9.1 We’re Curating Kala Ghoda Arts Festival!

What does it take to actually curate a literary festival?

We’re back! Season 9 of Books & Beyond kicks off with Tara and Aishwarya spilling the tea on their latest project: curating the Literature Section for the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2026!

 
This episode is a deep dive into the madness of curation. Why is Aishwarya obsessed with color-coded Excel sheets? Why is Tara picking out "apples" for a festival? And how many "healthy skirmishes" does it take to build a schedule from scratch?

From the magic of reading Kafka in Marathi to the courage it takes to launch a debut novel, tune in for an exclusive peek into the heart of a mammoth arts festival! 

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

0:00

But also, I think the point is that people think just because you're having fun, you are not, like, having fun is sort of somehow antithesis to being intellectual, because then you're not really putting in a lot of effort and the fun gets in, but I think there's a lot of effort that is needed to have fun, which is the most, I think, awful way to describe fun ever. Hi everyone, welcome back to season nine of Books and Beyond. I can't believe we're at season nine. So, this season we have some amazing guests, like Dipanjana Pal, Rahul Pandita, Analogue-Varma, Eric Chopra, Subir Saran. We are exploring food, which is something that we have spotted less of, exploring ghost stories, Mumbai stories, female friendships, conflict reporting, and things that make you seem like, oh my god, truth is really stranger than fiction. And I think that that's the theme of this season. So, look forward to that. Season nine is going to be power-packed. I always say this, but every season I try to up the game. And I wanted to start this season with a very special episode with Aishwarya Zavalgekar, who has been with me at Bound for so many years. She was also a producer on this podcast, and I'll let her also introduce herself. Hey, Aishwarya. Hi, Tara. Actually, yeah, this is a full circle moment for me, because like you mentioned, I was producing the podcast in season two, three, four, until I started doing other things at Bound. And I also was hosting a couple of episodes with you. And this is sort of a moment to come back to being the guest on the podcast. You know, talking about Kala Ghoda, which I think has been an entirely you know, different experience altogether, because I honestly did not expect this to happen to us at this point in our careers. And I'm actually, you know, I wanted to start by asking you, what did it feel like? Because essentially, you were the one who got invited to be the curator, the literature curator for Kala Ghoda. Yeah, I think, you know, I remember like calling you on that day, and we were discussing the pros and the cons of whether I should do this, whether you know, we should take it up as a team, all of those things. But I think I really want to shout out to Pervin Saket, because we've actually been in touch for the last few years. When I just started Bound, Pervin had done a few workshops with me. She was already an established author. And over the years, we've just gotten to know each other a little better. And we actually like, you know, this, right, we did Kala Ghoda stuff with her. She was a curator for the last two years for Kala Ghoda. And we did a bunch of things with her. The first year, we did some interactive sessions. And last year, we did workshops. We also found some volunteers. So we've always sort of been in touch. She decided to go to Iowa to focus on writing her novel, which is when she called me and she said that, you know, I think that you're a great fit for this, because, you know, you do Bound, you have this podcast where you clearly are connected already with a lot of authors and publishers. And because of Bound and the work that we do, you also have a little bit of project management, which we'll get into later, which a lot of this festival is about project management. And one thing she said really stuck out to me, we met for a coffee later on. And she said that, you know, and I think that's what we try to do. A lot of this world is very gatekept. And a lot of this world is sort of like also like, you know, which there's nothing wrong with that. And she said that I wanted a different kind of person to be at the helm of these kind of festivals, right? And I felt very flattered by that. And I think she was basically saying that with the work that you have done already, you are someone who she clearly sees is in the space of making a lot of things accessible, right? Or making them, you know, making knowledge or making books more accessible to a larger variety of readers than necessarily people who are intellectual or literary. And yeah, I think, you know, it was really amazing that she sort of came to you for this opportunity and you finally took it up because I know you were so, you were questioning, you were thinking so much about the pros and cons and there are so many pros and cons, you know, of course, I think this is a huge sort of prestigious thing. It's, you know, also exciting to be talking to all of these authors, to be in the midst of all of this and to be curating the festival, especially with the kind of books that have come out in the last couple of years and the kind of authors and, you know, with all this conversation of, oh, are good books even coming out anymore? Are books dying? Which is the perpetual, you know, question that gets asked every time everywhere. I think it's been really great to see the amount of amazing things that have come out