first work of noir fiction Black River was named one of the best crime novels of 2023 by The Guardian. She has edited three anthologies including Our Freedoms and A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing on Food. She is also a columnist with the Financial Times.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 11.40 am
A Life in Writing : Abdulrazak Gurnah on his celebrated works. In conversation with Nilanjana S Roy

January 25, 2024 ● 4.50 pm
Black River : Nilanjana S Roy discusses her novel with Vikram Iyengar

Nilanjana Sengupta

Nilanjana Sengupta is an author based in Singapore. Her last publication was The Votive Pen: Writings on Edwin Thumboo, shortlisted for both the Singapore Literature Prize 2022 and Singapore Book Awards 2021. Her other books include A Gentleman’s Word: The Legacy of Subhas Chandra Bose in Southeast Asia, The Female Voice of Myanmar: Khin Myo Chit to Aung San Suu Kyi and Singapore, My Country: Biography of M Bala Subramanian. She also writes for The Straits Times and for publications of the National Heritage Board, Singapore. Her books have been critically acclaimed, adopted for university courses and translated into multiple languages. She has been associated with the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute as well as NUS in various research capacities.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12.50 pm
Like A Prayer :  Nilanjana Sengupta and Soma Bose on home, prayer and women. In conversation with Shahana Chatterjee

Payal Mohanka

Payal Mohanka started her career as a journalist with the Illustrated Weekly of India and spent over a decade with the magazine covering a wide range of subjects. In 1995, she was selected for the prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge. She then moved to India’s leading broadcast media company, TV18, where she reported for India Business Report telecast weekly on BBC World and CNBC India for almost eight years. In 2002, she made a documentary on Chandernagor, a former French colony, titled Little France on the Hooghly and in 2003, she made a documentary on Mother Teresa, From Saint to Sainthood, which was screened at the Nehru Centre in London and telecast on CNN-IBN and Doordarshan International. In 2007, her book In the Shadows: Unknown Craftsmen of Bengal was published. Her detailed article in the British think tank magazine The Round Table titled Religion and Conflict in India: A Sikh Perspective is part of the course work at the South Asia Institute of Harvard University

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 2.20 pm
Look Ahead in Anger : Siddhartha Deb and Devika Rege discuss their new novels on contemporary times. In conversation with Payal Mohanka

Perumal Murugan

Perumal Murugan is an Indian writer, scholar, and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has written twelve novels, six collections of short stories, six anthologies of poetry and many non-fiction books. Ten of his novels have been translated into English. In 2005, Seasons of the Palm was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize. In 2017, the English translation of his novel Madhorubhagan/One Part Woman  by Aniruddhan Vasudevan won the Sahitya Akademi’s Translation Prize. In 2023, the English translation of his novel Pookuzhi/Pyre by Aniruddhan Vasudevan has been longlisted for the International Booker Prize. His novel Fire Bird has won the JCB Prize in 2023.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 5.40 pm
Firebird : JCB Prize winner Perumal Murugan discusses his prize-winning novel with Arunava Sinha and SV Raman

Pinaki De

Pinaki De is a multiple award-winning graphic illustrator-designer who regularly works for renowned publishers like Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Routledge, Bloomsbury, Roli, Rupa and many others. He has designed almost five hundred book covers till date. He has won the Publishing Next prize for best book cover design in India in 2017 and 2019. His cover for Kalkatta by Kunal Basu won the prestigious Oxford Bookstore prize for the best cover design in India at the Jaipur Literary Fest 2017. His layout design on Satyajit Ray’s archival manuscripts has drawn accolades from all across the globe. A Charles Wallace Trust Fellow, his PhD is in comics theory. He is one of the editors of the prestigious annual magazine Longform, generally regarded as the first global comics magazine from India. He is the Indian comics advisor of Mangasia, the biggest ever exhibition on Asian Comics curated by Paul Gravett for the Barbican, London. His book-length comics on the Partition is due next year. He is also an Associate Professor at Raja Peary Mohan College, Uttarpara.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 4 pm
Abol Taboler Shatabdi : Sukanta Chaudhuri and Sarnath Banerjee discuss the madness and genius of Sukumar Ray’s classic. In conversation with Pinaki De

January 27, 2024 ● 3.30 pm
The Moral Contagion : Sarnath Banerjee in conversation with Pinaki De

January 27, 2024 ● 4.20 pm
Dream Machine : Appupen discusses his new graphic novel on Artificial Intelligence. In conversation with Pinaki De

Poorna Banerjee

Poorna Banerjee is a food writer, restaurant critic, PR consultant and social media strategist. Her blog, Presented by P, was the first significant (and still-running) food blog from Kolkata. She has written for numerous regional and national publications  including NDTV Food and Sananda. A literature graduate, she started her career in food writing from her blog, which features easy recipes, quick meal plans, and reviews of restaurants, hotels, and products that she finds interesting. She is also a successful social media strategist and PR consultant and is associated with several well-known brands. She is extremely interested in food history and culinary anthropology and loves books, music, traveling and a glass of wine.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 4.30 pm
Sweets And Bitters : Satish Arora on his culinary encounters from the Queen to the POTUS. In conversation with Poorna Banerjee

January 25, 2024 ● 11.30 am
My Mediterranean Table : Natasha Celmi discusses her tryst with Italian cuisine. In conversation with Poorna Banerjee 

Poulami Chatterjee Bose

Poulami Chatterjee Bose is an actor, theatre director, dancer, choreographer and the Artistic Director of her theatre group Mukhomukhi. She started her acting career under Utpal Dutt and has worked in many plays under the direction of her father, Late Soumitra Chatterjee. She has also worked with other directors including Suman Mukhopadhyay, Biplab Bandyopadhyay, Abanti Chakraborty and Dwijen Banerjee. She has choreographed, directed, and performed in a dance-theatre production Kaalmrigaya. She also directed and acted as the lead in Phera, which was selected for the 8th Theatre Olympics hosted by NSD in 2018. Her other acting and directorial credits include Ghotok Bidaii, Duti Kapurusher Katha, Andha Yug and Typist. She has also directed and performed a solo piece in English called Of Mothers and Sons in 2022. In 2023, she directed Janmantar written by her father consisting of a huge cast of almost thirty people. She also runs her own dance institute Aanarto. She received the Shyamal Sen Smriti Purashkar for the play Supari Killer and was recently honoured with the Rama Prasad Banik Purashkar.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 4.45 pm
Nayika Sangbad : Senjuti Roy Mukherjee and Poulami Chatterjee Bose on Women in Bangla Group Theatre. In conversation with Aparajita Dasgupta

Prahlad Kakar

Prahlad Kakar is a celebrated ad-film director and co-founder of Genesis Film Production, one of India’s oldest and foremost ad-film production houses. He has ruled the advertising world with his brand of irreverent humour and memorable brand-building campaigns. He has to his credit numerous award-winning commercials made for the most reputed corporates and agencies in India and the Asia-Pacific region. His 2023 no-holds barred memoir, titled Adman Madman, captures his rollercoaster journey in life and in the world of advertising.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Adman Madman : Prahlad Kakar speaks about his memoirs, iconic advertising and brand India. In conversation with Manoj Mohanka

