About Us - Tata Literature Live!

ABOUT TATA LITERATURE LIVE!

Tata Literature Live! is Mumbai’s largest international literary festival. Featuring authors, poets, thought leaders and more it is an intelectually stimulating event for people of all ages. The types of sessions include from book launches, panel discussions, straight talks, debates, performances and workshops – for both, kids and adults.

The eleventh edition of the festival will take place from Monday, 16th November to Sunday, 22nd November 2020 and will be a virtual festival celebrating real books. The sessions can all be viewed on our website, youtube channel and facebook, twitter & instagram pages.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

There’s been no year like 2020. And let’s hope it stays that way. The pandemic locked us all down in virtual house arrest, yet there was never in our minds any doubt that the Eleventh Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest would take place, Corona Virus or no Corona Virus. At first we thought we would be there as usual, with milling crowds at NCPA, Title Waves and St Paul’s and Prithvi Theatre. Then, as the virus showed no signs of going away, we thought of a hybrid festival, part online, part offline. In August, we looked harsh reality in the face and said, ‘Let’s do it all online, but let’s make it bigger and better!’

Bigger and better it is. Of course, we will miss the physical buzz of the usual festival, the rush for passes, the camaraderie of the queue to get in, browsing through the book counters at each venue and the thrill of getting one’s favourite author to sign our copy and put our name on it. To compensate, at least in some way, we have expanded the festival from the usual 4 days to a full week (Monday, November 16 to Sunday 22nd). And the number of writers and speakers has gone up to over 160. And what a line-up! If you will forgive the immodesty, has an array of such brilliant minds in so many fields ever been seen together at a literary festival in India?

So take a week off from work. And immerse yourself in what promises to be a most magnificent feast for the mind.

COMMITTEE

ANIL DHARKER

Festival Director

Anil Dharker is a Mumbai-based writer and columnist. At various stages in his life, he has been an engineer on the academic staff of the University of Glasgow, a consultant in a Mumbai architectural firm, a film critic and censor, a promoter of New Cinema with the National Film Development Corporation and an editor successively, ofDebonair, Mid-Day and Sunday Mid-Day, The Independent,and The Illustrated Weekly of India. Dharker has worked in television as producer and anchor, as well as head of a news television channel, then poised for takeoff. He was also, briefly, creative director of the Zee Television network. He is still remembered for his long stint as TV critic at The Sunday Observer, where readers, viewers, producers, Doordarshan directors-general and ministers found his column the one they loved to hate. These were reprinted in an anthology by HarperCollins titled Sorry Not Ready:Television in the Time of PMdarshan. Dharker has written a coffee-table book on Goa; a biography of industrialist OP Jindal, The Man Who Talked To Machines; and a book on Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March, The Romance Of Salt. Recently, he brought out an anthology, Icons: The Men & Women Who Shaped Today’s India.

Shashi Baliga

Executive Festival Director

Shashi Baliga is an independent journalist and media trainer. Her last assignment was as Editor, Sunday Features with the Hindustan Times, Mumbai. She has also been Editor of Filmfare magazine, worked with The Independent and The Metropolis on Saturday papers and Femina and Savvy magazines. She lectures on journalism at the Xavier Institute of Communication and SPICE in Mumbai. She has contributed a chapter to A Book of Light, edited by Jerry Pinto – a collection of personal accounts of living with a loved one with mental illness.

AMY FERNANDES

Associate Festival Director

Amy Fernandes has been Editor of India's leading women's magazine, Femina; Editor, Features with a daily publication including Saturday Times; Editor, Special Projects at The Times of India and Editor of the Sunday edition of the DNA newspaper. She conceptualised and brought out Jade, a successful magazine for South India. She has also taught journalism at St Andrew’s College and at St Paul’s Institute of Communications.
She is passionate about magazine journalism and has brought out as many as five publications on various subjects at one time.

Quasar Thakore Padamsee

Associate Festival Director, Head Performances

Q is a theatreholic. A director, producer, trainer and, most importantly, avid watcher of all things theatrical. In the past he has been curator of the theatre section for the Kala Ghoda Festival, Prithvi Festival platforms and the Mumbai Theatre Utsav. Internationally he has worked on Tim Supple’s critically acclaimed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Toby Gough’s smash hit The Merchants of Bollywood and most recently, the aerial drama Mind Walking. In Bombay his plays Project S.t.r.i.p. and Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace have been running for many years.

Dr. Vinod Kumar Budhiraja

Associate Festival Director, Head Travel & Hospitality

Dr Vinod Kumar Budhiraja I.T.S is an independent telecom professional who has been employed in both the public and private sector in India and abroad. Over his long career he has been General Manager of MTNL; General Manager Telecom, Kashmir; a member of the Executive Committee of Association of Business Communication of India (ABCI) and the Chairman of the Public Relations Society of India, Bombay Chapter (PRSI).

Reena Agrawal

Associate Festival Director

When Reena is not teaching Sociology to students of mass media , she is telling stories to children who challenge and help explore her own possibilities .
As Co Founder of Storyexpress she supports education of the lesser privileged through books, reading and music. A struggling Indian classical instrumental player, she is still trying to hit the right notes!