Apeejay Literary Festival lines up Shashi Tharoor, UK poet

Focusing on the city's historical spirit of inclusiveness in creativity and culture, the inaugural session of this year's Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival at the St Paul's Cathedral Grounds would see Shashi Tharoor discussing legacy of the Raj, in continuation of his popular speech at the Oxford University that went viral recently.
Tharoor's one-hour-long session would be followed by readings and conversations by well-known UK-based poet and translator Bashabi Fraser in the Poetry Cafe in tribute to Bob Dylan.
Later in the evening there would be a music fest in tribute to Bob Dylan with popular bluegrass, folk, country, jazz, acoustic line-up.

The next day would witness screening of a documentary "Talking Writing: Four Conversations with Mahasweta Devi" at the Presidency University's Derozio Hall as a part of a tribute to the late writer and activist.
The day would also see school students penning "tiny stories" on "A Better World for Every Child" as a part of the UNICEF@70 global campaign at the St Paul's Cathedral.
In the evening there would be a conversation on "Spoken Word, Written Word - Exploring the oral and the scriptural narrative" between translator and writer Arshia Sattar and UK-based storyteller Vayu Naidu at Daga Nikunj.

On Day III morning, there would be screening of films by students of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) at the Dale Carnegie Hall of iLead Campus.

Later, in the evening there would be a discussion on "Stardust and Tinseltown: Writing Bollywood", from fan fiction to film studies and everything in between Shobhaa De, Rachel Dwyer, Jerry Pinto at the St. Paul's Cathedral Grounds.
The fourth and concluding day would see, the "Kolkata Photo Festival 2017", a first-ever multi-site photography festival based on French and Bengal based photographers would be held at the Harrington Street Arts Centre.
In the evening, a discussion between Amit Chaudhuri, Raj Kamal Jha, Rosinka Chaudhuri, Saikat Mazumdar on the occasion of the release of Literary Activism: Perspectives (ed. Amit Chaudhuri).
The closing address would be delivered by Nayantara Sahgal followed by Haji Syed Salman Chisty of Ajmer Sharif at the St. John's Church followed by a mass candle light vigil, poetry and music in solidarity with the ideal of an inclusive society.

In fact, the four-day-long multi-faceted festival also has several stimulating components like release of Lynn Deas's book Horse Racking In India - A Royal Legacy by Chief Guest former India tennis captain Naresh Kumar at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club.