Indus Valley World School hosted the second day of its maiden Literary Fest, “Lit-A-Thon – a Magical Literary Ride” on 20th September for the students of Classes III to IX.
On Day 2 the students participated in innovatively designed sessions with writers and speakers from diverse fields and engaged in activities designed to help them discover the pleasures of reading and creative writing. There were author sessions with Dr. Madhurima Vidyarthi on A Grandmother’s Masterpiece, Rajat Chaudhuri on The Butterfly Effect, Lesley Biswas on her Chumki series and Songs of Freedom, and Swati Sengupta on
Half the Field is Mine. While these occurred in multiple venues, an outstanding session aptly titled ‘From Manuscript to Bookshelf unfolded mid morning. It had author, translator, and editor Anjum Katyal, Subir Mitra, and Ratul Bandyopadhyay from Ananda Publishers, famous illustrators Debashish Deb and Pinaki De, and owner of Niyogi Books, Trisha De Niyogi in conversation. An extremely informative and engaging session that took students through the process of the making of a book. The last session of the day was titled The World of Feluda which saw the original ’Topshe’ Siddharta Chatterjee and illustrator Pinaki De in conversation with an avid Feluda buff Sanjhbati Das, alumna IVWS. The students couldn’t believe their eyes that the celebrity was amidst them. There was a creative writing workshop titled ‘ Making it Up’ by Anjum Katyal that closed the Fest.
A tremendous feather in the cap of IVWS as the success of the Fest has egged us to think bigger for next year.

All photographs courtesy Parnika Sarkar and Sangskar Mazumderof Grade X.