Festive Season

We celebrate many national, religious as well as social festivals for
so many reasons. Festivals are celebrated to celebrate and unite
people in almost all cases. Apart from social, religious and national
festivals, literary festivals have been heard and observed these days
due to the increase in the reading habit among the people irrespective
of ages since books of varied genres and categories are available from
children fairy tales to philosophical and from gender related to
science fiction.
Although I could not attend the hallowed Jaipur International
Literary Festival in January, I attended Nepal Literature festival
organized by Bookworm Trust and developed my juvenile mindset
regarding the meaning of literary festival and how it looks. I can
draw as many as merits of literary festivals now not due to my
background of literature but also due to its diverse positive impacts.
I am one of the good readers of Jagadish Ghimire and poet Manu Manjil.
In the same festival, I got a brilliant opportunity to chat with them
in a very personal way which inspired me to make up mind to write some
myself. That very day I wrote two poems and shared with Manu sir. What
literary festivals do is they enhance the love of reading and give
chances to meet your favorite author in person.

Literary festival is a boon to all the lovers and readers of literary
books and furthermore it is in my words blessing for the students and
teachers of literature. I as a young reader got immense platform to
interact with literary giants. My happiness was infinite when Dr. Abhi
Subedi gave his words to attend in a literary event to be conducted by
my literary society. What can be more joyous and splendid moment for a
reader like me! I gathered my best regarding literary festival. It’s a
festival or like celebration what features a variety of presentation
and readings by authors and poets that are delivered over a period of
several days with the motive of promoting author’s books and fostering
love of writing and literature in general.
After attending the festival for two days completely, i wanted
to know about the literary festivals around the globe and then surfed
in the internet. What I discovered is that the numbers of literary
festivals in Asia are less in number comparing to that of Europe and
America. But one thing cherished me. The number of literary festivals
In Asia is mushrooming these days due to the increase in literacy rate
and spread of global habit of reading books. The nearest and biggest
literary festival for we Nepali till the date is Jaipur Literary
Festival. I was startled to know about the Jaipur festival that it’s
not just the biggest in India but in Asia and in this year festival
they had 226 writers, 54 more than in 2010, including Nobel winners
J.M Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk.

According to The Independent, Kathmandu Literary Jatra is going to
kick off on this month with the support of Jaipur Festival’s director
Gokhale and being inspired by the popularity gained by the biggest
Indian literary festival. What I came to know that the success of
larger festivals can pay dividends not only to writers and readers but
also to the local restaurants and hotels, malls and other business.
This year’s Nepal literature festival and Kathmandu literary Jatra are
the indicators of promoting Nepal Tourism Year for sure.

The arrival of internationally famous authors like that of British
writer and South Asian reporter Mark Tully, it bolsters a local sense
of pride among the readers. Such festivals provide marketplace for
writers and booksellers, stimulates readers creating the wonderful
season and enhances the whole town with its own festive season of
books.