A mixed bag of events at this literature festival

The Lucknow Literature Festival 2022 ensured its 10th anniversary in the city was organised in a grand way. Featuring some famous celebrities and authors as eminent speakers, the festival showcased a lineup of exclusively curated sessions and celebrated the history and importance of literature, food, music, art and culture. One of the interesting sessions that took place, titled Humara Cinema Urdu Ke Aaine Mein, had documentary filmmaker and author Nasreen Munni Kabir, lyricist and screenwriter of the Hindi film industry Kausar Munir and poet Abhishek Shukla as panellists. While speaking about the timelessness of the old classic songs and how they have become a significant part of our lives even in this rapidly changing music industry, Nasreen shared, “Hinglish being used in the current Bollywood songs is neither entirely Hindustani nor English so basically, this is something new in the making. So I really feel that there is no replacement for retro songs which used Urdu and Hindi in their purest form. Naye gaane toh bas 2-3 mahine ke liye chalenge, paise kamayenge aur usse sab bas kuch pal ke liye khush ho jayenge.”

Atul Tiwari

Faisal Malik

Jyoti Kapur Das

Another session titled, OTT: Over The Top, took place in the presence of film director yoti Kapur Das and actors Atul Tiwari, Faisal Malik and actress Avantika Dassani. Atul Tiwari told everyone how they now have the freedom
to complain about the inappropriate content displayed on OTT.
At the end of the aforementioned session, actress Shabana Azmi, who graced the session as the audience, came on stage and shared her views, “Artists should have the freedom to take the decisions on what they want to show in their shows and films.”

(L) Kausar Munir (R) Dr Taneya Singh

Nasreen Munni Kabir

Aditi Sharma and Ankit Anand

Bhoopesh Rai and Mohammad Rashid

Writer and poet Javed Akhtar kept the audience engaged with his anecdotes of Jaanisaar Akhtar and Kaifi Azmi.”
A session at the event also featured Dr Alka Singh and Col Jyotirmay Ghoshal who is a poet and served the Indian army for 37 years.

(L-R) Sameena, Divya Bhattacharya and Bulbul Godiyal

Col J Ghoshal and Dr Alka Singh

Besides a myriad of sessions, an Awadhi Recipe Competition also took place at the event, bringing together a wide range of scrumptious home-cooked delicacies which was judged by well known chef Pankaj Bhadouria.
Actress Susmita Mukherjee who is one of the quite frequent visitors of Lucknow was also witnessed enjoying the competition. While speaking about her experience, she shared, “Though I couldn’t taste the dishes as I am
fasting, I have admired their beauty through my eyes and feasted on them through their aroma. I really feel that it is such a wonderful thing to pull off something like this because you have to preserve the culture for the next generation.”
-Snigdha Agarwal

Renuka and Ambrish Tandon

(L) Kanak Rekha Chauhan (R) Susmita Mukherjee

Noopur Sinha (L) and Jyoti Sinha

(L) Prashali (R) Gopal Sinha