and I think the most difficult challenge has been honestly deciding what we can do and what we can't do because there is just so much of rich literature coming out and then we honestly have just very few slots to feature the best of the best and that I think becomes so tricky and I wanna, Tara has this amazing way that she kind of puts this whole curation thing, you know, she conveys it to the team and how we have decided, which is, you know, the apples, the metaphor of the apple. Which, so Tara, do you wanna talk about that metaphor? Yeah, but before we get to that, I think like what you said, you know, is that, and I will, don't worry, I will talk about all the apples. But before we get to that, you know, you said a lot of pros and cons and the challenges of taking this up. So maybe like you can also like walk the listeners and our listeners through from your perspective, you know, coming on board to this festival and how we sort of, you know, those first few meetings where we started really discovering all what it takes to do this. Yeah, so of course, my introduction to this was Tara calling me frantically and saying, hey, Puran just invited me to become the curator for Kala Ghoda, should I do it? And I was like, of course, what are you even thinking about? Why would you not do it? And, you know, I was incredibly happy for you. And then of course it became a team thing. But for me, the moment that it actually struck that this was a real thing was when you messaged me being like, oh, you are assistant curator, because I think I just work with labels, you know, and which is the same thing that had happened with the podcast actually, because I was working on the podcast for I think a year on Books and Beyond. And then one fine day you were suddenly like, oh yeah, you are the producer of the podcast. And until then, it just struck me that, you know, the sense of ownership. And I think that happened with Kala Ghoda as well. So yeah, I think it's been a lot of fun. The first few days were, of course, we were just figuring out what are all the books that have come out. I think it was very exciting for me to get all the catalogues from the publishers, because of course, some of these catalogues are available online, but it's just having this folder that you open and then you just have all the catalogues from all the publishers with all the books that have, you know, just come out or are coming up and you suddenly feel like you have all this inside knowledge of what's gonna come up soon and, you know, things you can be excited about. Because of course, most of the time we see these books, but because we are seeing them after they've gotten published, right? It's a very different experience. You suddenly feel like, oh, I know everything that's gonna happen. I see all the cool books. I can get, you know, like read them in advance, decide things in advance. So that was something that was a lot of fun. I think the biggest thing has been all the Excel sheets that we have created and all the trackers to look at all the different aspects. And me personally, because I am a fan of Excel, which I love my Excel sheets and I love colour coding them and I love organising them. Maintaining them is a different thing. I think that's a separate challenge, but making the Excel sheets is a lot of fun. So that is also something that I have enjoyed. And unfortunately, I think is a hidden part of curation that no one really talks about. It's the festival, the glamour, the outfits, you know, like the conversation. Yeah, we are curating our outfits now. We are, I definitely am curating my outfits. But the sort of the Excel sheets, the organising, the, you know, number of sort of open buckets or conversations that we have had because it's over a hundred conversations with over a hundred people. And then just sort of keeping track of all of it is honestly, you know, a difficult task without the precious, precious Excel sheets. Yeah, I think definitely like project management is a skill, is something. And I also want to speak about like just the relationship management. I think that goes behind like one part that you spoke about. If you look at like BTS of literary festivals, right? Like I wanted this episode to be a little bit about that. Like I've always been very curious, okay, how do people organise Jaipur literature fest? You know, we've been going for the last few years and very curious about that. So actually like getting to curate a festival is a really cool experience because you see what kinds of things it takes. And definitely one part is the project management, which you mentioned. And the other thing is exactly what you said, like the relationships that need to be managed because obviously, you know, now I'll describe my apples. And basically it's like, you only have so many apples. So first you have to gather all of the apples together, all of the people that like you think would be interesting. And then you have to pick the ones that, you know, can fit into the schedule. But I think so many people want to be part of Kalagoda, which I find is just so amazing. And as a curator, you've got so many requests from people saying, you know, I've published this book. I have a friend who's published this book. This writer would be perfect for the session. You know, so many suggestions about panels, et cetera. And you almost feel like, oh, I wish I had double the number of slots or triple the number of slots so I can include all of them. But I think also sort of like managing those relationships, making sure that, hey, if somebody is asked to be part of Kalagoda and there's no space, replying to that