India holds litrary festival

Story-writers, novelists, litterateurs, journalists and scholars from various fields congregated at "Kovalam Literary Festival" held in south India this weekend; it kicked off in New Delhi and concluded in Trivandrum, the capital city of southernmost state of Kerala.  The fifth edition of the literary festival turned out to be a melting pot of ideas and opinions on wide ranging subjects such as human rights, energy economics, modern Indian writing and pulp fiction.  Besides Indian writers, the participants also included those from Israel and England. They delved into various aspects of evolving literature in India, particularly English. The foreign participants have written books, both fiction and non-fiction, on several topics of Indian history and culture.  Festival organiser, Binoo John, a journalist, told KUNA "This festival is an attempt to bring writers and novelists closer to their readers, and arrange a direct interaction between the two sides. The festival also provides literary exposure to the people of Kerala state, which is otherwise cut-off from rest of India." Farrukh Dhondy, a British writer who spent his childhood days in the south-western city of Pune and has written extensively on India, said that such festivals give a platform for the writers to mull over the evolving English literature and the subjects for further writings.  Another participant Roderick Mathews, a British writer who recently wrote a book - "Jinnah Vs Gandhi"; a book based on India's Father of Nation Mahatama Gandhi and Pakistani Father of Nation Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It compared the personalities of both figures and their role during the Partition of India in 1947.  As historian, Mathews said that Indian history has always fascinated him and he chose Gandhi and Jinnah as his book's subject as these two great personalities played a key role in India's Freedom Movement from the British before 1947.