Over the
weekend, we attended the fourth edition of Bangalore Literature festival, an
annual literary event that Bangalore is home to. We have been regulars at the
BLF ever since it began in 2012, following it all the way to Electronic city
(the venue for the event during the last two years) and splitting the two-day
event between Abhay (our only child then) and ourselves. This year however we
weren’t sure if we could make it with a six month old in tow! However, with the run up to the event
embroiled in controversies with some authors pulling out of the event and given
that it was to be held at a near-by location, it became all the more imperative
that we attend and support a community funded initiative such as BLF that we so
look forward to attending each year. So there we were at the Royal Orchid hotel
along with our nine year old and our six month old …shuttling between ‘left
wing’ and ‘right wing’ discussions while keeping an eye on our older one’s
activities at Makkala koota. Before you brand us as ‘reckless’ for dragging an
infant to crowded event like this….hold on … as we found many such parents
slinging their infants, some of whom were as little as four months old! BLF
2015 saw many workshops being held for children at the Makkala Koota wing. So
much so that our nine year old was the busiest of all, perhaps to make up for
his absence last year, starting with Tulika’s workshop with illustrator Sowmya
Menon followed by Bookalore’s puppet party and Doodle Dhamaka where he got doodling
on the doodle wall about his idea of Bengaluru. Thanks to the organizers who readily
accommodated the needs of an infant, our little girl seemed to enjoy herself
watching so many kids and hearing so many new sounds! So BLF 2015 was indeed a
big hit with our little ones and here’s begging for more next year!
Abhay was
quite pleased to attend a Bookalore event after a long time and enjoyed the
stories through puppets performed by Vijayalakshmi Nagraj, the author of many
children’s books and one of whose books we decided to pick for our reading
together. While Abhay is too old for her book “Jhilmil the Butterfly”, he is just right for her another one of her
books “The Natural Wonders of India”, a publication by the Energy and Research
Institute ( TERI) on nature’s bounty and beauty across the length and breadth
of India. Join the twin girls Reva and Sarayu as they take your young reader on
an armchair trip to the ten best natural spectacles in India. With a travel itinerary
that could be anybody’s envy , from Pangong
Tso, a pristine lake shared by India and Tibet at an altitude of 14,500
feet, where the twins spend their summer vacations to the salty marshlands of Rann of Kutch and the Indroda
Dinosaur and Fossil park at Gandhinagar, follow them as they explore the
unique landscape and physical features, flora and fauna and the attendant
conditions of living, while carrying a subtle message of environment conservation.
Presented in a simple yet interesting narrative, and accompanied by vivid
pictures and photographs, this book successfully manages to avoid the usual
trappings of a work of non-fiction that children tend to steer clear from and
sure can double up as travel book for your next vacation!! J
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