By Sukant Deepak

New Delhi, May 26 (IANS): Even as the pandemic and consequent lockdowns eclipsed art and culture activities, Kalinga Literary Festival decided to continue the celebration of literature and spirit digitally. On May 17, 2020 Kalinga Lit Fest announced its virtual platform- 'KLF Bhava Samvad'.

Now, a year down the line, KLF Bhava Samvad has completed one year with more than 200 successful sessions with 500 Speakers and more than 15 million audience engaging.

KLF Bhav Samvad's sessions focus on literature, public policy and thinking in multiculturalism, humanism and contemporary issues of society in large.

"With over 200 sessions we have come a long way. It is people's love for literature that made this happen," said Rashmi Ranjan Parida, founder-director of Kalinga Literary Festival, Mystic Kalinga Festival.

KLF Bhava Samvad has collaborated with leading publishing houses including Penguin Random House, Westland, HarperCollins India, Roli Books, Rajpal & Sons, Vani Prakashan, Rupa & Co. and Niyogi Books.

KLF Bhava Samvad went live on May 17, 2020, with a poetry-reading panel. That was a cold breeze to summer heat for the KLF fanbase. Soon after the first virtual session of South-Asian literature, the gradual growth of KLF Bhava Samvad began to mark its slot, putting an end to speculations.

Eminent personalities of literature, business, culture, law makers, spirituality, such as Amitav Ghosh, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Dr Pratibha Roy, Mamta Kalia, Lord Meghnad Desai, Bibek Debroy, SY Quraishi, Pt. Hari Prasad Chourasia, Geeta Shree, Prabhat Ranjan, Durjoy Dutta, Sandeep Bamzai, Swami Mukundanand, Sarah Joseph, Ghazala Wahab, Sandeep Agarwal, Amish Tripathi, Devdutt Pattanaik, Ram Madhav, Arundhati Subramaniam, Haldhar Naag, Pt Kunj Bihari Mishra, Rasheed Kidwai, Geeta Shree, T.T. Ram Mohan, Atul K Thakur, Shobha Akshar,Keshava Guha, etc.

KLF also hosted four special sessions to give tribute to legendary writer Manoj Dash.

"The heart speaks and the mind listens, the eyes tell the stories and silence raises our consciousness. As we know that literature always reflects society and sometimes guides as well, we at KLF are going to connect with poets, philosophers and writers, to know how literature has captured this pandemic and how successful it has been in reflecting the contemporary and ongoing reality of life," said Ashutosh Kumar Thakur, Advisor and Curator of KLF.

The festival made another big announcement about the launch of 'Mystic India Festival'. MKF focuses on literary celebration on a pan-India basis which is soon to be commenced.

"KLF Bhava Samvad was initiated to keep the literary spirit intact during lockdown because of the pandemic. The rapid growth of the platform and after receiving immense love from the audience, KLF Bhava Samvad has reached at a remarkable point having legendary literary figures, artists across the globe on board and will continue to live as a permanent platform," Parida added.