‘Kuch Khaas Hai’ at Godrej Lit Live 2025

We are borrowing the headline as a tribute to the recently departed ad legend Piyush Pandey, who had been part of previous editions.

In today’s column, Storyboard18’s columnist Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta who will be at the Lit Live conducting a workshop on how to write biographies, tells us what to expect from the Godrej Lit Live (7th to 9th November) at NCPA.

Festival co-director Amy Fernandez and her battalion have curated sessions for those with a yen for engaging deeply with the arts, there are a few interesting pop culture segments too. Sessions span a range of subjects from science to sport, from music to mathematics, from history to art with speakers encompassing a multitude of expertise, identities, orientations and abilities.

In her own words, “Putting together authors who could be alike in their views and adding a counter view, or stitching a session with a unique thought that two or writers with diverse views on it discuss, or finding the right moderators to bring out the best in the writers and their book…that to me is what makes the soul of a festival.”

Here are five things to watch out for.

1. Lets unequivocally applaud the literary and linguistic genius of Dr Shashi Tharoor and his contribution to literature. And just as the ad world is missing Piyush Pandey sorely today, Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a living legend in our midst and we must lap up every opportunity to hear his trademark wit, word-frolic, fluency, facility and depth of context on a variety of subjects.

The Lit Live puts him at a double whammy of a book launch with his book Our Living Constitution: A Concise Introduction And Commentary, and Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud’s Why The Constitution Matters. This will be followed by a discussion on the importance and enduring relevance of the Indian Constitution. Bookmark time.

2. Word mastery continues with the session ‘cat got your tongue- a rollicking ride through the origin of words’ featuring Sumanto Chattopadhyay in conversation with Anuvab Pal. Another session titled ‘snap, crackle and pop’ -the sound of a mind breaking free’ features three women’s voices Cathy Sweeney, Helene Flood chaired by yoga practitioner and writer Rashmi Palkhivala. I'm intrigued to say the least.

3. Who does not want to meet young Sam Dalrymple? He has taken our world by storm, following in the adroit footsteps of his father. A Delhi-raised Scottish historian, Sam graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar, and also studied at the University of Isfahan and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. His ‘Shattered Lands-Five partitions and the making of modern Asia’ is an absolute must-read.

4. For the business-minded, the launch of Roopa Kudva's ‘Leadership beyond the playbook’ by Arundhati Bhattacharya and CNBC’s Shereen Bhan, will be followed by a discussion on when leaders think out of the box.

5. The festival features a great debate indeed! Featuring Lt. Gen. S L Narasimhan and Vappala Balachandran who will speak for India and China must be friends, and Sandeep Unnithan and Sriparna Pathak will speak against the topic. Moderated by Govindraj Ethiraj.

The festival opens with an apt session, ‘for the love of the word’ featuring Anil Darker, Christian Stöcker, Shehan Karunatilaka and Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan, chaired by Anish Gawande.

Amy Fernandez adds, “We never lose the sight of the fact that the festival must be and always will be free to all, and that it should also be inclusive and diverse. And that it is also a festival of ideas.All we need to start with is a good book.”

True that.

Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.