Bangalore Literature Festival: Javed Akhtar to give it a miss

Bengaluru: Noted poet, lyricist and scriptwriter, Javed Akhtar who was to inaugurate the two-day literature festival, will not be making it to this year’s literature festival.

Akhtar has cited other professional commitments on that day for not attending the festival.  The festival will now be inaugurated by Chandrashekhara Kambara, Shashi Deshpande and Mohammad Zaman Azurdah who is a senior Kashmiri writer.

“We can never be sure of which writers would come and won’t as there as last minute change of plans as well. Despite this schedule, there might be last minute withdrawals,” says Shinie Anthony, co-founder of Bangalore Literature Festival while speaking to Deccan Chronicle about the updated schedule.

The other names that will not be seen at this year’s literature festival are literary historian and writer Dr Rakhshanda Jalil, poet and essayist Ashok Vajpeyi and Santosh Hegde. “They have not given us an exact reason to why are they not coming,” says an organiser from the Lit Fest who adds, “they might have backed out because of the whole controversy surrounding the literature festival, the whole intolerance row because nobody will cancel just three days before.”

Of the foreign writers, UK based writer Giles Hazelgrove and another writer, Joao Tordo from Portugal have also decided to give the festival a miss. However, another noted film journalist and critic, Bhavana Somaya would not be able to make it because of some personal engagements. “She has a family wedding to attend,” says the BLF official.

Aakar Patel, Saba Naqvi, Krishnamurthy Hanur and Darius Sunawala are a few new additions to the list of writers attending the two-day festival.

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