The 12th edition of the Hyderabad Literary Festival came full circle on day two, starting with two young professionals discussing their career change, ending with a spotlight on a world-renowned economist taking a break to write a book on kitchen.
The day began with Sidhartha Mallya, the actor and son of fugitive liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya, and actor Samir Soni revealing to moderator Anu Acharya in a session on mental health titled ‘Caring for the Mind’, the period of turmoil in their life that caused important decisions that will change their lives.
Mr. Mallya turned down the opportunity offered by inheritance in India and pursued his passion, while Soni became disenchanted with life as an investment banker. Both expressed their thoughts on mental well-being in their respective works, ‘Si te soy honest’ and ‘My experiment with silence’.
Mr. Soni says that one has to decondition oneself to realize what one really is. Somehow, success is equated with happiness, even though the two have nothing to do with each other, he said.
Mallya agreed, adding that as children we are forced to choose what we want to do and stick with it for life, even if we get the least joy out of it.
The day progressed to an illuminating conversation, albeit mostly in Hindi, with Punjabi author Des Raj Kali on his treatise ‘Shanti Parav’, a Dalit deconstruction of peace claims in the eponymous source text of the Mahabharata epic.
It was followed by another talk entitled ‘Heroes and villains’, moderated by Uma Magal, who spoke with two film experts, Balaji Vittal and Kaveree Bamzai, in the context of their respective works ‘Pure Evil: The bad men of Bollywood’ and ‘Los Three Khan: And the Rise of New India’. The discussion delved into topics such as migrating to Bollywood in hopes of making a name for themselves and the evolution of villainous characters in Indian movies.
After noon, the first session was dedicated to female doctors, with the panelists being Kavitha Rao who, through her book ‘Lady Doctors’, shed light on the dark stories of the first generation of female doctors in the country, and Kavery Nambisan, surgeon. cum novelist who has been lucky enough to be able to write her own memoir of her medical profession.
The final session saw Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee, along with his illustrator Cheyenne Olivier, bringing a refreshing diversion from their subject matter into the ways of the culinary world, through their book ‘Cooking to Save Your Life’. She came up with the idea for the book while compiling recipes for his brother-in-law as a Christmas present, and is undeterred by how the world would perceive this whimsical change. In his own words, the precept of ‘making the most of existing resources’ unites economy and cooking!
The panels were interspersed with a radio play, a poetry recital and a cultural program, to culminate with the interactive work ‘The art of facing fear: United World’ by Rodolfo García Vásquez.
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