{"id":1989,"date":"2019-04-03T19:47:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T19:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-edict.in\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2019-04-08T21:15:28","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T21:15:28","slug":"ashoka-literature-fest-2019-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/2019\/04\/03\/ashoka-literature-fest-2019-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashoka Literature Fest 2019 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By<\/em> Surabhi Sanghi, UG20<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first ever Ashoka Literature Festival took\nplace on 30th and 31st March with a wide range of the line up of speakers along\nwith various activities and workshops. The speakers came from diverse fields of\nhistory, news, politics, academia etc. and included some of our beloved\nprofessors including but not limited to, Gilles Vernier,  Rita Kothari and\nMalvika Maheshwari. The fest boasted more than 40 speakers, with esteemed\nfigures such as Yogendra Yadav (politician, President Swaraj India), Gurmehar\nKaur (Social activist, author Small Acts of Freedom), Vidya Shah (Singer,\nwriter), Prannoy Roy (Founder NDTV), Ravish Kumar (Senior Executive Editor\nNDTV), Vqueeram Aditya Sahai (Writer, Poet, Activist), etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, our Vice-Chancellor inaugurated\nthe event with an opening speech and all the present speakers along with the\nfest directors (Sufi Dharma, UG 20 and Anant Shah, UG 20) lit the ceremonial\nlamp.  Day one of the fest saw some very interesting and engaging panels\nwith discussions on queerness, poetry, the figure of Vilayat Khan, Mahabharata,\na debate on Amazon vs Prime etc. Day two of the fest witnessed discussions and\ndialogue on issues and topics such as wanderlust, biographies, the world of\nghazals, how cities have a life, politics and the current scenario and even\nmedical literature and imagery. Full Circle bookstore set up a tiny shop for\nthe duration of the fest with copies of all the books authored by the speakers\nwho were going to be present at the Lit Fest. There were also a wide variety of\nvendors catering to the hunger pangs of the attendees with food stalls from a\nvariety of brands such as Subway, Mad Over Donuts and Burnout Food Truck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Partition Museum of Amritsar had also set up a\npop-up museum on day one to showcase the history of partition, its individual\nstories of partition and how the present generation have come to look at it.\nSreya Muthukumar and Sayan Sinha conducted a workshop on day one on songwriting\nand composing. Parthiv Shah, a noted photographer took a workshop on the second\nday titled \u201cSelf Portrait to the Selfie: Redefining image making\u201d. Ashoka Film\nFestival in collaboration with the Ashoka Literature Festival organized film\nscreening on day two of three documentary films (Grey, Chahat ke gubare,\nAghatit). These dealt with important issues that have been historically ignored\nby the mainstream media – Transgenders Persons Bill 2016, domestic violence and\nchild labour in India. The screening was followed by a discussion with\naward-winning filmmaker Amritanshu. The Bastion, <\/em>an independent news\norganisation founded by students from Ashoka University hosted \u201cUnplugged\u201d\nwhich was an informal space for the audience to come and interact with the\ndifferent speakers in a setting that was not like a formal interaction between\na panellist and audience in a huge room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After each session, there was an opportunity for\nthe audience to talk to the speakers and get their books signed by them, to\nwhich the speakers gladly obliged. Both the days of the fest ended on a\nspectacular note. Day one concluded with a musical performance by Vidya Shah\naccompanied by William Dalrymple\u2019s narration. Dalrymple is a historian from\nScotland, now living in India who has worked extensively on Delhi, Mughals and\nthe rule of the English East India Company. The performance was a soulful\nrendition of Dalrymple\u2019s book – The Last Mughal, where certain instances and\nevents were brought to life through the power of classical music by Vidya Shah\nand narration by the author himself. The second day ended with the closing note\nby the fest directors and the final panel in Dr Reddy\u2019s Auditorium. The panel\nwas called \u201cDoes the Nation know\u201d. The panellists were Yogendra Yadav, Ravish Kumar\nand Rajeev Bhargava moderated by Manisha Priyam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Surabhi Sanghi, UG20 The first ever Ashoka Literature Festival took place on 30th and 31st March with a wide range of the line up of speakers along with various activities and workshops. The speakers came from diverse fields of history, news, politics, academia etc. and included some of our beloved professors including but not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[283,274,282,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2011,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/2011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}