person, you know, making sure that that person is also sort of replied to because who knows next year that could be something interesting and it's just a nice thing to do. Actually, you know, I was telling my friend the other day about all of these requests that come in, right? Like a writer friend about people who, you know, request, who ask, hey, can I be in the festival? Or the email saying, hey, I have this book that has just come out. Do you think you're curating a conversation around this? And the friend gave me a lot of perspective because she was so surprised that people have the courage because it takes so much courage for writers, for authors, to even put themselves out there and to, you know, sort of self-initiate that conversation and say, hey, I have this coming up. Do you think you would want to put it out? Because we talk so much about, you know, writers that are struggling with confidence or struggling with sort of putting themselves out there or talking about their book with a lot of sort of ownership or confidence. And it takes so much courage for them to do that in the first place because, you know, she was like, how do they even do that? I can barely ever talk about my book. And I think that itself is so interesting because that makes it trickier because they are showing their vulnerability, right? And they're being so very vulnerable whether they're sort of talking about their book themselves, whether other people are sort of suggesting them on their behalf. And then sort of us having to say no when people are showing that vulnerability is even more difficult because of course it's not a rejection to the book. It's not even a rejection to the author. And a lot of times, these are the conversations we also have with writers when it comes to publishing, right? Because it's the same idea that a lot of times publishers might not commission a book, but it's neither a rejection of the book nor the author, but it is simply that the book doesn't fit the curation at this point of time for this particular curation. And I think it's the same thing with the festival in a way, because maybe it's just that there is no panel about a particular topic this time, or maybe it's just that it doesn't fit with the kind of conversations being had, but I really want to commend the people who do reach out and who do kind of talk about their work. Yeah, I agree, definitely. And coming to sort of like, how are these, like coming to like, does it fit the curation, right? How did we decide, okay, these are the conversations that should be spotlighted. And these are conversations, maybe next time, because we had a lot of ideas. So maybe you can talk about sort of that process of finally being like, yeah, these are conversations that we have to have. Coming back to the apples. So in a way, all of the different conversations that we thought should happen in the festival were also the different apples. And I remember we had a lot of ideas, because also, so the, currently the literature curation team is about four to five people, right? And so it's four to five people coming with a lot of their own ideas of the kind of books they enjoy or the authors they would want in the festival. And then we had to kind of look at what is possible. So I remember there were, there was this very, you know, hatke idea of having like a historian and a dystopian writer, author sort of come together and talk about what's happening around us. And so there were a lot of, I think, different kinds of ideas. Of course, you know, we wanted to hit everything. We wanted to do history. We wanted to do, I don't remember what else we didn't end up doing, but a lot changed over time. Like we had a lot of ideas, then we had to pick a few of them and say, okay, these are fleshed out enough. Because one thing that we realised is the, what the mind automatically does is it goes into categories. So it would become, okay, let's do a panel with modern mystery authors or okay, let's do a panel with sci-fi authors or, you know, or like history battle. And then it's sort of the intellectual rigour where you have to think about, okay, no, but what beyond that, what are they going to talk about? What is interesting in this particular panel? And then look at based on that, who would be the right people for that conversation? Because if we are saying modern mystery, then it can't just be like, okay, let's just invite all the modern history, like authors who have published modern history in the last year and kind of get them on the panel. So then it becomes very much about how do you narrow down and define what the conversation is going to be about and what it is not going to be about, which I think was one of the things that became very important once we started doing the work. Also, like a lot happens from the idea stage to execution stage, right? And I feel like I have a lot more empathy for people who are organising these LitFests now because you might have an idealised version of something in your head with all of these authors and how they're all going to come together. But the authors' dates don't match. You can't get the same authors on the panel. So there are certain permutations and combinations that keep happening when you're curating a festival. And I think that's something that was very interesting. Who do you ask first to be on the panel, right? There's like three or four speakers. If those three or four speakers don't work out, does the panel continue because the topic is so amazing and we just find other authors to speak about this particular topic, say it's female friendship, or do we scrap the panel completely, right? So