Prasun Roy

Prasun Roy is a bestselling author of several books known for their gripping and appealing narrative style written in simple language. He has written extensively in the genres of biography, translations, history, crime thrillers, mythology and the paranormal. Prasun has a remarkable lineup of fiction titles in varied subgenres of mystery, adventure, young-adult, and thriller. Two of his fiction titles for young adults have been selected as supplementary reads for students at a prominent school in Vadodara. He has delivered lectures at eminent institutes like IIT Kanpur, Maharaja Sayajirao University (Baroda), IIT Delhi in association with IHAR/DRDO/Ministry of Culture/Ministry of Defence/IGNCA/Rishihood University, All India Radio and The National Library. He has been a prominent speaker at many prestigious literary festivals.  An alumnus of IIM Lucknow, La Martiniere for Boys and Dolna Day School, he runs his family-owned business of pharmaceutical manufacturing and marketing jointly headquartered in Vadodara and Kolkata.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 5.45 pm
Bhoot Bangla - Ghost Stories of Bengal : Jashodhara Chakraborti and Prasun Roy discuss the joys and challenges of translating ghost stories of Hemendra Kumar Roy and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. In conversation with Sanjna Ray

Pratiti Ganatra

Pratiti Ganatra is a marketing and communications professional who brings innovation to the literary landscape as a writer, editor and a seasoned event manager. With a rich background in literature festivals, sports events and online magazine curation, her expertise extends to leading teams and navigating diverse challenges. Since 2017, she served as the coordinator for the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet and its satellite festivals in Bhubaneswar and Ranchi. A sports enthusiast, and an avid reader with a passion for travel, she is currently engaged in crafting innovative and dynamic marketing solutions with her newly-formed agency Hyype.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 7.20 pm
Revisiting a classic, sculpting a sequel : Sebastian Faulks and John Boyne on writing sequels to their well-loved classics after more than a decade. In conversation with Pratiti Ganatra 

Priyadarshinee Guha

A gold medallist in Modern History, Priyadarshinee Guha is in charge of the senior school humanities programme and the entire co-scholastic activities at Indus Valley World School, Kolkata. Her vast experience of over twenty-five years in teaching and teacher training helps her to promote novel and creative approaches to teaching. With her multifaceted talents and love for the arts, she is able to steer students to explore varied avenues of expression through drama, dance, singing, music and literary endeavors. Passionate about teaching, she chose to make this her life force. Born into a family steeped in reading, theatre and cinema, these influences have enhanced her work enormously over the years.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 12.50 pm
Republic of Hope I - I Kick and I Fly : Ruchira Gupta discusses her debut novel and how stories can inspire and empower. In conversation with Priyadarshinee Guha

January 26, 2024 ● 4.30 pm
The First Firangs : Jonathan Gil Harris and Jayanta Sengupta discuss stories of the first European journeymen into India. In conversation with Priyadarshinee Guha

Priyanka Roy

When not immersed in writing about the worlds of Hollywood, Bollywood and streaming, Priyanka Roy will be found planning a holiday or dreaming of a spa day. Assistant Editor (Films) with The Telegraph t2, she loves a good conversation on cinema and enjoys critiquing films, good, bad and ugly.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 6.45 pm
The Promise : Premiere of Tigmanshu Dhulia’s The Promise presented by Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films. Tigmanshu Dhulia in conversation with Priyanka Roy

Radhika Iyengar

Radhika Iyengar is an award-winning journalist based in Mumbai, who writes on arts and culture, marginalized communities, history and gender. Her debut non-fiction novel is titled Fire on the Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banaras. She’s a graduate of Columbia University and has won the Red Ink award for Excellence in Indian Journalism in 2018 and has also been a recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship, the Sanskriti Prabha Dutt Fellowship and Sangam House Residency. Her work has been published in Al Jazeera, Christian Science Monitor, Atlas Obscura, Netflix, Hyperallergic, Vogue (India), Conde Nast Traveller (India), Platform magazine, Open magazine, Scroll.in and Goya Journal amongst other publications.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 6 pm
Fire On The Ganges : Radhika Iyengar discusses her book on the Doms of Benares with Manoj Mohanka

Raghuram Rajan

Raghuram Rajan is an Indian economist and the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Between 2003 and 2006, he was Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund. From September 2013 through September 2016, he was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. In 2015, during his tenure at the RBI, he became the Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements. In 2003, he received the inaugural Fischer Black Prize, given every two years by the American Finance Association to the financial economist younger than forty who has made the most significant contribution to the theory and practice of finance. His book Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award in 2010. In 2016, he was named by Time in its list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’.

Attending Sessions

January 26, 2024 ● 3.30 pm
Breaking The Mould : Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba discuss their new book. In conversation with Rudra Chatterjee 

January 27, 2024 ● 11 am
Moulding The Future : Raghuram Rajan talks to GenNext about future hopes and challenges. In conversation with Milee Ashwarya

Rajarshi Dhara

Final year student from the Department of Bengali at Presidency University, Rajarshi Dhara is a theatre worker who is currently producing and directing plays independently. He has been editing a magazine called A-mrita for the past four years. He has also edited an interview-based book on well-known singer-composer Anindya Chatterjee called Vindesi Taraar Nabik.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
A(nindya) Theke Chandrabindoo : Anindya Chatterjee, Sajjad Hussain and Rajarshi Dhara in conversation with Agnijit Sen

Ratna Pathak Shah 

Ratna Pathak Shah is an Indian actress and director known for her work in Hindi and English theatre, television and films. She rose to prominence when she appeared in the hit TV serial Idhar Udhar in the 1980s.She garnered widespread recognition and acclaim with her portrayal of Maya Sarabhai in the cult sitcom Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. Her other prominent roles have been in Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, the family comedy-drama Kapoor and Sons and the black-comedy Lipstick Under My Burkha, all of which earned her nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the co-founder and an active member of Motley Theatre Group.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 7 pm
Ismat Apa Ke Naam : Featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and Heeba Shah

Renu Roy

Renu Roy is a well-known personality in the field of performing, visual, and fine arts and has been founder-director of Spandan, a reputed cultural foundation in Kolkata, which has presented innumerable stage shows including full-fledged cultural festivals. Spandan Films was her cinematic initiative with the celebrated filmmaker Aparna Sen. She also spearheaded her own theatre group as an acclaimed actor, script writer, producer and director. Her numerous accolades include the Bharat Nirman Award, Kalakar Award and the National Film Award (The Golden Lotus) as producer of the Best Feature Film (Unishe April) directed by the late Rituparno Ghosh. The Far Side and Other Poems is her third volume of poetry. She is currently working on a book of short fiction.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.15 pm
Poetry Medley : Renu Roy, Laksmisree Banerjee and Ajanta Paul in conversation with Ashoke Vishwanathan. Readings and discussion.

Riddhi Sen

Riddhi Sen is a well-known Indian screen and stage actor. He is the youngest actor in India to win the National Film Award for his performance in the Bengali film Nagarkirtan. In 2019, Film Companion ranked his work in Nagarkirtan amongst the 100 Greatest Performances of the Decade. He made his film debut with Sujoy’s Ghosh’s Kahaani (2012) and has received critical acclaim for his performances in the films Children of War, Parched, Chauranga, Open Tee Bioscope, Samantaral and Helicopter Eela. His directorial debut Coldfire won the Best Sci-Fi Short Film at the Miami Film Festival. A prodigious talent, he was offered a scholarship to the Youth Theatre for Actors Summer School in The Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London) by The British Council at the age of twelve. His theatre performances include several productions under the banner of Swapnasandhani directed by Koushik Sen – Prachya (2000), Bhalo Rakkhosher Gawlpo (2005), Daakghor (2007), Macbeth (2012) and Taraye Taraye (2018). His performance in the recent production of Hamlet (2022) has been highly lauded.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Mephisto : A play by Suman Mukhopadhyay featuring Anirban Bhattacharya, Riddhi Sen and others

