#beda, #beku and The Red Couch are all located within the Royal Orchid premises. No separate entry fee or registration is required for attending the sessions.
Day 1 | 17 Dec | Saturday
| Time | #beda | #beku | The Red Couch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 930am | Festival and C | L | F Inaugural by Shashi Deshpande, Sudha Murty and KV Tirumalesh | ||
| 10am | Inglorious Empire: The Reality Of The British Raj Sanjeev Sanyal in conversation with Shashi Tharoor | Young Journalist Workshop Co Media Lab: A Radio Active and Citizen Matters Initiative. Registration required | |
| 1030am | The Enduring Magic Of The Short Story KR Meera, Murzban Shroff and Vivek Shanbhag with Jahnavi Barua | ||
| 11am | Having It All: The New Indian Girl Sudha Murty in conversation with Chetan Bhagat | ||
| 1130am | Courage And Commitment Anuja Chauhan and Niret Alva in conversation with Margaret Alva | ||
| noon | Publisher Tales: The Making Of A Bestseller Ajitha GS, Ashok Chopra, Deepthi Talwar and Rashmi Menon with Milee Ashwarya | Is Adultery Love? The Dilemma in Shadow & Soul Lakshmi Sankar in conversation with Nandita Bose | |
| 1230pm | Askew: A Short Biography Of Bangalore Naresh Narasimhan, Prakash Belawadi, Prof. KE Radhakrishna and V. Ravichandar with Vasanthi Hariprakash | Want And Wonder Roswitha Joshi on cross-country relationships | |
| 1pm | Literature And The Democratic Imagination: A Discussion of UR Ananthamurthy's Bara Prashant Keshavmurthy, Saikat Majumdar, Shankar Ramaswami and Shiv Visvanathan with Chandan Gowda | And This Is The Way The Kachori Crumbles Rachna Singh goes stand-up on Band Baja Boys | |
| 130pm | Women And Desire Poets Mani Rao and Salma with Maitreyee Chowdhury | The Art Of Not Reading Sabah Carrim | |
| 2pm | Out Of The Pit: The Curse Of Manual Scavenging In India Bezwada Wilson | Translating Karnataka Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi and Sabitha Koraga with Sridhar Gowda | My Miserable Life In Mysore: Readings from Technoshamans and A History of Objects Carlo Pizzati |
| 230pm | Whose Water Is It Anyway: Rivers Of India Arup Kumar Dutta, Kalyanaraman Durgadas, Rohini Nilekani and Sanjeev Sanyal with Dr. Veena Srinivasan | Where The Story Takes You Rachna Singh in conversation with Anand Neelakantan | Out Of Bounds: Anglo-Indian Literature And The Geography of Displacement Alan Johnson |
| 3pm | Mukhamukham: Face To Face With Adoor Amrit Gangar in conversation with Adoor Gopalakrishnan | On Forgotten Queens And Consorts Manu S. Pillai reads from The Ivory Throne | |
| 330pm | Mythofiction: Can Epics Be Tampered With? Anand Neelakantan, Anuja Chandramouli and Madhavi Mahadevan with Mani Rao | The Sinister World Of Weather Weapons Aroon Raman reads from Pralaya | |
| 4pm | The Many Roles We Play Ashok Chopra in conversation with Ashish Vidyarthi | Humour In The Age Of Intolerance A reading by Murzban F. Shroff | |
| 430pm | The Theatre Of Demonetization Narendar Pani, Sanjeev Sanyal and Shiv Visvanathan with Mihir Sharma | Love Is A Four Letter Word A fiery chat between Andaleeb Wajid and Jane De Suza | |
| 5pm | Padaki Haasya Sanje Achutha Rao Padaki | ||
| 530pm | Culture Wars: Narratives Of Left, Right And Twitter Aakar Patel, Manu S. Pillai, Mini Menon and Sumant Batra with Saikat Majumdar | It's All In The Planets Kanchana Banerjee in conversation with Preeti Shenoy | Why Good People Do Bad Things Madan Padaki in conversation with Anita Raghavan, author of The Billionaire's Apprentice |
| 6pm | Wanderlust: My Life, My Travels Ashish Vidyarthi in conversation with Sundeep Bhutoria | What Do You Do Otherwise? A discussion on the challenges of writing about music and dance Ashish Khokar, Kumudha BharathRam and Vasudev Murthy in conversation | |
| 630pm | On A Different Pitch: Five Forms Of Cricketing Partisanship Ramachandra Guha | Noisy Neighbor: Bangalore Meets Berlin - Hand Puppetry And Hip-Hop Paul Affeld and Gubbi | |
| 7pm | |||
| 730pm | Blowin' In The Wind: A Tribute To Bob Dylan Guru Rewben Mashangva | ||
| 8pm | |||
*Schedule could be subject to last-minute changes.
