Kolkata: Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet 2018 inaugurated amidst much fanfare at Victoria Memorial

The inauguration ceremony witnessed the presence of literary enthusiasts, students and academicians from across the country who were also a part of thought-provoking sessions of the day.

The six days of Tata Steel Kolkata literary meet will witness the presence of authors and eminent personalities of national and international repute such as Ruskin Bond, Nobel Laureate Prof Mohammed Yunus, Devdutt Pattanaik, N Ram, Arun Shourie, Rajdeep Sardesai, Shabana Azmi & Javed Akhtar, Sourav Ganguly, Sugato Bose, Bishen Singh Bedi, Zakir Hussain and Nawajuddin Siddiqui and Nandita Das, among others.

Not just this. Luminaries from the literary world will converge to have discussions on topics such as history and interpretation of India, philosophy & imagination, memories of the partition, stories of India’s ancient texts, music and films to name a few.

TSKLM is an element of Tata Steel’s consistent endeavour to connect with the youth with a view to promoting Indian culture and heritage. The literature festival resonates the company’s corporate philosophy of supporting initiatives that encourage intellectual and cultural pursuits in society.

Speaking at the inaugural session, T.V. Narendran, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Steel, said, “Tata Steel has been around for more than a hundred years and, over the years, has been one of the biggest investors in this region as well. But beyond the investment, it’s the engagement with the communities, which is a part of our ethos that makes us different. Tata Steel finds multiple platforms to engage with the communities in the regions in which we operate. For us, art, literature and culture are very important in the way we connect with the community. As far as literary meets are concerned, our idea was to have our own literary meet in Kolkata and this is the fourth edition that we are supporting”.  He added that “it is a privilege for us to be associated with Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet and we have taken this platform of engagement to Bhubaneswar and Jharkhand with the Bhubaneswar Literary Meet and the Jharkhand Literary Meet. The idea is to create different platforms, to connect with different communities and engage with different people and enjoy the journey along with you”.

Adding to the excitement, Tishani Doshi, Urvashi Butalia, and Shreya Sen-Handley will be tuning in to conversations around the HashTag MeToo campaign and why could India not take this issue beyond social media tokenism.  As part of the sessions, Shabana Azmi, Alok Rai, Sandip Raj and Suresh Jindal will also be speaking on the book and film Shatranj Ke Khiladi.

Cultural performances will be staged by famous musicians such as Shankar Mahadevan and troupe who will be trancing the classical roots of Hindi’s cinema’s best-loved songs.