Far from last years very centrally located venue, the second edition of Bangalore Literature Festival will have a huge section of Bangalore having to negotiate gargantuan traffic and distances to reach Electronics City. But its all worth the effort, the book lover might say, given the distinguished and eclectic mix of guests and panels that discuss everything from cinema and fashion to spirituality.

The event is being held over three days, starting this Friday, at Crowne Plaza, Velankani Park, Electronics City. The inaugural, presided over by Chandrashekara Kambar, is followed by a talk on spiritual writing by Celebration of love and life: an intimate note to the sincere seeker by Art Of Living founder Ravi Shankar. Ensuing sessions have several literary celebrities including Gulzar, Ramachandra Guha, William Dalrymple, U.R. Ananthamurthy, Rajmohan Gandhi and Shashi Deshpande, to name a few.

A new track this year is one commemorating 100 years of Indian cinema with a discussion on the adaptation of biographies to bio-pics. This track features actor Farhan Akhtar, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and lyricist-writer Prasoon Joshi. Film critics such as Baradwaj Rangan, M.K. Raghavendra and Bhawana Somaaya will also participate.

Like last year, this time too a section of panel discussions are focussed on Kannada literature, with a special focus on oral literary languages of Karnataka including Beary, Tulu, Kodava and Konkani. An entire track is devoted to Mathoor and its success with making Sanskrit all pervasive there, a press release stated.

Many childrens sessions and activity corners have been organised at a tent thats been called the Makkala Koota.

Publishers Pratham Books, Bookalore and Amar Chitra Katha are participating. The festival opens at 10 a.m. on all three days. Entry is free and open to all via registration on the website http://www.bangaloreliteraturefestival.org. The schedule for the event is also on the site.

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The written word: spirituality, fashion and cinema