First time ever Peace Award at Tata Literature Live! 2022 …. for human rights lawyer and author Nandita Haksar, whose books celebrate the rights of common people.
THIS is definitely a first given how many lit fests prestigious and still to be prestigious there are now in the country! Perhaps the most noble of them all is the Tata Literary Fest which goes Live this year from November 9 onwards up to Nov 12, 2022. This year’s Tata Literature Live is covering a host of literary and literature-associated events. Tata Lit celebrates ideas, “While literature is at the core of the festival, we are inspired and moved by a multitude of art forms, stories and individuals….”
It is definitely a brilliant idea to introduce a Tata Lit Fest or Tata Literature Live prize for peace to an author promoting peace and goodwill towards all humankind in books, poetry, photography, etc. The first Tata Literature Live peace prize goes to Speaking Tiger author Nandita Haksar and she is a familiar name for most of us who consider ourselves well-read.
Actually, this is a Writing for Peace Award 2022 constituted by the Peace Avenue of Rotary District 3141 Mumbai and Tata Lit Live for the first time! Most of us know Nandita Haksar (who to date has been dividing her life between Delhi, Ukhrul in Nagaland, Goa and elsewhere in the world) – she is an acclaimed human rights lawyer, activist, and feminist, with something like 15 books in her cap of achievements, much of her writing dealing with aspects of nationalism and human rights over the years.
If you’re asking me all her books are so readable, remember her “Forgotten Refugees: Two Iraqi Brothers in India,” “The Many Faces of Kashmir Nationalism: From the Cold War to the Present Day,” “Kuknalim: Naga Armed Resistance” (with Sebastian Hongray, her husband not incidentally), my personal favourite is “The Flavours of Nationalism: A Memoir, Recipes for Love, Hate and Friendship” among other titles. The last details memoirs of sorts wherein she writes about how food shaped her awareness of politics , patriarchy, nationalism and socialism right from her childhood day during the Nehruvian era…and we may not forget she is a daughter of the late PN Haksar (former secretary to the late prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, for many years). Nandita comes across as very much her r father’s daughter and has politics in her blood or so to speak.
I would say Nandita is a friend of mine for she has written the Foreword for my second collection of poetry titled “Letter to God & Other Poems” (published by Goan Observer Publications recently); and now that she has decided to say goodbye to Goa, and hello to her permanent home in Delhi anew, I will sorely miss my off and on again rendezvous with her. You must read her books and imbibe more of this wonderfully out-of-the-box thinking woman’s feelings and thoughts on our life and times – catch her live in conversation with Naresh Fernandes at the festival on November 13, 2022.
I will swear by Nandita Haksar’s political sensibility and integrity any day and can’t think of another author who deserves the freshly announced Tata Literature Alive Writing for Peace prize more! She is one of my favourite authors to read from India along with the Sudha Murthy of course. Wish I could go along to the Tata Literature Live but…(sigh)…not this time. I’m told the highlights this year include something like 130 plus, plus speakers from around the world.
To mention some there’s Aanchal Malhotra, Aarti Wig, Adi Pocha, Akash Khurana, Amani Saeed, Ambi Parameswaran, Anil Pradhan, Anirudh Kanisetti, Anirudh Suri, Anita Vachharajani, Antoine Lewis, Antoinette Lattouf, Arjun Raj Gaind, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Ashima Goyal, Ashwin Sanghi, Audrey Magee, Christopher Kloeble, Colm Toibin, Damon Galgut, Dan Saladino, Dave Eggers, David Polonsky, Deepak B Mehta, Deepanjana Pal, Dilip d’Souza, Dina Nayeri, Kalpana Sharma, Kunal Vijayakar,Mallika Sarabhai, Mamang Dai, Rohini Nilekani…well, you may check many more details released on the Tata Literature Live website! Just go google.
How many literary festivals are there in India? At last count I counted the ten best taking place in Bangalore, Jaipur, there’s the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival, the Times LifFest, Khushwant Singh Literature Festival, Valley of Words in Dehradun, Goa Arts & Literary Festival (don’t know if it’s taking place this year), Himalayan Echoes: Kumaon Festival of Literature & Arts, Kerala Literature Festival, Queensline Lit Fest in Mumbai…anymore? I guess one could make a lifetime passion out of writing and dropping in at all the literature festivals. Be a kind of rolling stone of literary festivals in India and around the world, providing of course what you have to say and how you say it sells like …er…hot potatoes or hot jelebi!
ON that note it’s avjo, selamat datang, poite verem, au revoir, arrivedecci and vachun yeta here for now.
—Mme Butterfly