Highlights of events at Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet, in association with Victoria Memorial and The Telegraph

Tolerance in peril?

The Indian society has mostly been tolerant barring a few stray cases of some people taking extreme stands - this was the broad opinion of four panelists discussing tolerance and intolerance in India at the final session of the literary meet on Republic Day.

Ruskin Bond, Javed Akhtar, Nandana Dev Sen and Swapan Dasgupta discussed India's position vis-à-vis intolerance.

"Indian society has always been tolerant. But certain sections were always there... there have been attacks on liberty... in the past 67, 68 years. Being associated with films, I am all the more aware of this," poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar said.

Actor-writer Nandana Dev Sen, who has recently taken to writing books for children, felt that the attack on free thinkers is not new but the frequency of such incidents seemed to have increased over the past year. "There were attacks five years ago, too, but the concentration of attacks has increased in the past year," she said.

Moderator Barkha Dutt urged the panelists not to bring political parties into the discussion because the discourse around intolerance has mostly been a BJP-versus-Congress debate.

She went on to ask writer Ruskin Bond, who drew the loudest cheers during his introduction on stage, why he hadn't returned any of his awards. The recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award, and Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awards shared how he had received anonymous calls asking him the same question and how that made him all the more determined not to return the awards.

"I received two or three anonymous calls that made me more determined not to return the awards. I also feel that the Akademi cannot do much to stop attacks on writers," Bond said.

The writer added he had been broke when he received the Sahitya Akademi award and the money had helped him gain some stability.

Akhtar said he, too, hadn't returned his awards because he never felt any political party had given them. "The jury that chose me included writers... in fact, I am on the safe side. I received my Padma Shri when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister and my Padma Bhushan when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister," said Akhtar, as the audience guffawed.

Dasgupta, known for his right-leaning political views, spoke about the vilification of actor Anupam Kher, who brought out a rally in Delhi in November, rubbishing allegations that the country was becoming intolerant.

"What about the vilification of Anupam Kher? We don't talk about the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits. This is a far more serious offence than someone throwing ink... certain intellectuals in India think their leverage on power is decreasing. They used to think they had a monopoly over wisdom," Dasgupta said.

Scorn for mediocrity

He was an iconoclastic author who wrote about flying humans much before Harry Potter. Poet-novelist Nabarun Bhattacharya shocked Bengali middleclass sensibilities with his disdain for "refined mediocrity" and hit out with his no-holds-barred critique of both society and politics.

Celebrating his thoughts and works, nearly two years after his death, film-maker Suman Mukhopadhyay, writer Anirban Mukhopadhay and scriptwriter Surojit Sen sat down for an adda on January 23.

A 20-minute clipping from Q's documentary, Nabarun, for which Surojit had written the script, set the mood for the talk.

Suman, who has directed films and plays based on Nabarun's works, recalled how the writer had reacted to his film Herbert. "It was first day first show at Nandan. I was there with Nabarunda beside me. During the scene where Binu is shot and is dying in hospital, Nabarunda suddenly got up and left. After about 10 minutes, I stepped out to look for him and found him standing outside, his eyes moist with tears. "I cannot watch this scene," he said."

Anirban recalled how while handing over the manuscript of Herbert to the publisher, "Nabarunda had shed copious tears as his novel would no longer remain his but become public property".

While the world would know Nabarun best for phyatarus, flying humans who create mayhem, his literature encompassed a wide spectrum of emotions.

"Nabarunda would drive a Maruti 800 and say 'people scoff at me, Bijon Bhattacharya's son, driving a Maruti, I should be begging in a gamchha. I have moved away from his legacy"," Suman said.

Compiled by Subhojoy Roy and Anasuya Basu