This year, St Pauls Institute of Communication Education and Title Waves featured as added venues for the Tata Literature Live, a four-day festival that is easily among the largest in the country. Till last year, it featured at the NCPA and Prithvi Theatre in Juhu. This time, on November 17 and 18, it was also at Bandra, on our premises.
The Festival promised more than 100 sessions, plus workshops and performances, over the four days. At St Pauls, there were 28 sessions, spread between Title Waves and the Alberione Hall over two days. What an illustrious lineup it was. From Stephen Daldry, director of Netflix’s famous series The Crown, interviewed by theatre personality and trenchant critic Craig Brown, to Lionel Shriver, talking about her books, NDTV’s Ravish Kumar, in a panel discussion moderated by Dean of SPICE Carol Andrade, journalist Rajdeep Sardesai talking to Govindraj Ethiraj about Journalism in the Modi era, discussions, debates, straight talks and poetry readings, there was something for everyone.
Plus there were the workshops in the Title Waves Lounge. Editing the written word with Ferdinand Mount, putting a thriller together with Sabine Durrant, even one of the science of using foul language by Sabine Durrant.
And the turnout was equally astounding. As Anil Dharker, founder of the literature festival put it, “We thought there would be teething troubles and we wondered if people would come to the new venue. But everything went off so smoothly and the numbers who attended, as well as the quality of those who registered, quite floored us”.
Rich praise indeed with footfalls to match, with an estimated 600+ people visiting over the two days. At the time of this writing, the figures were not yet in. In marketing terms, and if the aim was to raise awareness of St Pauls Media Complex among Bandra-ites and even those who are not from here, it was a 100 per cent successful exercise.
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