Day 2 | 18 Dec | Sunday
| Time | #beda | #beku | The Red Couch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 930am | Excerpts from A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Nutcracker and Cinderella A Performance by The Lewis Foundation of Classical Ballet | ||
| 10am | A Good Night's Sleep Sumant Batra in conversation with Dr. Manvir Bhatia | Sanatan Soul, New Stories Vani Mahesh in conversation with Amish Tripathi and launch of Kannada edition of The Oath of the Vayuputras | Ask Me Anything: How Do I Become A Published Author Trisha De Niyogi, Nirmal Kanti Bhattacherjee (Niyogi Books) and Trisha Bora (Juggernaut) |
| 1030am | Living In Other Lands Alan Johnson, Carlo Pizzati, Claus Heimes, Manjiri Prabhu and Roswitha Joshi with Sally Breen | Blogs To Columns To Books: Writing As A Teenager Trusha Ganesh | |
| 11am | Ooh n' Aah: Talking Erotica G. Sampath, Gurcharan Das, Rosalyn D'Mello and Vinod Pande with Ananth Padmanabhan | Emerald Blades Poetry with Reijul Sachdev | |
| 1130am | Verse and Ways: Poetry Through Times Prathibha Nandakumar and Vivek Shanbhag in conversation | KR Meera reads from Aarachaar (Malayalam) | |
| noon | Atta Galatta - Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize 2016 Shashi Deshpande to give away the prizes | Badass Women: Changing The World Jane De Suza, Kiran Manral, Rachna Singh and Sajita Nair with Andaleeb Wajid | The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss Comes Alive with Kartik Iyer |
| 1230pm | Morality Tales: Rajat Gupta And Others Anita Raghavan and Josy Joseph with Mihir Sharma | Do You Really Die? A Talk by TS Viswanathan | |
| 1pm | New Media: The Times They Are A-Changin' Mini Menon, Shradha Sharma and Siddharth Varadarajan with BV Rao | The Vernacular Life Of English Saikat Majumdar in conversation with Vivek Shanbhag | |
| 130pm | Standing On An Apple Box Premila Paul in conversation with Aishwaryaa Rajnikanth Dhanush | Ask Me Anything: Love Me Tinder Kiran Manral and Sally Breen on dating woes | |
| 2pm | What's Cooking? The Future Of Indian Food Antoine Lewis, Manu Chandra and Sanjeev Kapoor with Suresh Hinduja | Saving The Pillars Of Salzburg From Destruction Manjiri Prabhu | |
| 230pm | Tales Of Trade Jerry Rao and Omkar Goswami with Gurcharan Das | An Indian Psychologist On A Children’s Playground Usha KR in conversation with author and child psychologist Dr. Malavika Kapur | |
| 3pm | The Art Of The Heart Kanchana Banerjee, Kiran Manral, Nandita Bose and Sabah Carrim with Vasudev Murthy | LitMart Finals Jury: Ajay Mago (Om Books), Ajitha GS (HarperCollins), Ashok Chopra (Hay House), Deepthi Talwar (Westland), Milee Ashwarya (Penguin Random House), Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee (Niyogi Books), Rashmi Menon (Amaryllis), Trisha Bora (Juggernaut) and Trisha De Niyogi (Niyogi Books), Sumant Batra and Sally Breen. | |
| 330pm | Rajiv Gandhi: Chronicle Of A Death Foretold Josy Joseph in conversation with Neena Gopal | ||
| 4pm | Unending Sea Of Stories MS Sriram in conversation with S Diwakar | Swimmer Among The Stars G. Sampath in conversation with Kanishk Tharoor | |
| 430pm | India: Reclaiming Our Civilization's Heritage T. V. Mohandas Pai in conversation with Rajiv Malhotra | ||
| 5pm | Don Quixote Today Raghu Karnad in conversation with Ryan Lobo | Bookasura: Quizzes at BLF Full Meals - The Open Quiz hosted by Venky Srinivasan, Nexus Consulting | |
| 530pm | Contrarian Views Aakar Patel, Kanhaiya Kumar, Prasanna Viswanathan and Ramya with Harish Bijoor | Mohanaswamy: A Compelling Account Of Being Gay in Modern India Rashmi Terdal and Vasudhendra with Rōmal Lāisram | |
| 6pm | Literature From The Margins Chandani, Revathi and Shilok Mukkati with Pratibha Nandakumar | ||
| 630pm | Anything But Khamosh! Ajay Mago and Bharathi Pradhan in conversation with Shatrughan Sinha | ||
| 7pm | |||
| 730pm | Raat Ke Musafir: Piyush Mishra in concert | ||
| 8pm | |||
*Schedule could be subject to last-minute changes.