in a lot of cases, those calculations took place where we had these great ideas, but we had to scrap them because the authors weren't working out. In other cases, we have these fantastic authors that we just had to showcase that weren't fitting into a particular conversation already. So we created an entire session around one or two of those authors and then sort of curated it that way. So it's again, idea first, it's also people first. And I think there is a combo of those two things that keep happening along with scheduling, which is another third factor in this whole game that I think is underrated, but definitely is the most important thing, managing everyone's time and schedule. And now as we're gearing up towards the actual execution of this festival, Jan 31st to 8th Feb, making sure everyone comes on time, making sure everybody's happy, making sure everybody has their gifts, coordinating their photos, coordinating their bios. As you said, it is over 100 people that all obviously are giving their time because it's a volunteer-based festival. It's pro bono, right? And they are taking our time out of their busy lives. They have to be made to feel like it's worth it. And that is also the job of a curator to make them feel that, yeah, this is something that they wanna come to along with doing justice to your audience because that is the main reason why we're all even here. And we have to cater to that. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about when we started working on this, one is definitely the hows, which we've spoken about, but also the whys, like what we wanted out of this festival now that we are coming into it. I think one of the important things for me when we started curating was thinking about how to make this fun, and how to make this something that the most casual of reader, who maybe let's say reads only one or two books a year, or who reads only a specific genre, or doesn't necessarily think of themselves as a reader in the identity or the passion that readers have, would also feel like they wanna attend the festival, which is basically to say, how do we make it more fun? How do we make it engaging? How do we make it something that is has, like we're featuring the big name authors who everyone would wanna read because they would have a big leadership, but we're also featuring a lot of, or we're championing debut authors, and like debut writers, and discovering new people, and kind of having a combination of that, but also making all of that really fun and really like Comic-Con. Comic-Con is something that I personally think is a great sort of event in that sense, because comic books are in a way a little niche, right? And of course they've become more and more mainstream over the years. But the way that Comic-Con began, where it was like, okay, you love something, now come here and love it wholeheartedly. And don't be like, don't hold back in the way you love it. Don't be ashamed in the way you love it, but love it completely. And what is that space that exists for books, right? Because of course there are festivals, and of course there are events, but I think a lot of going to the events becomes knowing particular people, or knowing those conversations, or having read that specific book, but doesn't always necessarily be a space where the readers feel like they are front and centre. You know, where they can just be the most nerdy versions of themselves. For example, I really love murder mysteries, right? Like to a very sort of crazy extent, and I really love horror. And so where can I go and geek out on horror, and find other people who are as into horror as I am in a way that we will know the most obscure things, right? Or like geek out on mysteries. So I think that space where people feel like it is so approachable, and it is so their own space, that they feel like they can wholeheartedly love books, was I think, you know, what I wanted to come into it with. And I mean, I don't know how much of that we have achieved. I think we have to a certain extent. But that was my thought going into this. What did you want to make this festival into? I like what you said also. I also wanted to, you know, think about who I am as a curator. And Perwin said that, you know, a literary fest is also a chance for you to express yourself. And I was thinking, okay, you know, what are some of the issues that I care about? And can we bring conversations about those issues also into the festival? Because I feel one of the reasons that I love books and beyond, I love what I do, whether it's with moments or books in general, is because I love ideas. I love finding out about new ideas and leaping into new ideas with book on book on book. One day I can be talking about philanthropy, one day I can be talking about AI, you know, and I guess I'm a nerd like that. So, okay. So I said, okay, let's make this more about ideas, different ideas, different people coming together to talk about that, you know, obviously with a literary bent, but that is sort of where I think I came in as a curator. And I hope you guys, you know, please go on the website, please see the brochure, please see all of the, I'm not going to give too much away about who all are coming and what the panels are on this episode, because I want you all to experience that. But yeah, I think it's nice to like, think about these things and it's your one for us. And, you know, hopefully we'll do this for a few more years and we keep sort of working towards that aim because I wanted to also bring in that fresh, a fresh energy into these festivals. I think we're both like youngish people. A young, young, young, full