- Sat | 6 Dec
Festival - Sun | 7 Dec
Festival - Performances
- Sat | 6 Dec
C|L|F - Sun | 7 Dec
C|L|F - Midway
- Bookstore
- Pitches
Day 1 | Sat | 6 Dec | Festival
| #blrlitfest Venues | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Watchtower | Open Cell | Left Barrack | Right Barrack |
| 9:00 am Morning Music: Aeri Sakhi Smita Bellur | |||
| 10:00 am Keynote: Being Banu, Being ಬಂಡಾಯ (Baṇḍāya) Banu Mushtaq with Prateeti Punja Ballal | |||
| 10:15 am The Greatest Game Stephen Alter with Rachna Singh Davidar | |||
| 10:30 am Keynote: Language of the Immortals - Sanskrit GN Devy | 10:30 am Tamil Travels K Nallathambi, Paavannan, TS Saravanan, VS Sreedhara with Mini Krishnan | ||
| 10:45 am The Outsider: A Memoir for Misfits Vir Das with Anna MM Vetticad | |||
| 11:00 am Culinary Heritage: Tracing Roots, Tasting Change Kaveri Ponnapa, Tia Anasuya with Madhu Nataraj | 11:00 am ಹುಟ್ಟುಮಚ್ಚೆ: Vatermal Harsha Raghuram, Michael Heinst with Vani Mahesh | ||
| 11:15 am ಹೊಸ ಆರಂಭಗಳ ನಗರ: Unboxing Bengaluru Malini Goyal and Prathibha Nandakumar | |||
| 11:30 am Sleuth and the City Harini Nagendra, Rudraneil Sengupta, Tanuj Solanki with Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew | 11:30 am Akashvani: There's Something in the AIR Abdul Rasheed, Neelesh Kulkarni, Vikrant Pande with Udayan Mitra | ||
| 11:45 am Talkin’ Bout a Revolution: Krantiveers Jyotsna Mohan, Kavitha Rao, Rana Preet Gill with Karthik Venkatesh | 11:45 am ಎಸ್. ಎಲ್. ಭೈರಪ್ಪ, ಸ್ಮರಣೆ: Remembering SL Bhyrappa Krishnamurthy Hanuru | ||
| 12:15 pm The 6-7 Guide to Life Shoba Narayan, Sujata Kelkar Shetty with Sanjana Ramachandran | 12:15 pm Drawn to a Story: The Art of Illustration Garima Gupta, Miglė Anušauskaitė and Sujata Padmanabhan | 12:15 pm ಎದೆಯ ಹಣತೆ: Heart Lamp – Dramatised Readings by Janamanada Atta M Ganesha, Salma Dandin, Sneha Mukkannappa | |
| 12:30 pm Railsong Rahul Bhattacharya with Shalini Umachandran | |||
| 1:00 pm The Commonsense Diet Rujuta Diwekar with Chiki Sarkar | 1:00 pm I Am Out With Lanterns Anuradha Roy, Himanjali Sankar, Santanu Bhattacharya with Keshava Guha | 1:00 pm The Tamils: A Portrait of a Community Nirmala Lakshman with David Davidar | 1:00 pm 11 Limited: Colaba to Bandra Paul Fernandes, Rahul Mehrotra with Naresh Fernandes |
| 1:30 pm Tomorrow is Another Day Aruna Gopakumar, Neena Verma, Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan with Sabin Iqbal | 1:30 pm In First Person: The Art of Remembering Lav Bhargava, Rani Neutill, Sangeetha Vallat with Indulekha Aravind | ||
| 1:45 pm Vasanta: Stories from Sanskrit Plays Arshia Sattar | 1:45 pm In Other Words: Taking Bhasha to the World Arunava Sinha, Deepa Bhasthi, Vivek Shanbhag with Kanishka Gupta | ||
| 2:15 pm The Circle of Life Sudha Murty with Vani Mahesh | 2:15 pm The Fault in our Achaars: Cultural Motifs in Indian Writing | A Deodar Prize Conversation Anjum Hasan, Rohit Vedprakash, R Sivapriya with Natasha Joshi | 2:15 pm பொன்னியின் செல்வன்: Ponniyin Selvan – Dramatised Reading Gowri Ramnarayan, Aarabi Veeraraghavan and Akhila Ramnarayan | |
| 2:30 pm The Joy Luck Club: Of Mothers and Daughters Aishwarya Jha, Krupa Ge, Sonali Prasad, Thammika Songkaeo with Karthik Venkatesh | |||
| 3:00 pm The Shape of Us Ghazala Wahab, Pankaj Mishra, Santosh Desai, Shefalee Vasudev with Manish Sabharwal | 3:00 pm Between the Notes: Musical Portraits Priya Purushothaman, Sumana Ramanan with Sadhana Rao | 3:00 pm ಸಮೀಕ್ಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕಂಡ ಬದುಕಿನ ಕಥೆಗಳು: Life Stories from the Census Guruprasad Kantalagere, Haseena Malnad, Sudha Adukala with Abdul Rasheed | |
