A festival of people and literature
Hari Mohan Paruvu used to be a
tall, strapping young fast bowler. When I met him recently at the Hyderabad Lit
Fest, I realised that he was still a tall, strapping fast bowler, though
looking slightly older than when he played in the Ranji Trophy during 1985-87.
Hari has become a successful
author and life coach, with his books and his movie, his lectures and workshops
for cricket aspirants and yes, dance students! I first met him at the Chennai
launch of his first novel The Men Within, and
remember walking up to him and telling him how much I enjoyed reading the book (though I don't trust my memory any
more). We met again at two book events at Hyderabad (the release there of my Third
Man) and Chennai (a discussion on Hari's 50
Not Out and Third Man)
moderated by our common friend, the brilliant Krishna Shastri Devulapalli
(though anyone who knows Krishna knows that he is incapable of moderating
anything).
As I said before, I owed my
participation in HLF 2016 to Hari's efforts and he also conducted my panel with
admirable flair. I also caught a brief glimpse of his workshop focussing among
other things on goal setting for youngsters in the same festival. Hari made me
feel welcome at HLF and also took me to Vidyuth Jaisimha's cricket academy,
where I struggled to bowl one good ball in six deliveries I attempted, and he
gave me evidence that he can still bowl impressively. Looking at him I had no
trouble believing his account of his regular stint bowling in the nets, even if
he is himself more than 50 not out today.
We had a long and meaningful conversation with his efforts towards
sports promotion and teaching of life lessons based on his cricket experiences,
and hopefully, our paths will intersect in this regard some day.
The organisers of the festival
were a friendly and helpful lot who made the delegates feel at home. Prof.
Vijay Kumar was a cheerful, sprightly presence throughout the festival, and
Jayesh Ranjan IAS was again a most helpful head of the organising committee.
The theme of the festival was most thoughtfully inclusive of the marginalised,
such as dalits and transgenders, the differently abled and the differently
oriented. I was heartened by the overt support HLF extended to free speech and
dissent, nowhere better exemplified than in the pride of place given to
Nayantara Sahgal. The sessions featuring Kiran Nagarkar and Pervez Hoodbhoy of
Pakistan were brilliant examples of discourse that rose above jingoistic
noise(More about these in the next instalment).
Meeting Amala Akkineni after a
considerable gap was one of the highlights of my HLF experience. I first met
her when she was a teenage student of Chennai's Kalakshetra, one of the
brightest talents to have learnt bharatanatyam there, and I watched her grow
into a fine dancer, film actor, and burgeoning champion of animal welfare,
before she moved to Hyderabad. Listening to her speak at HLF was a revelation:
her espousal of the cause of animals and our ecology is marked by such wit and
wisdom.
My FB friend Subbarayudu
Kameswara did me proud by attending my panel discussion and getting his copy of
my book signed by me. The learned professor was soft spoken and modest to a
fault. My former State Bank colleague BS Prakash was an enthusiastic visitor to
the Lit Fest and possibly its biggest buyer of books. I cannot thank him enough
for the trouble he took over me during the three days.
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