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope II - Pacheeshey Paa : Riddhi Sen, Surangana Bandyopadhyay and Ishaan Ghosh on the hopes and fears of the quarter lifers. In conversation with Agnijit Sen

Rohit Lamba

Rohit Lamba is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Pennsylvania State University and a visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at New York University Abu Dhabi. He is an economic theorist with wide interests in applied and policy-related questions. He received a  PhD in economics from Princeton University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge. He publishes regularly in leading academic journals and newspapers. He has also worked as an economist at the office of the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 3.30 pm
Breaking The Mould : Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba discuss their new book. In conversation with Rudra Chatterjee 

Ronya Othmann 

Ronya Othmann was born in Munich in 1993 and lives in Leipzig. She received, among others, the MDR Literature Prize, the Caroline Schlegel Prize for Essay Writing, the Open Mic Poetry Prize, the Gertrud Kolmar Prize and the Audience Prize of the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition. In 2018, she was on the jury of the International Film Festival in Duhok in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, Iraq; and wrote the OrientExpress column on Middle East politics. Since 2021, she has been writing the Import Export column for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. In 2019, she received the Audience Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition for her text Seventy-Four about the genocide of the Ezidis and the Gertrud Kolmar Prize for her poem I have seen. Her most recent publications include her debut novel Die Sommer (2020) for which she was awarded the Mara Cassens Prize and the volume of poems  Die Krimi (2021) for which she received the Orphil Debut Prize and the Düsseldorf Poetry Debut Prize.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 12 noon
The Muse Called Strife : Ronya Othmann in conversation with SV Raman (Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan session)

Roopsha Dasguupta

Roopsha Dasguupta is an eminent Radio Professional of Bengal, a columnist, author, actor and voiceover artist. With an MA in English, a PGD in Mass Communication and Psychological Counselling, Roopsha has an experience of more than 20+ years. In the past, she had been RJ (Radio Mirchi); Regional Head (RED FM); Director (Aamar FM), and a Consultant to Spice FM (Bangladesh). In her extensive radio career, she has interviewed outstanding luminaries — Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Oscar winner AR Rahman, ex-President Late Sri Pranab Mukherjee, superstar Amitabh Bachchan, cricketers Kapil Dev, Sourav Ganguly, Late Andrew Symonds, singer Asha Bhonsle and many more. The last concert of Late Manna De at Coffeehouse Kolkata was her brainchild. ‘RJ Rupsha’s Coffeehouse Classics’ was the No.1 radio show in Kolkata between 2009-2011. A few of her campaigns for Radio Mirchi, and RED FM are historical and once-in-a-lifetime. As an anchor, she has been a part of more than 2500+ events across many countries: India, Australia, Germany, the UK, Thailand and Bangladesh. Her first dubbing assignment for actor Radhika Apte in the National Award-winning Bengali Film ‘Antaheen’ was highly appreciated. She continues as a voice artist for many renowned advertisements, and produces OTT content (Netflix, Amazon and Hotstar) and hosts Podcasts. A visiting faculty for institutes and universities, a trainer and a writer, she is always a student learning from life, every day.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
State of Focus: Kerala
Literature's Own Country : Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal, Shri CV Ananda Bose, talks about the literary heritage of Kerala. Opens inaugural State of Focus programme. Reading by Roopsha Dasguupta and musical presentations

Ruchira Gupta

Ruchira Gupta is an Emmy-winning journalist and founder of Apne Aap, a non-governmental organization that works for women’s rights and the eradication of sex trafficking. I Kick and I Fly is her debut fiction novel. She has been awarded the French Ordre National du Mérite, the Clinton Global Citizen Award and the UN NGO CSW Woman of Distinction, amongst other honors. She has co-written a book with Gloria Steinem, As If Women Matter, and edited two anthologies, River of Flesh and Renu’s Letters to Birju Babu. She has worked for the United Nations in Nepal, Thailand, Kosovo, Iran and the USA. She occasionally teaches at the New York University’s Center for Global Affairs as a visiting faculty.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 12.50 pm
Republic of Hope I - I Kick and I Fly : Ruchira Gupta discusses her debut novel and how stories can inspire and empower. In conversation with Priyadarshinee Guha

Rudra Chatterjee

Rudra Chatterjee is the MD of Luxmi Group and the Chairman of Obeetee. Luxmi is a tea producer with estates in Assam, West Bengal and Tripura in India and in Rwanda, Africa. Makaibari, acquired by Luxmi in 2013, produces some of the most famous teas in the world. He is also a Director of Luxmi Township that develops vibrant and inclusive urban spaces. Obeetee is India’s largest carpet company that exports carpets to the United States and Europe and has won numerous Indian and International awards for its social accountability, environment stewardship and design leadership.In 2016, he founded Manor and Mews, a UK-based furniture company.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
Being Fearless : Examining entrepreneurship in today’s Bengali community. Jayanta Roy, Sucharita Basu and Rudra Chatterjee in conversation with Anindya Paulchaudhuri

January 26, 2024 ● 3.30 pm
Breaking The Mould : Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba discuss their new book. In conversation with Rudra Chatterjee 

S Hareesh

S Hareesh is a writer and screenwriter. His debut novel, Moustache, won the JCB Prize, the Indian literary award with the highest prize money. It also won The Kerala Sahithya Academy Award and the prestigious Vayalar Award. His short story collection, Adam, also won The Kerala Sahithya Academy Award. Four of his movies have been selected for the competition section of the International Film Festival of Kerala. Aedan, a film based on his short story for which he also wrote the screenplay, won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Screenplay in 2017. His film, Jallikattu, had premiered at Toronto International Film festival and was India’s official entry for the 2020 Oscars. Jallikattu also received The Silver Peacock at the 50th International Film Festival of India. His film, Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam, won the Kerala State Film Award for the Best film in 2022.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 7 pm
Kerala Chronicles II : S Hareesh discusses his award-winning novel Meesha (The Moustache). In conversation with Debnita Chakravarti

Sagnik Bhattacharya

Sagnik Bhattacharya joined the Education Unit of Victoria Memorial Hall after completing his postgraduate studies at Presidency University, Kolkata. Interested in 19th and 20th century cultural and political histories, he has recently authored, Can the Colonised Make Sense: Three Essays on Nineteenth Century Bengali Non-Sense Literature in 2021 and the first Bengali translation of Kondapalli Koteshwaramma’s autobiography, Nirjan Setu, in 2023. Currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute of History, University of Bern, he is a historian-in-training researching indigenous rights discourses in Eastern India.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 6.15 pm
Between Two Worlds : Mihaela Gligor and Chinmoy Guha discuss Bengal’s influence on the writings of Mircea Eliade. In conversation with Sagnik Bhattacharya

Sajjad Hussain

Sajjad Hussain’s career started with children’s literature, which then transformed into a journey of lyric writing. He has been writing songs for the iconic Bangladeshi band LRB for a long time as well as lyrics for many of Ayub Bachchu’s compositions. He has also written songs for films. He produced television programmes for many years. He founded the publishing company Chhapakhanar Bhoot in 2018 with the publication of his biography of Anjan Dutta titled Anjanayatra. His other books include Natyanjan, Anjanadhya Gaan, Saumitrakshar, Madhabir Jonno, Ekhane Mrityu Nei (Part I & II) and others. He has also written about the pioneering Bengali band Mohiner Ghoraguli.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
A(nindya) Theke Chandrabindoo : Anindya Chatterjee, Sajjad Hussain and Rajarshi Dhara in conversation with Agnijit Sen