| 3:15 pm May-December: A Messed-Up Love Story Chetan Bhagat with Prajwal Hegde | |||
| 3:45 pm Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize Aparajith Ramnath with Rahul Matthan | 3:45 pm The Tiger's Share Keshava Guha with Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan | 3:45 pm ಚಿತ್ತಾರ ಕಲೆ: Chittara Art Geetha Bhat, Smitha Tumuluru and Namrata Cavale | |
| 4:00 pm Lifequake Tarini Mohan with Chaitanya Srivastava | |||
| 4:15 pm What do Men Fear?: Peeping into the Male Mind Dilip Pattubala, Kartikeyan V, Sonora Jha with Rohini Nilekani | 4:15 pm Currents of Being Julie Janson, Sundar Sarukkai with Divyata Rajaram | 4:15 pm ರಾಜಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ಎನ್ ರಾವ್ ರವರ ನವ್ಯ ಲೋಕ: A Modernist in Our Midst Rajalakshmi N Rao with Chandan Gowda | |
| 4:45 pm Counting Electric Sheep: When Fiction Speculates Arnab Ray, Gourav Mohanty with Sayantan Ghosh | 4:45 pm Meet the Savarnas Ravikant Kisana with G Sampath | ||
| 5:00 pm Screens, Streams, Reams: The News Machine Naresh Fernandes, Nirmala Lakshman, Ravi Shankar Etteth, Santosh Desai with Shefalee Vasudev | 5:00 pm Way of the Witch Ipsita Roy Chakraverti with Himanjali Sankar | ||
| 5:15 pm Deviants: The Queer Family Chronicles Santanu Bhattacharya with Thammika Songkaeo | |||
| 5:30 pm A Nation Becoming Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian with Manish Sabharwal | |||
| 5:45 pm Killers on the Loose Clare Mackintosh with Rudraneil Sengupta | 5:45 pm A Life Less Extraordinary Lav Bhargava with Deepthi Talwar | 5:45 pm Ancient Curses Satyarth Nayak, Tanushree Podder with Amita Basu | |
| 6:15 pm Should a Country Speak a Single Language? GN Devy, Deepa Bhasthi with Samanth Subramanian | 6:15 pm Aye, Aye, AI Anil Ananthaswamy, Karen Hao with Indulekha Aravind | 6:15 pm The Fault is Not In Our Stars Ria Chopra, Sanjana Ramachandran with Sumana Ramanan | 6:15 pm Great Power Games: The World Order in Flux Vikram Sood with Nitin Pai |
| 7:00 pm A Wonderland of Words Shashi Tharoor with Rachna Singh Davidar | |||
| – All sessions will start and end on time. Schedule subject to change. Please check back periodically for updates. – All sessions are at the venue only and there will be no live streaming. Video recordings will be available on the Festival’s YouTube channel at a later date. | |||
Day 2 | Sun | 7 Dec | Festival
| #blrlitfest Venues | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Watchtower | Open Cell | Left Barrack | Right Barrack |
| 9:00 am Morning Music: The Universe in a Pot Sumana Chandrashekar and Saitejas Chandrashekar | |||
| 10:00 am The Chola Tigers: The Avengers of Somnath Amish with Bhawana Somaaya | |||
| 10:15 am Between Silence and Song Arundhathi Subramaniam, Akhil Katyal, James Shea with Shikha Malaviya | |||
| 10:30 am Promise It Won't Always Hurt Like This Clare Mackintosh with Shobhaa De | 10:30 am Ram C/O Anandhi Akhil Dharmajan with Rashmi Menon | ||
| 10:45 am Empire of AI Karen Hao with Samanth Subramanian | |||
| 11:00 am Little Fires Everywhere: Family in Fiction Kazim Ali, Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew, Sabin Iqbal with Krupa Ge | 11:00 am Song of the Clay Pot Sumana Chandrashekar with Sadhana Rao | ||
| 11:15 am ನಾವು - ನೀವು ಮತ್ತು ತಾಪಮಾನ: Me and You and Climate Change Nagesh Hegde and Gururaj S Davanagere | |||
| 11:30 am High on a Hill: Everywhere / Nowhere Anuradha Roy and Jeet Thayil | 11:30 am Intemperance: A Novel Sonora Jha with Keshava Guha | ||
