The last day of the Shoolini Literature festival began with a riveting session on English poetry which included narration by Arundhati Subramaniam, Sukrita Paul Kumar, and Sanjukta Dasgupta. The session was moderated by Roshan Lal Sharma. The second session was the much-awaited meet-the-artist session of the day with Padma Shri Shubha Mudgal in conversation with Ashoo Khosla. Mudgal created an aura of calm, peace, and witty repartee with her mellifluous voice and diction. The third session of the day gave a wholesome dose of horror and spine chillers with great discussions from Neil D’Silva, Ketaki Patwardhan, and Sharmistha Shenoy and was moderated by Aradhika Sharma. The fact that this particular session ironically coincided with Valentine’s Day created much amusement amongst those present.
The afternoon sessions began with a mesmerising bilingual session on Urdu Shayari with young poets like Aqib Sabir, Faisal Fehmi, and Pallav Mishra. The session was moderated by Anisur Rahman, who also shared his own composition.
A session on children’s literature with Prashant Pinge, Prasun Roy, and Maulshree Mahajan was moderated by Meenakshi F. Paul where the challenges of writing for young audience were discussed in great detail. This was followed by another meet-the-author session with Manjiri Prabhu wherein her craft and works were discussed threadbare. The final session was “All about Lit-Fest” with Manjiri Prabhu, Mitul Dikshit and Vivek Atray. Both these sessions were moderated by Manju Jaidka.
The three-day event came to an eloquent end with closing remarks from Vice-Chancellor Atul Khosla, and the co-directors of the Festival, Ashoo Khosla, and Manju Jaidka. Everybody thanked the people behind-the-scenes which included the entire organising team Purnima Bali, Neeraj Pizar, and Sakshi Sundaram and technical team Chaitanya Mudgil and Kamal Kant Vashisht. A special mention and acknowledgement also went to Suhail Mathur of the Book Bakers Book Agency for his constant help and support right since the inception of the idea.