Sampad Patnaik

Sampad Patnaik is a recipient of the Homi Bhabha Fellowship for the years 2023-25. He has worked as a journalist with The Indian Express (Delhi) and Reuters News. At present, he contributes in the capacity of a freelance journalist to publications such as The Wire, Down to Earth and Open magazine. He studied politics and history at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He lives in Cuttack, Odisha.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 6.15 pm
State of Focus: Kerala
Kerala Chronicles I : KR Meera discusses her new novel The Assassin with Sampad Patnaik

January 25, 2024 ● 6.50 pm
The Pink Line : Mark Gevisser, Niladri R Chatterjee and Sandip Roy discuss chronicling and discovering queer stories across the globe. In conversation with Sampad Patnaik

January 27, 2024 ● 11.50 am
The Unmarriagable Man : Ashok Ferrey in conversation with Sampad Patnaik

Sanchari Mookherjee

Sanchari Mookherjee has been writing on social issues for more than a decade in the Bengali media space. Her writings combine keen social awareness with great communicative skill. Personal prose is her forte, the strength emanating from her unique way of seeing the world and finding a new meaning in even the mundane things of everyday life. This, along with a sharply critical mind, is what has always given all her pieces, particularly the regular columns in the Sunday supplement of the leading Bengali newspaper of West Bengal their cutting edge. These columns have been collected in the book Ekta Kashto Lajja Bhoy. She is currently the Managing Editor of Daakbangla.com.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12.40 pm
Goynar Baksho/The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die : Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Arunava Sinha discuss the novel that refuses to grow old. In conversation with Sanchari Mookherjee

Sandip Roy

Sandip Roy is a columnist and podcaster living in Kolkata. He hosts The Sandip Roy Show on Indian Express and is a columnist for Mint Lounge and The Hindu. His work has appeared in outlets like the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, BBC, Economic Times, Firstpost, NPR and the Times of India. His audio dispatch from Kolkata, which airs on KALW public radio in San Francisco, just completed 500 episodes. He has been part of anthologies like Cat People, Contours of the Heart, The Phobic and the Erotic, Out! Stories from the New Queer India, House Spirit: Drinking in India and Freedom Papers from the Edinburgh Book Festival. His debut novel Don’t Let Him Know was longlisted for the DSC Prize and won the APALA Honour title in the USA and the Likho Award in India.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
Journey to India Modern :  Tarun Tahiliani in conversation with Sandip Roy 

January 25, 2024 ● 6.50 pm
The Pink Line : Mark Gevisser, Niladri R Chatterjee and Sandip Roy discuss chronicling and discovering queer stories across the globe. In conversation with Sampad Patnaik

January 26, 2024 ● 2.50 pm
Many Africas, Many Stories : Abdulrazak Gurnah, Damon Galgut and Mark Gevisser on how contemporary African literature eludes stereotyping to emerge as the continent of stories. In conversation with Sandip Roy 

Sanjna Ray

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 5.45 pm
Bhoot Bangla - Ghost Stories of Bengal : Jashodhara Chakraborti and Prasun Roy discuss the joys and challenges of translating ghost stories of Hemendra Kumar Roy and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. In conversation with Sanjna Ray

Sarnath Banerjee

Sarnath Banerjee has written five graphic novels and finishing his sixth, which is supported by a stipendium from the Berlin Senate. He has shown his work at several Biennales (including Saopaolo, Setouchi, Sharjah and Kochi) and Art Fairs. He has also had public commissions, notably a series of billboards across London during the London Olympics titled the Gallery of Losers. He has been a CAST fellow at MIT, a Belknap fellow at Princeton, a fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude, the Indian Foundation for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation (Asia). Currently, he is commissioned by the Berlin Biennale, 2025, to produce and stage twelve theatrical comics for the exhibition.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 4 pm
Abol Taboler Shatabdi : Sukanta Chaudhuri and Sarnath Banerjee discuss the madness and genius of Sukumar Ray’s classic. In conversation with Pinaki De

January 27, 2024 ● 3.30 pm
The Moral Contagion : Sarnath Banerjee in conversation with Pinaki De

Sarvani Gooptu

Dr Sarvani Gooptu is the Professor of Asian Literary and Cultural Studies at Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata. Her main areas of research are Nationalism and Culture in the colonial period. Among her publications are three monographs and a translation: The Actress in the Public Theatres of Calcutta (2015), The Music of Nationhood: Dwijendralal Roy of Bengal (2018), Knowing Asia: Being Asian: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in Bengali Periodicals 1870-1940 (2021). She has co-edited books on History, Culture and International Relations, theatre and culture and Women’s travel. She has presented papers at national and international conferences as well as contributed papers in edited volumes and journals of repute. Sarvani Gooptu is actively engaged with the Netaji Research Bureau as its Council Member and just served as Secretary of the Indian Association for Asian and Pacific Studies. She is Hony Secretary at the Rotary Club of Calcutta.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
Asia After Europe : Sugata Bose presents his recent book on Asia’s journey through the 20th century. Followed by conversation chaired by Sarvani Gooptu

Satish Arora

Regarded in the culinary world as the man who put Indian food on the fine-dining map, Satish Arora is known for reimagining traditional dishes in a contemporary avatar. He has been feted by connoisseurs and food historians for his contribution to Indian cuisine which, until his arrival, was considered too pedestrian to be put on a five-star menu. In 1970, at the age of twenty six, he was chosen to lead the Taj Palace kitchen in Mumbai, becoming the youngest executive chef in the world. What followed was an exemplary career spanning fifty years, creating innovative dishes for the world’s biggest celebrities and dignitaries. From Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to Queen Elizabeth II, from Bill Clinton to Amitabh Bachchan, he has served them all. His extraordinary life is also a story of the evolution of five-star hospitality in India. Through his sense of humour, phenomenal memory and bagful of stories, his book Sweets and Bitters offers delicious peeks into the most well-guarded food secrets of celebrities and heads of states, in the process memorialising culinary milestones in India.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 4.30 pm
Sweets And Bitters : Satish Arora on his culinary encounters from the Queen to the POTUS. In conversation with Poorna Banerjee

Satyarth Nayak

Satyarth Nayak is an author and screenwriter based in Mumbai and is a former SAARC Award-winning Correspondent with CNN-IBN, Delhi. His bestselling  biography Sridevi – The Eternal Screen Goddess met with high acclaim. His 2014 debut novel The Emperor’s Riddles became a bestselling thriller. His new book, the magnum-opus, Mahagatha, is an epic collection of the 100 greatest mythological tales from the Puranas of Hinduism. He has also scripted Sony’s epic historical TV show, Porus. His short stories have won the British Council award and appeared in Sudha Murty’s Penguin anthology Something Happened On The Way To Heaven. A regular speaker at national and international literature festivals, he is currently scripting a high-profile web series and writing his next book based on The Mahabharata.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Is Lord Ganesha Married? : Anand Neelakantan discusses how the epics and readings of ancient texts change across regions and eras. In conversation with Satyarth Nayak

January 27, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Wisdom of the Puranas : Satyarth Nayak and Shalini Modi discuss the stories of the Puranas and their books on these stories. In conversation with Sidharth Pansari

Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks is a renowned British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his historical novels set in France – The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. He has also published novels with contemporary settings including A Week in December and Paris Echo; a James Bond continuation novel Devil May Care; and a continuation of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves series, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells. He was a team captain on the BBC Radio 4 literary quiz The Write Stuff. In 2002, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) ‘For services to Literature’. He is a recipient of numerous other prestigious awards and a couple of honorary doctorates.  

