Chandigarh’s 1st Lit Fest for Children

Chandigarh’s 1st Lit Fest for Children

MUNISH DHIMAN  22nd Mar 2014

Mitul Dikshit, chairman of the Adab Foundation and Anita Roy, festival director. n a breakthrough in the city's literary landscape, the first ever two-day Chandigarh Children's Literature Festival 2014 is all set to be held on 28-29 March 2014, organised by Dikshant International School in association with the Adab Foundation at Tagore Theatre, Sector 18. The first Chandigarh Literature Festival last year was a big draw for literature lovers, where they got opportunity to hear and rub shoulders with the who's who of the world of letters, drawn from all over the country. The festival was organised with an underlying idea to catapult Chandigarh to the national literary map, by holding discussions, debates, reading sessions, writing workshops and musical soirees. "The Festival is a literary power pack that will take the children on a fairy tale journey worth remembering," said Mitul Dikshit, chairman of the Adab Foundation. "The programme has been designed in an exciting and fun-filled way, featuring talks and readings by famous children's writers, offering an opportunity for children to listen to their favourite books being read and talked about. India's 16 leading children's authors and illustrators are likely to attend the festival. Besides talks and reading sessions by these writers, writing competitions and workshops will mark the rare festivity." Some of the authors expected to attend are Ranjit Lal, Sampurna Chatterjee, Samina Mishra, Priya Kurian, Chatura Rao, Payal Dhar, Sukhesh Arora, Natasha Sharma, Anita Roy, Srivi Kalyan, Devika Rangachaari, Swati Sengupta, Kavitha Mandana, Samit Basu, Arunava Sinha and Simi Shrivastava. "The leitmotif behind the festival," said festival director Anita Roy, "is to enthuse children about reading while exhorting them to develop a habit of reading authors of substance. The fest is aimed at creating an atmosphere where young book fans may feel free about meeting their favourite authors and book characters and enjoy them." A host of other activities that will feature at the event include crafts activity, quizzes and puzzles, guess-the-book reading sessions, story writing competitions, besides other interactive sessions to mark the occasion. These activities were added to the festival with a view to enhance audiences' participation. http://www.sunday-guardian.com/young-restless/chandigarhs-1st-lit-fest-for-children