| 11:45 am Memory and Country: Australian Writings Julie Janson, Philip McLaren, Tony Hughes-d'Aeth with Hilary McGeachy | 11:45 am ಕಾರಂತರ ಸುಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ: Growing Up Karanth Malavika Kapur, Kshama Rau, K Ullas Karanth, Vishweshwar Bhat with SR Vijayashankar | ||
| 12 noon Making Filmmakers: An FTII Story Radha Chadha with Nandini Ramnath | |||
| 12:15 pm Many Ramayanas, Many Lessons Anand Neelakantan with Mani Rao | |||
| 12:30 pm Hindi Heartland Ghazala Wahab with Tanuj Solanki | 12:30 pm Khel Khel Mein Saumil Majmudar, Vijay Krishnamurthy with Sonali Prasad | 12:30 pm ಯಕ್ಷಗಾನ – ಮತ್ತು ಆಧುನಿಕ ಕಾಲಮಾನ: Yakshagana in Modern Times KE Radhakrishna and Narayana Yaji Salebailu | |
| 1:00 pm Lines on a Map: South Asia Stories Ameena Hussein, Pallavi Aiyar, Samanth Subramanian with Diaa Hadid | 1:00 pm What's Love Got to Do With It Milan Vohra, Nelofar Currimbhoy, Prajwal Hegde, Sayantan Ghosh with Aishwarya Jha | 1:00 pm BWW RK Anand Book Prize | Awards Ceremony | |
| 1:15 pm God's Own Empire Pushpa Palat, Raghu Palat with Karthik Venkatesh | |||
| 1:30 pm Atta Galatta - Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize | Awards Ceremony | |||
| 1:45 pm English Vinglish: Mother Tongue, Other Tongue Gauri Shinde with Satyarth Nayak | 1:45 pm i am iamb: Poetry Readings James Shea, Kazim Ali, Mani Rao, Shikha Malaviya, Suchi Govindarajan anchored by Jeet Thayil | ||
| 2:00 pm Farewell Karachi Bhawana Somaaya with Meenakshi Singh | 2:00 pm ಹೊಸ ಬರಹ: Kannada Writing Today Bhagyajyoti Hiremath, Fathima Raliya, Sudha Adukala with Jayashree Kasaravalli | ||
| 2:30 pm Running Behind Lakshmi: The Search for Wealth in India's Stock Market Adil Rustomjee with Narayan Ramachandran | 2:30 pm It's Close to Midnight: Thriller Nights Divyata Rajaram, Kishore Ram, Krishnan Srinivasan with Philip McLaren | ||
| 2:45 pm Colouring Outside the Lines Danish Husain, Janeita Singh, Shefalee Vasudev with Sadhana Rao | 2:45 pm 'ಅಗ್ನಿಪಥ'ದಲ್ಲಿ…: On the Path of Fire BM Basheer, Rajaram Tallur with BM Haneef | ||
| 3:15 pm Just Like a Woman Anita Nair, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Gayathri Prabhu with Diaa Hadid | 3:15 pm For No Reason at All Ramjee Chandran with Deepthi Talwar | 3:15 pm ಕೊರಚ ಮತ್ತು ಸಿದ್ದಿ ಭಾಷೆಗಳು: Koracha and Siddi Language Worlds Laxmi R Siddi, HR Swamy with Niranjanaradhya VP | |
| 3:30 pm All Our Loves: On Journeys of Polyamory Arundhati Ghosh with Manu Joseph | |||
| 3:45 pm The Great Indian Brain Rot Anurag Minus Verma with Ravikant Kisana | 3:45 pm ಅಗಲಿದ ಮೊಗಳ್ಳಿಯ ಕುರಿತು: Mogalli the Storyteller Abdul Rasheed, Arun Joladkudligi and Bhagyajyoti Hiremath | ||
| 4:00 pm Chasing a Conjecture Chandrashekhar B Khare with Anil Ananthaswamy | 4:00 pm Ajita: A Novel K Sridhar with Suchi Govindarajan | ||
| 4:15 pm Long Live the Short Story Ameena Hussein, Amita Basu, Aruna Nambiar with Jahnavi Barua | |||
| 4:30 pm The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India Gopalkrishna Gandhi with David Davidar | 4:30 pm No Gods, No Gurus Nandita Iyer with Meenakshi Singh | ||
| 4:45 pm Yenna Rascala Vs. कितने आदमी थे: The North and South of Cinema Anna MM Vetticad, Archana Vasudev, Nandini Ramnath with Anand Neelakantan | |||
| 5:00 pm Leadership: Purpose, Presence and the Human Spirit Harish Bhat, Richard Lobo, Sanjiv Sarin with Aruna Gopakumar | 5:00 pm Storykeepers and First Nations Writers Julie Janson with Tony Hughes-d'Aeth | ||
| 5:15 pm AMA with Manu Joseph | |||
