With people from across all South Indian states living in Bengaluru, giving it a rich and diverse linguistic heritage, it would not be wrong to call the city the cultural capital of South India. However, a closer look at the city’s flourishing literature festivals reveals a predominant focus on English and Kannada languages, with little room for other languages. Breaking this linguistic barrier is Book Brahma’s inaugural festival Soul of South: Book Brahma Festival , a vibrant event that celebrates literary voices from across all South Indian languages, concluded last week at the St.
John’s Auditorium, Koramangala. The three-day festival, called ‘Soul of South’, was structured around six venues on one campus. Each section offered a distinctive mix of panel discussions, performances, book launches, and interactive sessions, attracting a diverse audience of literature enthusiasts across the three days.
Actor Prakash Raj performing at Book Brahma, Literature Festival at St Johnson Auditorium in Bengaluru.| Photo Credit:k BHAGYA PRAKASH Musical beginning The last day’s events commenced with a soulful Hindustani classical vocal performance by Pandit M. Venkatesh Kumar, accompanied by Satish Kolli on harmonium and Keshav Joshi on tabla.
Following this was a performance by actor Prakash Raj titled Diverse Languages, Same Feeling , which highlighted the common threads that unite India’s diverse linguistic landscape through poems in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. .