By Book Worm Foundation–After nearly 40 sessions spread out over four days at the banks of the Phewa Lake, the Nepal Literature Festival 2017 ended on January 30 with a huge crowd thronging the venue and requesting for more. The festival had nearly 100 artists, litterateurs, musicians, journalists and word lovers coming together for engaging dialogues, exhibitions, book signings and discounts, poetry and gazal recitations and musical performances.
The first session at the lawns was a beautiful journey along with Veteran Actors Madan Krishna Shrestha and Haribansha Acharya on their professional travails, as they recounted how they emerged as one of the strongest duos in the Nepali acting world. The session was moderated by Editor Gunaraj Luitel. At the lawns in the following session, authors Buddhisagar and Amar Neupane debated on whether or not literature amplified sadness to garner popularity. Titled ‘Runche Sahitya’, the session was moderated by Rajendra Parajuli.
At the same time, audience in the hall enjoyed a session where Media Person Samriddhi Rai conversed with Popular Writer and Motivational Speaker Durjoy Datta on the need and importance of romance in life. Following this was a session on Anti-Social Media, where Bhutanese Journalist Namgay Zam, Activist Jeevan Kshetri and Author Subin Bhattarai discussed how social media has been affecting them and the world personally and personally. The moderator for the session was writer and communicator Richa Bhattarai. Meanwhile, inside the hall, Writer Ganesh Poudel was talking to writers Saraswati Pratikshya, Khagendra Sangraula and Rajan Mukarung on rebellious thoughts and ideas.
The fourth session on the lawn had writers talking about the need to honestly replicate life and times in literature. The speakers were writers Narayan Dhakal, Bhupal Rai and Sarita Tiwari, while the moderator was Poet Shakuntala Joshi. Inside the hall, audience were interested in knowing whether it was viable for authors to let go of their professions in order to continue their passion for writing. This ended the sessions in the hall.
The next session at the lawns was a jampacked one: with Editor Ameet Dhakal discussing silver linings for managing the bureaucracy and government services with Minister for Health Gagan Thapa and Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), Kulman Ghising. The session concluded that positive changes were possible with grit and determination. The session following that was extremely popular, with People’s Singer Raamesh bringing people to their feet to sing along with him and commit to a unified future.
During the closing speech for the festival, Executive Director of the Nepal Literature Festival, Niraj Bhari, said, “We are extremely grateful to Pokhara for its affection and hospitality towards the festival, and promise that we will hold it here the next year.” He also implored the audience to come out of fragmentations and groupism and unite for the noble cause of expanding the horizon of art, literature, culture, and ideas.
The festival came to a grand finale with apoetry recitation session, with 10 powerful poets reciting their beautiful creations in a session moderated by poet Saraswati Pratikshya. The poets talked of love and politics, mothers and poverty, fate and expectations, hypnotizing the audience with their words and gestures.
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