stop maybe. And I think that's, that's a nice thing to sort of, you know, also get into these kinds of festivals. We have the story pitch room, which I'm very, very excited about, where five debut authors are going to pitch their novels to a jury. That is something I'm super excited about. We have, this time we have an oral storytelling session which I'm interested in sort of like interdisciplinary forms of storytelling. So we also have a session that is cross curated with the dance section. So it's dance and literature. So I also wanted to bring in some interdisciplinary aspects of storytelling because I think stories are fluid. So we have a visual poetry exhibition, for example. So these are also some other things that I thought, okay, you know, this might be interesting. And it's only one festival. It's only eight days. You know, you can't put everything inside. It'll become too much of a kitchery. I think a lesson that I've learned is balance. Balancing out sort of everything from your heavy hitters, as you said, to your, you know, authors that may not, people may not know so much about, but are really interesting to interdisciplinary things to issue based to fun conversations. Something for everyone, I think is important. Yeah. I think redefining literature and what that means in India today was also one of the first things we spoke about when we started the curation, which is why there's so much of these interactive sessions, the storytelling. I personally am very, you know, interested in the different forms that storytelling emerges, especially oral storytelling. And so that was a very fun thing to do. I think we really made the most out of, you know, all of the different things that we have always wanted to do, which was also a lot of fun. Like the story pitch room, I think you and I have been talking for at least three, four years about, you know, oh, there should be like a shock tank, but for stories or, you know, for books. And so it also was a great, I think, platform for us to just take all of these other ideas that we have and just be like, okay, now we can make all of this happen. So the way Tara and I also work at Bound is we always have a list of all the things that we ever want to do or be, right? Like we want to do 10,000 things. We want to do all of them now. We want to be all of these people. And this festival again became a way for us to make a lot of that happen. Like oral storytelling, I think was one of those things. Story pitch room was one of those things. The walks, I am a big fan of walks and history and exploring culture and heritage. And we were like, okay, let's do a couple of walks. Let's just do everything that we would ever want in the festival. And then I think the biggest challenge was holding ourselves back and being like, it's okay. It's only the first year. We can do more things later. There are many more years to do much, like a lot more experimentation or like, you know, redefine the wheel in a way like rediscover. No, the wheel isn't discovered. Whatever. Yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah. But you know, like we had to hold ourselves back and be like, okay, first year, let's just make sure everything happens and do a little bit of what we want. And we can, you know, do more and more in the later years. Because I think you and I are also the kind of people who just want to go from zero to 100. And, you know, and then also very perfectionist. So it's like, okay, we are doing this. So this should be the best literature festival to ever happen in India, in the world. Like people should rave about it for centuries to come. And then hold yourself back and be like, okay, what can I realistically actually do? Yeah. In this four month window, curate the festival. I also remember when we started in July, I think, right? Or August. We were like, why are we starting so early? I don't think anyone realises how early you have to start. Because I remember around September, October, I was telling, you know, people that, oh, I'm so busy because I'm curating this festival. And they were like, isn't it in February? You know, like, because they would assume that if I'm saying, oh, I'm curating this right now, they would think, oh, is it next month? And there is just so much work that starts so much in advance because there are all of these things to put together for the festival, which is a lot of fun. Yeah, I agree. Like it does take like from July onwards. And I was just thinking to myself, oh my God, like imagine if we started planning this in November. I think I would have a heart attack. It would, it really sort of like takes a lot. And especially when also you're running, we're running bound, we're doing the podcast. So I think one of the keys was to break every task down into phases. So how we worked is that phase one was basically like just collecting ideas, collecting catalogues, collecting books, collecting all of the ideas, asking different people we've asked on our social media, just getting a lot of input and gathering it all. And then phase two was sifting through all of those things and shortlisting maybe 50 ideas because we have currently 30 panels. And then sort of... I just want to interrupt to say, because you were like, oh, I want to do double and triple the allotted sessions but we are constrained by the festival. We are supposed to have only 19. And we already have 13. Which is a lot. We have a lot of sessions and I think we're gonna really be very stressed on the days off. I think we should do another episode after this on like what happened, you know, because I'm sure people are gonna drop