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 4.50 pm
The Seventh Son : Sebastian Faulks discusses his new novel with Anuradha Roy

January 24, 2024 ● 7.20 pm
Revisiting a classic, sculpting a sequel : Sebastian Faulks and John Boyne on writing sequels to their well-loved classics after more than a decade. In conversation with Pratiti Ganatra 

Seema Mohanchandran

Seema Mohanchandran started her career with the Taj Group in 1990 as a Management Trainee in Mumbai. An alumnus of Delhi University where she majored in English Literature, she has worked across all hotel functions and in multiple locations with the Taj Group from Chennai to New Delhi to Mumbai and Sydney, where she set up the Group’s first Regional Sales and Reservations Office. Her experience also includes time with Emirates in their Holidays Division. Post her role as General Manager-Sales for the Eastern Region Sales office of the Taj Group, based at Taj Bengal where she spent six years, she moved to Hyderabad in May 2015 as Corporate Director – Sales. She then moved to head Public Relations for the Southern Region for the Taj Group. Since February 2019, she has taken a back seat from the corporate world to pursue her personal interests, which is primarily caring for street animals including sterilization of street dogs in particular. A self-confessed animal enthusiast, she and her husband, Mohan have eight pets – four dogs (including a paraplegic one who they rescued from the streets of Udaipur) and four cats. Her interests include photography and travel and writing the occasional piece, more for self reflection than for print.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
Writer’s Postcards, Writer’s Dispatches : Dipika Mukherjee and Diya Kohli on travel writing. In conversation with Seema Mohanchandran

Senjuti Roy Mukherjee

Senjuti Roy Mukherjee is a reputed group theatre actor of Bengal currently playing leads in several projects. She has worked with eminent theatre directors like Asit Mukhopadhyay, Soumitra Chatterjee, Bibhash Chakraborty, Usha Ganguli, Kaushik Sen, Suman Mukhopadhyayand others. She has participated in the Bharat Rang Mahotsav several times with plays like Shobhajatra, Mephisto, Atmakatha, Raja Lear, Tathagato, Nihsanga Samrat and Dharmashok. She has been invited to the International Ibsen Festival in Dhaka with a solo performance of Putuler Chithhi. Presently, she is playing the lead in Euripedes’ Medea to great reviews. She made her film acting debut with the National Award-winning Herbert and has gone on to act in other features like Iti Mrinalini, Phoring, Chotushkone, Kadambari, Natoker Moto and Manohar and I. She has received a host of awards and accolades for her work.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 4.45 pm
Nayika Sangbad : Senjuti Roy Mukherjee and Poulami Chatterjee Bose on Women in Bangla Group Theatre. In conversation with Aparajita Dasgupta

Shalini Modi

Shalini Modi is an Indian author and an enthusiast of ancient Indian scriptures like Vedas, Puranas, Patanjali yoga sutras and epics. She is also an astrologer and runs an NGO for underprivileged children to support them in their education and where women are taught stitching in an endeavour to make them financially independent.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Wisdom of the Puranas : Satyarth Nayak and Shalini Modi discuss the stories of the Puranas and their books on these stories. In conversation with Sidharth Pansari

Shanta Gokhale

Shanta Gokhale is a Mumbai-based bilingual writer-translator, script-writer and theatre critic. Her plays have been directed by Satyadev Dubey, Sunil Shanbag and Mahesh Dattani. She has authored a book on the history of Marathi drama, an award-winning memoir and a book on the history of Shivaji Park, Mumbai. She is a recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for overall contribution to the performing arts; the Balshastri Jambhekar Award for her translation into Marathi of Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom; the Sahitya Akademi Award for her translation into English of Laxmibai Tilak’s autobiography Smritichitre; and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Ooty Literary Festival, Thespo, the Maharashtra Foundation, Tata Literature Live and the International Theatre Festival of Kerala.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 4.10 pm
Shanta Gokhale - A Life In Writing : Shanta Gokhale on her writings in Marathi and English. In conversation with Jerry Pinto

January 25, 2024 ● 4.15 pm
The Hymns of Tukaram : Shanta Gokhale and Jerry Pinto discuss the timeless wisdom of the Bhakti poet. Readings and conversation with Arunava Sinha

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay

Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay is one of the finest writers of modern Bengali literature for children and adults. He began writing during West Bengal’s turbulent 1960s and startled everyone with his charming characters and introspectiveness. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1989 for his novel Manabajamin. His contribution to children’s literature was recognised by the West Bengal Government in 1975 with the Vidyasagar Puraskar and he is a three-time winner of the Ananda Puraskar. His novels and short stories reveal an undercurrent of love and faith in humanity over human violence and aggression. Several of his works have been adapted into acclaimed films including Patalghor, Dosar and Goynar Baksho.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12.40 pm
Goynar Baksho/The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die : Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Arunava Sinha discuss the novel that refuses to grow old. In conversation with Sanchari Mookherjee

Shruti Mohta

Shruti Mohta’s mantra is Live Kingsize, Die Kingsize. While Live Kingsize is reflected in her love for nature, books, music and spirituality, she believes that if we can enjoy all the gifts of life, then in the end, why not become a gift oneself and Die Kingsize too? She is passionate about the cause of Organ Donation and has been promoting awareness since 2017. She is the founder of the Live Kingsize Die Kingsize Foundation. She has been a TEDx speaker and has also been invited by several prestigious organisations like the Chartered Accountants Institute of India on their Platinum Jubilee and the Rotary in its centenary year to give awareness talks. Kolkata Police too invited her for an awareness event. In 2019, a poem recited by her was played at all 44 INOX theatres across West Bengal for more than a month before the start of every film. She has spoken several times on radio and television, and has also been promoting awareness through newspapers as well as social media, receiving thousands of pledges.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope III - Against All Odds : Kamal Shah and Minu Budhia on living with medical challenges and accepting the differently abled. In conversation with Shruti Mohta

Shubha Mudgal

Born into a musically dedicated family, Shubha Mudgal has been trained by some of the finest musicians and musicologists in India. In addition to being a versatile and popular performer, she has also won recognition as a composer. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Padma Shri from the Government of India in the year 2000, the Gold Plaque Award for Special Achievement in Music at the 34th Chicago International Film Festival, 1998, and the Yash Bharati Samman from the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 2015. She has been closely involved with several projects related to music education in India. She has taught a course on Hindustani Music with Aneesh Pradhan for the Performing Arts Department of the Ashoka University, India. She was invited by the Goa Institute of Management as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar for a period of two years from January 2022. Along with Aneesh Pradhan, she has established an online distribution platform for musicians specializing in diverse forms of Indian music through their website www.underscorerecords.com.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 7 pm
Kalam Finale : Classical vocals (khayal and thumri) by Shubha Mudgal

Shubhra Gupta

Shubhra Gupta is a film critic and columnist with the Indian Express, and the curator of the enormously popular Indian Express Film Club, a unique platform for cinema appreciation. One of India’s most well-regarded and influential film critics, she has traveled extensively around the world to film festivals both as reporter and jury member and served as a member of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) between 2012 and 2015. She received the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for Best Writing in Film in 2012. Her first book 50 Films that Changed Bollywood, 1995-2015 was published in 2016. Irrfan: A Life in Movies is her second book.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 2.10 pm
Irrfan : Tigmanshu Dhulia, Tillotama Shome and Shubhra Gupta discuss the magic of Irrfan and his everlasting legacy. In conversation with Shahana Chatterjee