| 5:30 pm A Witness to Our Times Pankaj Mishra with Samanth Subramanian | |||
| 5:45 pm Travels in the Other Place Pallavi Aiyar with G Sampath | 5:45 pm Mortality Tales: Time to Go Akhil Katyal, Clare Mackintosh, Ravi Shankar Etteth with Gayathri Prabhu | 5:45 pm Not All Who Wander are Lost: Writing Identities Kazim Ali, Rani Neutill, Thammika Songkaeo with Dharini Bhaskar | |
| 6:15 pm The Sensual Self Shobhaa De with Santosh Desai | 6:15 pm The Making and Unmaking of Empires Anirudh Kanisetti, Sam Dalrymple with Jyotsna Mohan | ||
| 6:30 pm Why I Killed My Husband Anita Nair with K Sridhar | 6:30 pm From Hindavi to Dakhni to Urdu Danish Husain with Arundhati Ghosh | ||
| – All sessions will start and end on time. Schedule subject to change. Please check back periodically for updates. – All sessions are at the venue only and there will be no live streaming. Video recordings will be available on the Festival’s YouTube channel at a later date. | |||
Performances
Morning Music: Aeri Sakhi
Smita Bellur
Smita Bellur
Smita Bellur
Bio coming soon.
The Universe in a Pot
A Musical-Storytelling Performance Around the Clay Pot
Sumana Chandrashekar and Saitejas Chandrashekar
Sumana Chandrashekar
Bio
Sumana Chandrashekar is a ghatam player, author and researcher and a long time student of Carnatic vocal music. She has performed extensively, has worked on several experimental and collaborative music projects and projects in music education. She has travelled widely in India and has worked closely with artists and artist communities. Her book Song of the Clay Pot came out in 2025.
Saitejas Chandrashekar
Bio coming soon.
Day 1 | Sat | 6 Dec | C|L|F
| #blrlitfest Venues | ||
|---|---|---|
| CLF 1 Ages 4+ | CLF 2 Ages 8+ | CLF 3 Ages 12+ |
| 10:00 am A Morning of Wonders: Magic Show Nakul Shenoy | ||
| 10:30 am Little Story Makers Meera Venkatesan | 10:30 am Storytelling From Leaf People Chatura Rao | 10:30 am Wild Words: Stories from the Jungle and Beyond Ishan Shanavas |
| 11:00 am What am I Good At? Rahul Pradhan | 11:00 am Young Detectives: Solving Tiny Mysteries Neha Patodia | 11:00 am Banned Bites and Secret Societies Menaka Raman |
| 11:30 am Monsoon Magic with Boondi Niveditha Reddy | 11:30 am Go Wild About India Shylaja Sampath | 11:30 am The Missing Rocks of Hampi Mala Kumar |
| 12 noon Banku's Terrific Tails Rachna Chhabria | 12 noon A National Symbols Quiz Kavitha Mandana | 12 noon Solving Mysteries: A Journey Along the Silk Road Veena Muthuraman |
| 12:30 pm Amma's Magic Handbag Vaishali BK | 12:30 pm CONSEQUENCES! Make a Crazy Character! Sunaina Coelho | 12:30 pm stE=mc² Madhuri Katti |
| 1:00 pm Dadu’s Mangoes and Moonlight Aprajita Singh | 1:00 pm The Krishnadevaraya Quiz Roopa Pai | 1:00 pm Storyboarding Through Photos Meghna Shirish |
| 1:30 pm Ondu Buckettinalli Samudra Kiran Bhat | 1:30 pm Body, Creativity and Emotions Gokul Ratakonda and Shravanthi V | 1:30 pm Finance Quiz Raghav Chakravarthy |
| 2:00 pm Make Your Own Emotion Mask Chandrima Chatterjee | 2:00 pm Nature Journaling Nidhi Bennur | 2:00 pm Turn Back Time with The White Lotus Aditi Krishnakumar |
| 2:30 pm Facing Fears with Roars and Giggles! Garima Gupta | 2:30 pm The Open-ended Storybook Shloka K | 2:30 pm Falling in Love Sujatha Padmanabhan and Sangeetha Kadur |
| 3:00 pm Whispers of a Tree Suchi Govindarajan and Kavita Arvind | 3:00 pm Rain Perfume: Drawing the Rain Shubhshree Mathur | 3:00 pm What's Hiding In The Dark? Sahitya Rani |
| 3:30 pm The Magic Of The Lost Earrings Sudha Murty with Roopa Pai | ||