out, people are gonna come late. I mean, these things keep happening. Airport pickup, hotel stay, all of those things are actually organised by the curator. Everything from gathering photos and bios to making the PPT that comes in the background to ensuring the stage is nicely set up. These things are all done by the curator. Which brings me to one of my biggest challenges in this month, this past month, which has been writing descriptions that are only two sentences, right? This is, I think, the biggest challenge for any writer ever, which is how do you describe what a panel is gonna be about and what the thought behind it is, especially with the amount of thought we have put into it, and then have to condense it into only two sentences, which also includes the names of all the speakers that are gonna be, you know, in that particular session and sort of make that something that is social media-friendly or brochure-friendly or website-friendly. This is, I think, the copywriting skill is the biggest challenge that I've had in the curation of this festival. Definitely. I think we pretty much, like, covered a lot of, like, what goes into the BTS, you know, what we were thinking, how we're doing it. And I just wanted to do this because I wanted to be very open about, like, how these things are happening and how these things are done. And also, you know, obviously, there are, like, constraints that we work with. And in an ideal world, those constraints wouldn't be there. Like you mentioned, 19 sessions. There are some sessions that, you know, get cross-listed with other platforms. It's also housed in a much larger festival, which is very interesting place to be. Most other festival, literary festivals are standalone. But we are a fully-blown literature festival, you know, within a larger festival. So, you know, having that at your disposal is very interesting. Because you have to- That must have also been interesting for you, Natara, because at Bound, you are the boss. You are the main boss. Yeah, that's a good point. Above you. And that was your whole, sort of, intention of starting Bound, because you wanted to be your own boss. Not my only intention. Not my only intention, no. But yeah, no. Yeah, like, I think within that, that was also a constraint within the whole ecosystem, because also you're fighting for space and slots, right? Like, okay, you may want to do a session in another location. That's taken- There's a lot of coordination. And yeah, I think I really personally, like, always, you know this, I thrive in teams. Like, I like working and brainstorming with teams. So it was very nice to sort of be part of that larger ecosystem. And for once, also not- I can't imagine being Brinda Miller, who is the festival director of the whole thing. She has eight curators who report to her. I'm one of them. There's the curator for the theatre. There's whatever, music, you know, everyone. She has the events team. And I actually found it a very nice experience and a relieving experience to, you know, have that guidance above me. Because I love taking on full responsibility. I'm used to taking on all the responsibility. And we are- This is a huge responsibility position, which is why I think we were in a good place. And I was in a good place because I already was used to that level of responsibility. But it was also nice to have someone, you know, guide. And I think what is nice about this and what Corbin also told me, and I asked her about it, I was like, okay, how much autonomy do I have? And she was like, it's basically your baby. And apart from just a few sessions, which, you know, one has to do because of sponsorship or other factors that come in, which is very obvious for any festival. It's pretty much been, you know, our baby. Of course, there are editorial mandates. And I actually appreciated those editorial mandates. For example, one of those editorial mandates was, hey, you have to include regional literature and regional language. And I'll be honest, you know, because I guess I read sort of only English books. So I'm not- And I read books in translation. So I'm a little aware of that. But to include, you know, voices from regional literature, I think that was really, really cool and really a fun thing, you know, for me to also do and explore. But I think it also, you know, showed us maybe some gaps in what we read, right? Because of course, we are also constantly learning. We're growing. We are trying to expand, you know, our reading tastes or sort of try new things. And like you said, right, regional literature was a bit of a challenge because especially because of course, we needed to include Hindi. We also needed to include Marathi. And, you know, it was like, okay, I had a full identity crisis because I am Maharashtrian. You know, I don't know, you know, because I felt like it was my responsibility or I felt like I should know the kind of, you know, because there is amazing literature coming out in Marathi as well. And, you know, I have not been always sort of very, like I'm not a very fluent Marathi speaker or I don't read a lot of Marathi literature. And I suddenly felt like, oh, I'm not being true to, I don't know my roots. And I had to actually talk to a lot of people who read Marathi literature to be like, hey, give me, you know, suggestions on what Marathi literature is coming out right now. But I'm really glad. So there is one session happening, which is Kafka and Rilke being read in Marathi. And when, because I love Kafka. And so when Tara, you told me, is this a session we want to do? And I was like, yes, I don't care if anyone shows up for the session. I am going