Sanskriti 2018, hosted by Calcutta Club USA on June 23rd in Acton was the fourth annual South Asian book fair and lit fest organized by the club since inception. The headline speaker this year was Shobha De, the bold and outspoken author, journalist and opinion shaper in India for the past 5 decades. Shobha shone brilliantly on the stage, with the press and in casual conversations, demonstrating an impeccable balance of charm, experience and wit. She was never afraid of providing her explicit views into controversial contemporary subjects but skillfully navigated discussions in a way that avoided confrontation with individual sentiments.

As always, Sanskriti Lit Fest empowered authors and audience to openly discuss a variety of subjects from the metoo# movement to different aspects of British colonialism, filmy duniya, sports journalism and geo-political leadership. Shobha startled even some of her followers with her remark that every woman struggling to make it in Bollywood has a choice, and if she chooses to make unwilling concessions, she should not consider herself a victim. Critics claimed that many in such positions are not even aware they have a choice. De also lamented that some of the Indian movements are actually hurting women’s job prospects as companies are afraid to hire them for fear of future retribution.

The engaged audience of 200 were immersed in the conversation. Dipika Mukherjee, author of Shambala junction visiting from Chicago as a panelist wrote in her blog about Sanskriti - “Bringing Shobha De was a popular rather than "literary" choice...but De turned out to be fabulous speaker, both feisty and articulate.” Writer T. N. Nagpal attended Sanskriti with his whole family. “I loved Shobha’s captivating responses to the wide range of audience questions”, said Nagpal. Another rising author, Kushanava Choudhury from Delhi, who grew up in New Jersey led a spirited discussion on filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak and his take on the 1943 Bengal Famine tragedy, which Choudhury described as an epic man-made Holocaust that claimed 4M lives but has been forgotten - without any memorials in India or elsewhere.

Boria Majumdar, the famed sports academician who co-authored the biographies of cricket greats like Tendulkar and Ganguly, was the inaugural speaker of the book fair. Maya Jasanoff, Coolidge professor of history at Harvard spoke about artisans at the edge of the Colonial empire and noted historian William Dalrymple was live-casted from England to talk about his latest book on the Kohi-noor. Of special interest were the two informative panels, first by the new authors talking about immigrant experiences as well as the “Publishing in a digital age” panel where veteran authors discussed myriad challenges in securing a publisher and getting their product to market.

There was brisk sale of contemporary books across the book fair, many of which were brought from India by Calcutta Club USA. “One of our goals is to generate awareness of current Indian literature among festival attendees...it’s very encouraging to see almost entire book inventory of lead authors like Shobha De, Kushanava Choudhury and Maya Jasanoff being sold out. It tells us that people liked what they heard from our speakers”, said Chitro Neogy, co-founder of Calcutta Club USA and convener of Sanskriti 2018. Other artistic attractions at the fair included a boutique jewelry store and an art booth with live painting.

For the first time, Sanskriti held a Short Story Contest called Panorama, where a large number of submissions were graded by the attending authors. Contestants included many candidates, some of whom came from as far away as Toronto, like Samhita Gupta, a rank-holder in the Adult category. “I came across Sanskriti from Facebook, while searching for literary groups with a South Asian focus...it was a wonderful experience!” Other contest winners included Jaya Brata Bose, Shaukat Ajmeri and Vanshika Kumar. Panorama Volume 1, with a selection of top submissions, was published and available at the event.

Several local politicians also attended and spoke briefly at Sanskriti 2018, including Jamie Eldridge, state senator from Middlesex and Worcester district, as well as Democrat Beej Das, first Indian American to run for US House of Representatives.

Sanskriti 2018 was possible because of tireless efforts of many but also because of the generosity of sponsors, including our platinum sponsor The Boston Group (Subu Kota), Urban Public Companies of Denver (Neil Shah), Lekhoni Writers Group (Gouri Datta), BlockMyTalent.com (Thomas Arul), A1 Medical Supplies (Gope Gidwani), New York Life (Kanchan Bhatti) and our food partner, Madras Grill (Shashidhar Bogelli).

Founded in 2015, Calcutta Club USA is a small group of creative individuals who participate in special interest fun activities as well as organize novel public events with a nostalgic flavor. More information is available at the club’s web site at www.calcuttaclubusa.com.

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