| 4:00 pm Manvinder’s Medu Vada Riddhi Mandiar Doda | 4:00 pm Drawing Expressions Bhavana D | 4:00 pm Champi and the Fig Tree Deepa Bhasthi |
| 4:30 pm Adopt, Don't Shop Anusha Ramanathan | 4:30 pm Sochu: Think Outside the Box Chetan Vohra | 4:30 pm If You Were A Tiger Cub Stephen Alter |
| 5:00 pm The Court Jester: Tales of Tenali Rama Bangalore Little Theatre | ||
| – All sessions will start and end on time. Schedule subject to change. Please check back periodically for updates. – All sessions are at the venue only and there will be no live streaming. Video recordings will be available on the Festival’s YouTube channel at a later date. | ||
Day 2 | Sun | 7 Dec | C|L|F
| #blrlitfest Venues | ||
|---|---|---|
| CLF 1 Ages 4+ | CLF 2 Ages 8+ | CLF 3 Ages 12+ |
| 10:00 am A Clown Show Prithesh Bhandary and Bhandutvas | ||
| 10:30 am Turning Yourself Into A Comic Book Character Alina Ifthikar | ||
| 11:00 am Caper Chronicles Bijal Vachharajani and Canato Jimo | 11:00 am If History Had a Soundtrack Saisudha Acharya, Rohit Bhasi and Janani Murali | 11:00 am An Absence of Squirrels Aparna Kapur |
| 11:30 am Stories of Our Cities Veena Rao | 11:30 am Indian food From A to Z Archana Sreenivasan | 11:30 am Of Maps and Mountain Mysteries Meera Iyer |
| 12 noon I Won't Wash My Hair Ogin Nayam | 12:00 noon A Spooky Adventure Sudeshna Shome Ghosh | 12 noon The Inherent Kindness in Storytelling Huthuka Sumi |
| 12:30 pm The Adventures of Brownie Sanjana Kulkarni | 12:30 pm My Wild Mongoose Friend Abhisheka Krishnagopal | 12:30 pm Awesome Memory Shireen Stephen |
| 1:00 pm Can a NO Become a YES? Richa Jha | 1:00 pm Sneaker Paati Anita Nair | 1:00 pm Drawing the Gita Savio Mascarenhas |
| 1:30 pm Let's RUN! Kavita Singh Kale | 1:30 pm Sounds, Body and Rhythms Sumana Chandrasekar | 1:30 pm A Hoysala Adventure Nitin Kushalappa |
| 2:00 pm Can You Smell Like a Bee or Jump Like a Flea? Chandini Chhabhra | 2:00 pm Paper Homes Nina Sabnani | 2:00 pm One-Two-Tree Vibha Batra |
| 2:30 pm Story-Ga-Ma Meenu Sivaramakrishnan | 2:30 pm Sarayu's Museum Adventure Aparna Jaishankar | 2:30 pm Making Comics About Everyday Life Jyotsna Ramesh |
| 3:00 pm Putaani Pantars Ashwini Shanbag | 3:00 pm Be a Neighbourhood Naturalist Labonie Roy, Suhel Quader and Vena Kapoor | 3:00 pm Naughty Pranks and Mountains Anand Neelakantan |
| 3:30 pm Beginners Guide to Finding a Story and Drawing It Pankaj Saikia | 3:30 pm Game On! Himanjali Sankar | 3:30 pm Becoming Your Favourite Book Character! Ayushi Agrawal |
| 4:00 pm Go Go Flamingo! Priya Kuriyan | 4:00 pm Golden Athletes Tanushree Podder | 4:00 pm Stories and Myths From Campus Bishhal Paull |
| 4:30 pm Putti Gets Glasses Maithri Arunkumar | 4:30 pm Mystery Masters: Find Your Inner Detective with Maya & Meera! Maya Chandrasekar and Meera Naidu | 4:30 pm Hatipoti Magazine Pankaj Saikia and Diganta Sarma |
| 5:00 pm Flash, Jam and Sing Danish Abdi | ||
| – All sessions will start and end on time. Schedule subject to change. Please check back periodically for updates. – All sessions are at the venue only and there will be no live streaming. Video recordings will be available on the Festival’s YouTube channel at a later date. | ||
Midway
Bookstore
Bookstore
Meet your favourite authors and get books signed by them at our buzzing festival bookstore located on the right, once you enter Freedom Park. There is also a childrens’ bookstore in the C|L|F area. All authors will be at signing area below the bookstore for book signings after their sessions.
Bookstore Partner