to be there for this session. And this session is specifically for me because the idea of anything like hearing Kafka's letters in Marathi just seemed like such a, such a, you know, out of the box thing, which also I like that, you know, there are some things we have done, which we know are mainstream, are safe, are going to be huge, you know, are going to get a huge audience because that's what a lot of people read. But I like the eclectic ones. You know, I like the sessions, which just seemed like, who would have even thought of this? Or, you know, why, you know, how would this even happen? And just the curiosity that creates for me as a reader as well, along with the curator. So I'm really glad that we're doing those kinds of things as well. Okay, Aishwarya, did we fight? Did we fight? Did we fight? Yeah, did we fight during this? Were there any sessions that you wanted and I did and I said and you didn't? Any author that you were sort of like gunning for and I was like, and then you remember any of those? I feel there were a few skirmishes. There were skirmishes, but a fight to me is very domestic. Let's call it skirmish. Healthy skirmish is always good for any project. Yeah, I mean, the skirmishes were because I just really wanted murder. In the curation, I was just, I was very married to this idea of doing, you know, that panel where there are murder mysteries set in different cities. And then we talk about like murder in Bombay versus Delhi versus Calcutta or Bangalore, which, you know, I think it was just, I had a few panels that I really wish would have happened, which didn't. Then I think you had your set and then we had to reach middle ground, which was what is doable. But I don't think there was skirmishes as such because we agree on a lot of, especially like one thing we were clear on, we want a lot of feminist things. Yeah. You know, and that is something that both of us, you know, feel very strongly about and care a lot about. And we were very clear that, okay, zyada to feminist daana hain. I think the challenge was, oh, is there too much nonfiction? We need to have enough fiction, you know, those kinds of things. I think poetry was a big thing that I was, you know, actively advocating for. My advocacies were feminism, poetry, and also I think queer literature and sort of having, you know, conversations around queerness, which didn't feel necessarily like a diversity panel, which sometimes they can because that is sort of something that is close to my heart. So I think we have been able to achieve that, but I can't think of any skirmishes. So what did you have in mind? I feel like you asked this question because you want to complain about something. No, no. I think like coming to like a challenge, I think one of the challenges that people don't speak about often is the budget. Because it is like, you know, it's a non-for-profit but money is coming from somewhere. It's coming from sponsorships. You have a limited budget. I wanted to fly in a lot more people, you know, but I couldn't. So also like the curation is ideas, speakers, and the budget. We have to take in the budget. Who can we accommodate? Who can we fly in? Who can we not? All of those aspects also go into curation, which I think some, you know, is not spoken about. And I think those are also all the parameters that come in. But I think, yeah, I think overall it was quite a fun thing. I always believe in a heady debate. What is something you wanted to include that did get included and you're happy about or didn't get included but we always have next year? Yeah, I think one thing that I'm very happy is a female friendship one. Because, you know, I watch a lot of these TV shows and really like this topic. And I thought it was like a, not only feminist but also like a fun, light one that's going to happen. And then another one that, you know, I pushed a lot for is Kiran Desai coming, you know, because yeah, she's a heavy hitter, but it's Kiran Desai, you know. And I think I was calling up her POC like almost every day saying, hey, can we book a flight? Can we, you know, is she coming? Just wanting to make that happen. And then there were a few other people also that like I really had to chase to be like, okay, I really want you to be in this festival and we'll compromise, we'll work around the timings, but I want you to sort of be here. Yeah, I think women's stories are very important. And I think that what can happen is sometimes when we say feminist writing, we always think of writing that is protest or criticism. And it's very important, I think, to have, you know, just women being happy and being friends and living their best lives. And I don't see why that kind of literature, you know, that kind of writing shouldn't be highbrow or shouldn't be literature or should become chiclet or whatever. So I think it's very important to have those kinds of stories. When you were talking about Kiran Desai, my first thought was, it would be so hilarious if this episode airs and then that session doesn't happen. Oh my God, please don't scare me. But no, like, of course it will happen. Why shouldn't it happen? But yeah, I think I was also very excited about Lore because again, mythology is something that, you know, I read a lot about, I find very interesting. So those panels are very interesting. And coming to the skirmishes, I think the reason I didn't feel like there was skirmishes was because honestly, the biggest challenge was money. You know, money is the bane of... I have one skirmish. Okay. So in the beginning, I had written down a lot of panels and I, you know, I'm like interested in fitness and everything. So