A Fest for the Hills
This will be the first edition of the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, without the presence of the author. “This edition will have a certain poignancy. Kasauli is also the place where my father did most of his writing,” says his son and the man behind the festival, Rahul Singh. The main theme of the litfest will be ‘The Art of Story-telling’. There will also be discussions on India’s contribution to World War One, to mark its centenary, and the menace of Punjab’s drug problem. It is the only literature festival in the region, in this pretty hilltown, and for the first two fests drew an audience of around 300-500 a day.
Quiet Man in Trio
Penguin Classics has come out with a set of Raja Rao’s books: The Serpant and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare, Kanthapura and Collected Stories. An Indian author writing in English, Raja Rao moved to the US in the ’60s, taught in the University of Texas, and was a prolific writer till his death in 2006. Curiously, he never became as well known as R.K. Narayan or Mulk Raj Anand. This set is a great way to be introduced to his writing.
Book in the Train
You might know that Sharmila Tagore reads an Alistair MacLean book in the Mere Sapno Ki Rani Kab Ayegi Tu song from Aradhana. But do you know the book Aamir Khan reads in Rang De Basanti or Abhay Deol in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara? Check out this delightful compilation by Diptakriti Chaudhuri in the Outlook website.
