A full dosage of culture

This Saturday, we attended the South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival in DC. The festival was really well organized, well attended and we got to experience quite a feast of good movies, book readings and panel discussions. Plus, there was some star power in the form of Nagesh Kukunoor and Kiran Desai. “Dor” and “Punching at the Sun” were screened as part of the festival, followed by a Q&A. I quite liked “Dor”, and I think his style of writing/direction makes you feel buoyant and cheerful about life; and makes you believe in the innate goodness of humankind. L was even slightly disappointed that the movie had such a feel-good ending; but I was quite happy with it. He even asked Nagesh the same question, and he answered “Why not? I want my audiences to leave the theater with a good, warm fuzzy feeling”. He’s really a great guy – so creative and so unassuming. No airs, no fake accents, just sincere movie making.

“Punching at the Sun” is this year’s entry at the Sundance festival about an inner-city neighborhood in Queens and a teen’s coming-of-age story. Left me wanting for more; but I think the director Tanuj Chopra had me quite entertained in the Q&A. When asked a serious question about the teen’s father and how his character was not developed, and whether that was intentional, he started saying how it was an expression of his basic theme etc. Then he just gave up and said “Oh, actually, he just didn’t show up in the last few weeks of shooting!”

The other notables were Devyani Saltzman(Deepa Mehta’s daughter) who’s written a memoir, Tarun Tejapal (really dynamic journalist and founder of Tehelka.com with a colorful personality), and Samrat Upadhyay, whose reading reminded me a lot of “The Glass Palace”.