Gomti Book Festival: Riverfront is the new address for book lovers in Lucknow
The fest is divided into Book Street, Children’s Corner, Lekhakganj, Youth Corner and Digital Corner
The second day of Gomti Book Festival was about children, readers, workshops and the screening of short film Agastya directed by Gaurav Kulshresta and Ragvendra Pandav.
Entertaining and a fun session Seekhe aur Abhinay Kare, a workshop by theatre artiste Muskan Sharma, taught children to express different types of emotions on the stage of Shabd Sansar.
“Sharma made kids understand the art of expression. She explained the sounds and phonetics of words like hi, hello and more. She made the children do many interesting activities. She shared discussed the nuances of acting and stage performances,” informed an organising member.
Children as always were seen thronging the stalls of story, colouring and quiz books while youth were seen purchasing fiction, Hindi and Urdu literature, also Urdu poetry and self-help books are much sought for. Riya Singh (20), who was visiting with friends said, “I have been on the lookout for books of famous Indian writers, online too I tried but only few are available but at this fest the collection is vast be it Ismat Chugtai, Amrita Pritam or Mirza Ghalib, it’s all there.”
Rehaana Topiwala (30), who visited with her ten-year-old son, said, “I have bought a Panchatantra and also a few activity books for my son and I have got a few Hindi fiction books along with a short story collection. You get what you want to from the shelves.”
The stalls of famous publishers Crossword, Eklavya Foundation, Rekhta Foundation, Vani Prakashan, Vishwa Sahitya Sewa Trust, Urdu Akademi, Delhi and Pan Macmillan are part of the fest.
As part of this year’s theme, the fest is celebrating different art of storytelling through film festivals, puppetry, poetry, dastangoi, dance drama and creative writing along with Children Film Festival.
“The festival is divided into various sections including Children’s Corner, Book Street, Lekhakganj, Youth Corner and Digital Reading Corner. As many as 150 stalls by publishers from across India are attracting a large crowd including children, youngsters and elders. The festival will be on in the state capital from November 17 and has been jointly organised by the National Book Trust (NBT) and the Union ministry of education,” said Amit Singh, manager sales and marketing, NBT.