By Supriya Sharma

In the season of spring and literary festivals, this perhaps is the sweetest offering and the biggest of its kind. The third edition of Urdu festival Jashn-e-Rekhta (JeR) opened this Friday and over the weekend, scholars, writers, poets, singers, artists and admirers of the language will gather at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts in Delhi to celebrate Urdu in all its forms. The roster of the two-and-a-half-day festival includes panel discussions, dastangoi (storytelling) sessions, mushairas, qawwalis, ghazals, baitbaazi, street plays – to be held simultaneously across four venues – as well as a book exhibition, a calligraphy workshop, the Urdu Bazaar (presenting the antiquities and handicrafts of Old Delhi), a food festival, and more.

“This year, we’re trying to revive baitbaazi, which is like antakshari but with Urdu poetry, by showcasing it at the bigger venue, the stage lawn,” explains Sanjiv Saraf, festival director and founder of the Rekhta Foundation. “We’re also having a number of mushairas this year: a grand mushaira, one for women poets, one for the youth and another focusing on humour and satire.”

The festival will host over a 100 eminent speakers from the world of cinema, arts and culture, including lyricist-poet Gulzar, screenwriter and playwright Javed Siddiqui, adman and lyricist Prasoon Joshi, Urdu poet Wasim Barelvi, actor-director Saurabh Shukla, actor Nadira Babbar, journalist Saeed Naqvi, food critic and historian Pushpesh Pant, actor Sharmila Tagore, advocate-littérateur Saif Mahmood, poet-politician Kumar Vishwas and actor-radio host Annu Kapoor. Read more

Source: Hindustan Times