By most people, poetry is considered high art, one that has little in common with the daily grind or popular culture. The fourth edition of Bengaluru Poetry Festival, which was inaugurated on Saturday, defied this stereotype with a vibrant line-up of actors, sessions by well-known poets in other languages, and musical performances.
The two-day festival, being held at Taj West End, kicked off with a devotional music performance by Sharanya Krishnan and Sharanya Shankar. This was followed by an interaction with Gully Boy star Siddhant Chaturvedi, who also writes poems. In a conversation with Nimisha Dean, a Mumbai-based actor and model, he spoke of social media popularising poetry among the youth. “Poetry was somewhere lost… Now, it is back among youngsters, thanks to Instagram. Social media is an effective tool to display your talents,” he said.
T.M. Krishna’s musical rendition of acclaimed Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s poetry was another highlight of the first day.
The schedule for Sunday includes a musical and two workshops — one on contemporary Hindi poetry by Sudhir Ranjan Singh and another, by Mani Rao, on Sanskrit poetry. The festival is slated to conclude with a concert in the evening by lyricist Irshad Kamil and his ‘poetry band’ Inkband.