The weekend at IIHS revolved around readings, conversations about literature, and performances. A special feature was a relay reading of Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman, after the book was targeted by the Hindu right-wing and the author went into a period of voluntary speaking and writing silence.
Panel Discussions & Workshops
Friday, 16 January
- 7.00PM onwards Images of Violence and Resistance
The True Cost of Coal
Presentation by Tyler Norman of the Beehive Design Collective, Maine, USA
Saturday, 17 Jan — Conversations And Readings
- 10.30AM – 11.30AM
Writing Violence for Children
Samhita Arni, Sudeshna Shome Ghosh with Bijal Vachharajani - 2.30PM – 3.30PM
Manto for our Times
Dramatic readings directed by Kirtana Kumar with respondent Aakar Patel - 6.30PM onwards How to Kill a Language
Kya Hai Ki Kya Nai Ki — Dakhani: A Tongue Untied (IFA screening)
Director Gautam Pemmaraju in conversation with Deepa Dhanraj
- 11.45AM – 12.45PM
Fight Masters
Pawan Kumar, Chaitanya KM, with MK Raghavendra - 3.45PM – 4.45PM
The Life of Violence
Liam Pieper, Godfrey Pereira with Sanjay Iyer
- 1.00PM – 2.00PM
Breaking the Line, Violating the Page
Cindy Lynn Brown, Rohan Chhetri with Mani Rao - 5.00PM – 6.00PM Translation as Violence
Mani Rao, Eric Auzoux, V Ramaswamy with Arshia Sattar
Sunday, 18 Jan — Conversations And Readings
- 10.30AM – 11.30AM
Narratives of Hate
Rheea Mukherjee, Christopher Kloeble with Indira Chandrasekhar - 2.30PM – 3.30PM
Reporting Violence
Suresh Menon, Gita Aravamudan, Deepa Dhanraj with Indira Chandrasekhar
- 1.45AM – 12.45PM
Landscapes of War
Raghu Karnad, Rohini Mohan with Suresh Menon - 3.45PM – 4.45PM
Shot by a Short Story
Jahnavi Barua, Shinie Antony with Madhavi Mahadevan
- 1.00PM – 2.00PM
Violence in the City
Mahesh Rao, Saskya Jain, V. Ramaswamy with MK Raghavendra - 5.00PM – 6.00PM
Sahitya Akademi/Atta Galatta Session
Anjum Hasan with Mahesh Rao
Special Programs
The Open Reading Room
Writers sign themselves up to read, either on their own or with a reading partner or with an interlocutor of their choice. Running through the day on Saturday and Sunday.
Manto for our Times
Dramatised Readings of selected excerpts from short stories by Saadat Hasan Manto (directed by Kirtana Kumar) with Aakar Patel as a respondent.
How to Kill a Language
Film Screening
Dakhani: A Tongue Untied (directed by Gautam Pemmaraju, supported by India Foundation for the Arts), 110 mins.
A close, intimate look at the tradition of comic-satire performance poetry in Dakhani (Urdu of the Deccan) known as Mizahiya Shayri. These poets of the Deccan are amongst the few who keep the long literary traditions of the language alive, albeit in a lighter vein. The film examines the history of the tradition, the styles, content of the pioneers, and also of contemporary poets and how the practice of public performance poetry at mushairas is linked with not just the decline of Muslim social culture in the Deccan, but also the fall of the Hyderabad state and the general decline of Urdu.
Images of Violence and Resistance
Graphic Presentation
The True Story of Coal (by The Beehive Design Collective, Maine, USA)
Long exploited as a resource-extraction colony within the US, the Appalachian mountains are home to a fight for survival which has determined, in part, the industrial power of the US. Without coal, mined at a great cost to Appalachian communities, there would be no ‘cheap’ electricity. Today’s energy corporations and government bodies are continuing to show the extent of their greed and short-sightedness as they push their extractive agendas in the “New Coal Rush.” The presentation will expose the deceptions of “clean coal” technologies and bring to light the root causes of the climate chaos the planet is facing today. The Beehive Design Collective is an all-volunteer, activist arts collective dedicated to “cross-pollinating the grassroots” by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images for use as educational and organizing tools.