like a few of my panels are like, fitness, misinformation. And then you pointed out, hey, these are not literature. This is lifestyle. And I was so bedded to those ideas. I was like, oh my God, no, but they're literature, literature. And we realised like, what exactly is literature? What is the point of a literature festival? What is a literature festival supposed to be doing, right? Yes, it's ideas, but it has to tie back to that. And yeah, I think we've spoken a lot about these like accessible and fun panels and issue-based panels. But we also wanted to sort of have this space for this intellectual discourse, right? Because that is also the point of a literature festival. And I was watching this very interesting documentary about the New Yorker at 100 and everybody knows about it. What a great institution it is. And in the documentary, some of the editors say that, hey, you know, we get criticised sometimes for being too intellectual or too elite. And in fact, in that, because we want to sort of make everything accessible, which I absolutely, I am an advocate of that. It can wear into this anti-intellectualism kind of wave or movement that's coming along, especially with, you know, reels, explainers, again, nothing wrong with it. But I do, I found that idea very interesting. And I, when I related back to the festival, I think that, yeah, these festivals are these spaces for these intellectual discourses to happen and for people to engage with content in that way. You know, it goes also back to the question of, OK, when we say commercial books or commercial fiction or commercial nonfiction, you know, how do you find that balance as an editor or as a curator of what is well-written, what is intellectually stimulating as well as entertaining or engaging? And, you know, there's obviously it's not a binary, it's a spectrum on which everything lies of how intellectual it is, how stimulating it is. And we kind of have to balance both of these things. But I think it's definitely important to not give up on the intellectualism or give up on the substance of a book or a topic in, you know, for the, I don't know, entertainment value or commercial success. And I think that finding that balance is very important. And I do think there are very interesting things happening in India right now. Like the, I think, I forget what it's called, but, you know, that series that's been going on. Yeah, it's called Unlecture. Yes. Basically, there are these PhD academics doing these lectures in bars. Yeah. So I think, you know, learning can be a lot of fun, like the kind of walks that we have planned, like the kind of events that we're doing. And I think that's also how we sort of end up planning a lot of things at Bound, like the publishing course, where, of course, we wanted to be learning, we wanted to be educational, but we also wanted to be a good experience. And I think with curation, it also comes down to that because it is a physical, you know, offline experience, much like a retreat would be where the learning matters, but the experience also matters. And the balance between the two, I think is difficult to crack, but hopefully we have crafted. And I do agree that I think it's sometimes in, especially with AI and with, you know, Reels and short form content and just sometimes I am also scrolling through Reels endlessly for three hours and my mind is numb. But I think the kind of work that we do, like I said, thinking of just a category as a panel versus having to then put the extra thought to be like, OK, but what are they actually going to be talking about is where we find ourselves being pushed constantly to have more intellectual rigour and a lot of creative spaces and organisations and jobs, I think demand a lot more intellectual rigour than people think they do. People often think like, even like, oh, your work is so fun. You work on books. It's a very complex thing that we're doing, putting a book together, writing a full book, getting a concept together, doing research. This is a complex brain activity. Curating a festival is a complex brain activity because there's so many moving parts to it. So I do agree with that. But I think that point is that people think just because you're having fun, you are not like having fun is sort of somehow antithesis to being intellectual, because then you're not really putting in a lot of effort and the fun gets in. But I think there's a lot of effort that is needed to have fun, which is the most, I think, awful way to describe fun ever. But I think that's true with events, with books, with programmes. It takes a lot of effort to make something fun and make something seem effortless. You know, and I think that's the effort that we have been putting in. And hopefully at the festival, which is 31st Jan to 8th February, you know, everyone, especially those who are in Mumbai, come to the festival and see the effort that we have put in. And hopefully it looks effortless. And come meet us because we'll be there. We'll be around. Would love to say hi to anyone who's listening and would love to just chat about all things books and literary. So hope you enjoy and hope you enjoy this season. Keep listening because we have some really, really cool, fun, a little bit unhinged conversations ready for you. Yes. Okay, see you next time. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Books and Beyond with Bound. This podcast is created by Bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Find us at Bound India on all social media platforms. Tune in every Wednesday as we peek into the lives and minds of some brilliant authors from India and South Asia.