Sidharth Pansari

An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Sidharth Pansari is a  seasoned and dynamic entrepreneur with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and corporate best practices. He has donned various hats within several wings of the Primarc Group. He has co-developed Junction Mall at Durgapur, which today is the favorite shopping destination of people in the region. As the Director of Primarc Retail Store, he has contributed towards the expansion of Raymond textiles business to thirty-seven apparel and textile stores across the country. He has also co-founded Primarc Pecan, an omnichannel logistics venture that focuses on e-retail, distribution, web stores and private labels. Being an avid reader and book lover, he founded the Crossword bookstore in Bengal, which is now operating under the STORY brand in Kolkata. A fervent angel investor, he believes in entrepreneurship, guiding early stage investments and offering support and mentorship to start-ups.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Wisdom of the Puranas : Satyarth Nayak and Shalini Modi discuss the stories of the Puranas and their books on these stories. In conversation with Sidharth Pansari

Siddhartha Deb

Born in Shillong, India, Siddhartha Deb lives in Harlem, New York. His fiction and nonfiction have been longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and been awarded the Pen Open prize. His journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, Dissent, The Baffler, N+1 and Caravan. His latest novel,The Light at the End of the World, was published in 2023 and is considered to be a breakthrough in form while also grappling with themes of climate change, authoritarianism and colonialism.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 2.20 pm
Look Ahead in Anger : Siddhartha Deb and Devika Rege discuss their new novels on contemporary times. In conversation with Payal Mohanka

Sohini Chattopadhyay

Sohini Chattopadhyay is an award-winning journalist. Her accolades include the Bala Kailasam citation for reporting on the web in 2017, the Ramnath Goenka Award for feature writing in 2015, and the 2014 International Red Cross and Press Institute of India prize for humanitarian reporting. She was a long-time writer and editor with OPEN magazine where she co-edited the culture section and commissioned features. She was a Robert Bosch media fellowship recipient in Munich in 2017, an Asia Journalism Fellowship winner in Singapore in 2016 and a Chevening journalism fellow in London in 2015. Her writing has been commissioned by numerous platforms including the Guardian, the South China Morning Post, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Die Tages Zeitung; the web dailies Scroll.in and The Wire.in; VOGUE (India), ELLE, FountainInk and Outlook Traveller magazines; and leading dailies such as The Times of India, The Telegraph and Business Standard. She is also a keen cook and food anthropologist. In 2011, she won a fully-paid fellowship to work in a restaurant at Hamburg, Germany and document her experiences in a blog.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Day I Became A Runner : Sohini Chattopadhyay and Supriya Chaudhuri discuss women in sport. In conversation with Devdan Mitra

Soma Bose

Soma Bose is a creative writer and visual storyteller. Her website SomTales.com shows that a picture is worth a thousand words. Written with acute perception and sensitivity, Soma’s Tales combine the lens and the pen, discovering the unique storytelling potential of every photograph and weaving thought-provoking tales that express the emotions behind a picture. Her experience of growing up in the coal-mining town of Dhanbad, Jharkhand, has motivated her to write human-centric stories that leave a subtle social message. A persuasive and engaging communicator, Soma can connect effortlessly with people from all walks of life and forge lifelong friendships. She has also written scripts that have been appreciated by acclaimed filmmakers and luminaries like Shyam Benegal and Prosenjit Chatterjee.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12.50 pm
Like A Prayer :  Nilanjana Sengupta and Soma Bose on home, prayer and women. In conversation with Shahana Chatterjee

Somak Ghosh

Somak Ghosh is the host of the breakfast show, Kolkata Mosti Company, for 104.8 Ishq FM and one of Kolkata’s leading digital creators. With more than nine years’ experience as a radio presenter, he has also worked as a creative communications head at one of the leading media houses in the country, along with being an actor and having featured in The Eken franchise. With over 700K followers on Facebook and 200K followers on Instagram, he excels in creating content that is not only humorous but also relatable. He is an avid contributor to the podcasting and audio-book creation universe as a voice artist and a creator.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 7.45 pm
Radio Ishq Golpo Paath : Somak Ghosh reads Parashuram's Swayambara

January 27, 2024 ● 5 pm
Prothom Mudron, Bhalobasha/A House of Rain and Snow : Srijato and Maharghya Chakraborty discuss the novel and its translation. In conversation with Somak Ghosh

Soumyajit Ghosh

Soumyajit specialises in Investment Banking and Wealth Management. He worked in ANZ Grindlays, ABN Amro, RBS and Citigroup before starting WEALTHAPP in 2014.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 1.30 pm
Work 3.0 : Sucharita Basu and Soumyajit Ghosh discuss Avik Chanda's final book. In conversation with Deval Tibrewall

Srijato Bandopadhyay

Srijato is an Indian poet, lyricist and writer of the Bengali language. He won the Ananda Puroskar in 2004 for his book Udanta Sawb Joker (All Those Flying Jokers). In 2014, he won the Filmfare Awards (East) for Best Lyricist for the song Balir Shohor from the film Mishawr Rawhoshyo. His poetic composition Megh Bodoler Kabbi has been published in the International Kolkata Book Fair 2020 along with another novel Briksha Onubadak. Besides writing poems and songs, he is also an anchor and public speaker. He made his acting debut in Srijit Mukherji’s film Zulfiqar. He has attended a writer’s workshop at the University of Iowa.

Attending Sessions

January 23, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Binoyer Brahmadarshan : Anupam Roy discusses his short story collection with Srijato

January 27, 2024 ● 5 pm
Prothom Mudron, Bhalobasha/A House of Rain and Snow : Srijato and Maharghya Chakraborty discuss the novel and its translation. In conversation with Somak Ghosh

Stephen Alter

Stephen Alter is the author of more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction. Much of his writing focuses on the Himalayan region. Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth received the 2020 Banff Mountain Book Award in the Mountain Environment and Natural History category and the 2021 Kekoo Naoroji Award for Himalayan Literature. It was also shortlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Prize. Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime received the 2015 Kekoo Naoroji Award. In The Jungles of the Night: A Novel about Jim Corbett was shortlisted for the DSC South Asian Literature Award. He has written extensively on natural history, folklore and mountain culture, particularly in his travel memoir Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage to the Many Sources of the Ganga. Among his many honours are  fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the East West Centre in Hawaii and the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture. Death in Shambles: A Hill Station Mystery is his most recent novel and his latest non-fiction book, to be published in February 2024, is called The Cobra’s Gaze: Exploring India’s Wild Heritage.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 4.10 pm
The Everest Obsession : Deborah Baker and Stephen Alter on the magic pull of the Everest and the centenary of George Mallory’s expedition. In conversation with Sujaan Mukherjee

Sucharita Basu

Sucharita Basu is a lawyer with over twenty-two years of legal practice. She is the Managing Partner of AQUILAW, a full-service law firm having offices in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. She practices Corporate-Commercial, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Policy and Trust Laws. She advises a wide range of Indian and multinational clients in various sectors. Her expertise also lies in Government Advice and Policy. She is the Chairperson of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), West Bengal State Council for 2023-24. She also represents AQUILAW in CII National Council and CII Eastern Region Council. Sucharita is the past chairperson of CII – Indian Women Network, West Bengal and is an Independent Director on the Boards of Himadri Credit & Finance Limited and Tarsons Products Limited. She completed her LLB from the University of Calcutta.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 3.10 pm
Being Fearless : Examining entrepreneurship in today’s Bengali community. Jayanta Roy, Sucharita Basu and Rudra Chatterjee in conversation with Anindya Paulchaudhuri

January 27, 2024 ● 1.30 pm
Work 3.0 : Sucharita Basu and Soumyajit Ghosh discuss Avik Chanda's final book. In conversation with Deval Tibrewall

