Lovers of art, culture and books are spoilt for choice this month because the cultural calendar of Kolkata is choc-a-bloc with three literature festivals running one after the other.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan inaugurated the fifth edition of the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival (AKLF) last week while the Kolkata Literary Meet (KLM) would be held at the iconic Victoria Memorial from January 25 to 30.
On the last day of KLM, the Kolkata Book Fair authorities have decided to come up another lit fest called Kolkata Language and Literature Festival (KLLF) from January 30 to February 1.
Although books are at the core of all these festivals, the organisers claim they all are unique in their own way and therefore there's no competition among them.
AKLF, which is the city's first lit fest started in 2009, goes beyond the world of books and interweaves literature with culture, arts and heritage.
It also paid tributes to India's first Education Minister, writer and scholar Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who is also Aamir Khan's ancestor, to mark his 125th birth anniversary celebrations.
Connecting the written word with the world of arts - music, dance, theatre, cinema, fashion, design and the visual arts - it has around 60 authors like sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, British playwright Farrukh Dhondy, former BBC journalist Mark Tully, socialite Bina Ramani, writers Vikram Sampath, Amit Chauduri, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Mani Shankar Mukherjee and Nabaneeta Dev Sen.
Heritage venues like Victoria Memorial, St John's Anglican Church and Tollygunge Club are brought to life as the festival travels across venues in the city.
Moving away from its earlier venue of the Kolkata Book Fair, KLM, on the other hand, would be held at the sprawling Victoria Memorial for six days beginning January 25.
After inauguration by American feminist writer Gloria Steinem and Bengali poet Sankha Ghosh, the carnival will bring writers, thinkers and artistes of national and international repute to the city like Vikram Seth, Mark Tully, Mohsin Hamid and Peter Godwin.
