Chitkara Lit Fest inspires audience with thought-provoking discussions

It was the day of the poets at the Chitkara Lit Fest, with the legend Javed Akhtar holding forth on his long and splendid career as a multi-talented writer deft at scripting, dialogues, lyrics, and poetry.

In a lively discussion, he talked about his memorable dialogues in the blockbuster ‘Sholay’ made some 48 years ago. On his hit song, ‘Ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga’, Akhtar said he couldn’t quite think of a song, but with music director RD Burman pressing on a deadline, he gave it the first line and then just added similes. “This worked” he added “and the song proved to be a huge success”.

Akhtar also spoke about the book ‘Jadunama’, written on his life. Irshad Kamil, the genius from Malerkotla, who studied in the department of Hindi at Panjab University spoke about his journey and the art of writing lyrics. A special mention was made of the song for which he took a line from Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s ‘Ajj din charhea tere rang varga’ after taking permission from the poet’s wife.

Another star attraction was the celebrated singer Usha Uthup who held the audience in splits while speaking of breaking stereotypes. Sudip Sen also held a poetry reading session at the event.

During a session on conflict literature, Khushwant Singh spoke of his novel ‘The Opium Toffee to Laxmi Dhaul’, stressing on the need to not write novels from the perspective of time.