Sudarshan Chakravorty

Dancer-choreographer Sudarshan Chakravorty’s innovative idiom raises sensitive contemporary issues. As Artistic Director of Sapphire Creations Dance Company, he has led his troupe in performances in India and abroad. He is also a writer, workshop leader and collaborator and has worked as a choreographer in the fields of fashion, film, theatre and television. He received the Shyamal Sen Smriti Purashkar in 2008. He also received the Stagecraft Awards for Best Choreography in 2017 and 2018. He has famously made way for organic contemporary dance to be heralded into the mainstream narrative of Indian performative art. He has  conceptualized and choreographed multiple pieces with a focus on issues that affect us all, be it global warming or LGBTQIA+ rights. In 1996, he presented Asia’s first LGBTQIA+ production called Alien Flower.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 7.15 pm
What I Have Not Seen Before : An Indo-Polish dance collaboration by Sudarshan Chakravorty (Sapphire) and Jacek Luminski (Luminski Dance Project)

Sudha Murty

A prolific writer in English and Kannada, Sudha Murty has written novels, technical books, travelogues, collections of short stories, non-fiction pieces and several bestselling titles for children. Her books have been translated into all the major Indian languages. She is a recipient of the RK Narayan Award for Literature. She also received the Padma Shri in 2006, the Attimabbe Award from the Government of Karnataka for excellence in Kannada literature in 2011, the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2018 Crossword Book Awards and the Padma Bhushan in 2023. She has been bestowed with ten honorary doctorates. She weaves magical tales and especially enjoys writing for young readers. A generation of children have grown up reading her books and her stories have been included in textbooks across schools in India.

Attending Session

January 23, 2024 ● 12.40 pm
The Gift of Multilingualism : Sudha Murty on how Kannada, English and other literary traditions have shaped her writings. In conversation with Malavika Banerjee

Sugata Bose

Sugata Bose is the director of the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata, a research centre dedicated to the life and works of his great-uncle, the Indian nationalist, Subhas Chandra Bose. He is an Indian historian and politician who served as a Member of India’s Parliament from 2014-16. His field of specialization is modern South Asian and Indian Ocean history. He obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of the books His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle against Empire (2011) and A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (2006). In A Hundred Horizons, he crosses area studies and disciplinary frontiers as he bridges the domains of political economy and culture. He was a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1997. His latest book is titled Asia after Europe: Decline and Rise of a Continent and he is working as General Editor on The Cambridge History of the Indian Ocean.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
Asia After Europe : Sugata Bose presents his recent book on Asia’s journey through the 20th century. Followed by conversation chaired by Sarvani Gooptu

Sujaan Mukherjee

Sujaan Mukherjee is part of DAG’s museums initiative, heading the Research and Development team. He has submitted his PhD thesis at the Department of English, Jadavpur University, on history and memory in public spaces in Kolkata. Sujaan writes for the Books page of The Telegraph, India, and is a regular contributor at Scroll. He has been associated with different museums and archives in various capacities including the Victoria Memorial Hall, the Save Gurusaday Museum campaign, the Jewish Calcutta archive and the Humphrey House archive at the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. His areas of interest include the physical cultures, urban histories and Modernism.

Attending Sessions

January 27, 2024 ● 12 noon
Meera Mukherjee Centenary : Tapati Guha Thakurta, Adip Dutta and Sujaan Mukherjee on the legacy of the great sculptor. In conversation with Sumona Chakravarty

January 27, 2024 ● 4.10 pm
The Everest Obsession : Deborah Baker and Stephen Alter on the magic pull of the Everest and the centenary of George Mallory’s expedition. In conversation with Sujaan Mukherjee

Sukanta Chaudhuri

Sukanta Chaudhuri is a literary scholar and Professor Emeritus at the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has been Director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records at JU and a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Shakespeare Association and in 2021, he was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He has many publications on the European Renaissance and textual studies, and was Project Director for Bichitra, the complete Tagore variorum website. He has translated extensively from Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sukumar Ray, Rajshekhar Bose and other classic Bengali writers and many modern Bengali poets. His Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray (1998) is an acclaimed recreation in English of Sukumar Ray’s whimsical nonsense poems. He has also translated the complete limericks of Edward Lear into Bengali and selections from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci from Italian into Bengali. 

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 2.15 pm
Decolonising The English Literary Curriculum : Sukanta Chaudhuri and Ankhi Mukherjee discuss her co-edited collection of essays in conversation with Madhavi Menon

January 24, 2024 ● 4.50 pm
The Resource Curse : Amitav Ghosh on how the colonial exploitation of eastern India affected its history, economy and literature. In conversation with Sukanta Chaudhuri

January 25, 2024 ● 4 pm
Abol Taboler Shatabdi : Sukanta Chaudhuri and Sarnath Banerjee discuss the madness and genius of Sukumar Ray’s classic. In conversation with Pinaki De

Suman Mukhopadhyay

Suman Mukhopadhyay is an Indian theatre and film director. His debut film Herbert (2005) won the National Award for Best Bengali Film. Asamapta premiered in IFFLA, USA, and can be seen on Netflix. His other films include Shesher Kabita, which premiered at the Dubai International Film festival, Kangal Malsat and Mahanagar@Kolkata, which was screened at the Munich, Kerala and New York film festivals. Chaturanga, based on Tagore’s novel, premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival and travelled to thirty-six national and international festivals. The film received a Gran Prix award at Bridgefest, Sarajevo, the Best Director award at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, and the Golden Palm at Mexico International Film Festival. He has recently made a Zee5 original feature film Posham Pa and directed five episodes of Parchhayee based on Ruskin Bond’s stories. His theatre productions range from European drama to major adaptations of Bengali works. Among his many works on stage are Raja Lear, Sunyo Sudhu Sunyo Noy, Bisarjan, Teesta Paarer Brittanto, Samay Asamayer Brittanto and Mephisto.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 6.30 pm
Mephisto : A play by Suman Mukhopadhyay featuring Anirban Bhattacharya, Riddhi Sen and others

January 26, 2024 ● 7.10 pm
All The World’s A Stage : Jacek Luminski, Suman Mukhopadhyay and Bickram Ghosh discuss how cultural exchanges between countries can become deeper and more meaningful. In conversation with Vikram Iyengar 

Sumona Chakravarty

Sumona Chakravarty is the founder of Hamdasti, a Kolkata-based arts platform for socially engaged arts practices. Her work is participatory in nature, engaging diverse communities over a long period and collaboratively intervening in public spaces. She is a graduate of the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore, with a Masters degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She has been a Fellow in the ArtThink South Asia Program at Khoj, Delhi and at the Global Cultural Leaders Program, hosted by the European Union. She is currently working at DAG as the Vice-President of the organisation’s Museum Programme.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12 noon
Meera Mukherjee Centenary : Tapati Guha Thakurta, Adip Dutta and Sujaan Mukherjee on the legacy of the great sculptor. In conversation with Sumona Chakravarty

Supriya Chaudhuri

Supriya Chaudhuri is Professor of English (Emerita) at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She was educated at Presidency College and the University of Oxford. Her expertise lies in Renaissance literature and culture, translation, cultural history, and modernism and she has published widely in these fields. She also reviews new fiction and has judged fiction and translation awards.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Day I Became A Runner : Sohini Chattopadhyay and Supriya Chaudhuri discuss women in sport. In conversation with Devdan Mitra

January 26, 2024 ● 5.10 pm
The Great Padma : Amitav Ghosh and Kazi Khaleed Ashraf discuss the river’s impact on the region’s history and imagination. In conversation with Supriya Chaudhuri

Surangana Bandyopadhyay

Surangana Bandyopadhyay is an actor and singer who started her career in the Bengali film industry. She was critically praised for her work in Open Tee Bioscope and Samantaral and continued to gain acclaim for her performance in Ballabhpurer Roopkatha for which she was nominated for Best Promising Actor (Female) in the 2022 WBFJ Awards. She made her OTT debut with Sharate Aaj directed by Parambrata Chattopadhyay. She has recently garnered appreciation for her performance in the horror web series, Parnashavarir Shaap. She is a regular member and performer of the 31-year old theatre group, Swapnasandhani and has performed in several plays since 2018. She is also a leading vocalist and has several playback credits to her name.

Attending Session

January 26, 2024 ● 2 pm
Republic of Hope II - Pacheeshey Paa : Riddhi Sen, Surangana Bandyopadhyay and Ishaan Ghosh on the hopes and fears of the quarter lifers. In conversation with Agnijit Sen

SV Raman

SV Raman, popularly known as Raju Raman, is a Civil Engineer by educational qualification, but decided to build bridges of a different kind by pursuing his passion for languages, arts and culture. He was associated with the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, German Cultural Centre for nearly four decades and retired as Head of the Programme Department in April 2010. Thereafter, he was Programme Consultant at Victoria Memorial Hall for thirteen years till recently. He teaches public speaking, communication, journalism, film studies and German at various institutions and is a freelance journalist, translator and interpreter. He is actively connected with several social and cultural organisations in various capacities and is a well-known figure in the academic and cultural circuit of the city. Presently, he is President of Cine Academy and Sahay Chairperson of The Creative Arts, Governing Committee of Manovikas Kendra, as well as an active Executive Member of the Calcutta Debating Circle, only to mention a few.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 12 noon
The Muse Called Strife : Ronya Othmann in conversation with SV Raman (Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan session)

January 24, 2024 ● 5.40 pm
Firebird : JCB Prize winner Perumal Murugan discusses his prize-winning novel with Arunava Sinha and SV Raman

Tapati Guha Thakurta

Tapati Guha Thakurta is an Indian historian. Her work is located within the disciplinary fields of cultural history, history of art and visual studies. She has written widely and taught courses on art, nationalism and modernity; the institutional practices and political locations of art history and archaeology; the careers of monuments and museum objects; and popular urban visual culture of modern and contemporary India. She has written monographs for and curated many art exhibitions. She is Director and Professor of History at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, and was formerly a professor at Presidency College, Kolkata. Her extensive research work on Kolkata’s Durga Puja led to its inclusion in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Attending Session

January 27, 2024 ● 12 noon
Meera Mukherjee Centenary : Tapati Guha Thakurta, Adip Dutta and Sujaan Mukherjee on the legacy of the great sculptor. In conversation with Sumona Chakravarty

Tarun Tahiliani

Tarun Tahiliani started his professional career with a degree in Business Management from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. After returning to India, he saw the vast potential in the fine clothing and couture industry evolving in the country, and in 1987, he opened India’s first multi-designer boutique, Ensemble, heralding a fashion and retail revolution in India. In 1991, he honed his technical knowledge in design, and received an associate degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Setting out to create the image of India Modern, Tarun Tahiliani is a brand that straddles the present while rooted in India’s heritage of draped form and tradition of artistry. Founded in 1995, the Tarun Tahiliani Design Studio juxtaposes modern sartorial prowess and the intricacies of Indian technique with skill. Across couture, occasion wear, and ready-to-wear, the designer’s studio creates unique combinations of historical opulence and contemporary chic through the fine crafts and textiles of India.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 5.30 pm
Journey to India Modern :  Tarun Tahiliani in conversation with Sandip Roy 

January 26, 2024 ● 11 am
Indian by Design : Laila Tyabji and Tarun Tahiliani discuss how India’s textile traditions can speak through haute couture. In conversation with Malavika Banerjee  

Tigmanshu Dhulia

Tigmanshu Dhulia is an Indian film dialogue writer, director, actor, screenwriter, producer and casting director. He has a Masters degree in theatre from the National School of Drama. He wrote the dialogue for the Mani Ratnam film Dil Se. His directorial debut Haasil was a love story set among politicized students in northern India. His directing career garnered international recognition with Paan Singh Tomar (recipient of the National Award for Best Feature Film and Best Actor for Irrfan in the eponymous role) and the thriller drama Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster. He is also well known for his role as Ramadhir Singh in Anurag Kashyap’s’ modern cult film Gangs of Wasseypur.

Attending Sessions

January 24, 2024 ● 2.10 pm
Irrfan : Tigmanshu Dhulia, Tillotama Shome and Shubhra Gupta discuss the magic of Irrfan and his everlasting legacy. In conversation with Shahana Chatterjee

January 24, 2024 ● 6.45 pm
The Promise : Premiere of Tigmanshu Dhulia’s The Promise presented by Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films. Tigmanshu Dhulia in conversation with Priyanka Roy

Tillotama Shome

Actress Tillotama Shome has created a repertoire of exceptional performances in critically acclaimed award-winning films, both domestically and internationally. She is an extraordinary actress, navigating between cultures and languages effortlessly. Her debut as Alice in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding won hearts world over with New York Magazine hailing her for having ‘a moonstruck quality right out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Some of her most noteworthy recent roles have been in Delhi Crime (Season 2), The Night Manager and Lust Stories, in which she portrayed strong female characters. Although she has been in the business for over twenty years, she feels she is just getting started.

Attending Session

January 24, 2024 ● 2.10 pm
Irrfan : Tigmanshu Dhulia, Tillotama Shome and Shubhra Gupta discuss the magic of Irrfan and his everlasting legacy. In conversation with Shahana Chatterjee

Ved Raman Pandey

Ved Raman Pandey is a faculty member at the Presidency University, Kolkata. His PhD research is on Modernity, Postmodernity and Nirmal Verma; and his teaching interests are History of Hindi Literature, Medieval and Modern Hindi Poetry, Hindi Fiction and Criticism. He has worked with the High Commission of India in Mauritius and is a former ICCR Chair at MGI, Mauritius. He is also a resource person at the World Hindi Secretariat in Mauritius.

Attending Session

January 25, 2024 ● 3.20 pm
Duniya Ki Bhasha, Bhasha Ki Duniya : Daisy Rockwell, Alka Saraogi and Aditi Maheshwari on telling Hindi stories to the world. In conversation with Ved Raman Pandey

Vikram Iyengar

Vikram Iyengar is an arts leader and connector. He is a dancer-choreographer-director, curator-presenter and arts researcher-writer. Co-founder and artistic director of Ranan Performance Collective, he also initiated and leads the Pickle Factory Dance Foundation – a hub for dance and movement practice and discourse. His international credits include choreographer for Academy Award winner Florian Gallenberger’s film, Shadows of Time, and co-choreographer on Helena Waldmann’s Faust prize-nominated piece Made in Bangladesh. He regularly contributes articles and papers to various publications and international seminars, conducts a variety of workshops and works on arts research projects for institutions in India and abroad. He is a recipient of the Government of India National Scholarship and National Junior Fellowship for Dance. He was co-editor of the India Theatre Forum’s web theatre journal, e-Rang, from 2009 to 2015. He has conducted guest lectures regularly at Jadavpur and Presidency Universities, Calcutta.

Attending Sessions

January 25, 2024 ● 4.50 pm
Black River : Nilanjana S Roy discusses her novel with Vikram Iyengar

January 26, 2024 ● 7.10 pm
All The World’s A Stage : Jacek Luminski, Suman Mukhopadhyay and Bickram Ghosh discuss how cultural exchanges between countries can become deeper and more meaningful. In conversation with Vikram Iyengar