Having decided to fight back with words, Murugan, with his presence muted and words loosely translated into English from Tamil, said, “I don’t think writers worry about changing the world or view writing as a primary tool for social change. What I write only reflects my perception of society.”
Responding to Nilekani on life after “rebirth”, he confessed that circumstances forced him to believe that he need not confine his career choice to writing. His self-imposed exile, however, had taught him that words were his “soul”; a part of him that could not be done away with. “While writing is a personal experience, one intent of a work should be to highlight human rights, curbs to personal life and independence and how governments control communities,” he said.
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“Murugan continues to fear as the political context has not changed yet. But getting global readership has encouraged him to travel around and meet members of his fraternity,” said his publisher Kannan Sundaram in a separate chat with Murugan’s lawyer V Suresh on Day 2 of the festival on Sunday. Speaking in the discussion titled ‘The Fight To Free Words’, the latter said that while one can fight court cases for freedom of expression of a writer, the freedom of choice for a reader is often overlooked and that strengthening civil society is a solution.
While free speech and writing across borders remained a dominant theme of the two-day festival, there were also a pot pourri of perspectives from how bitcoin trade cannot be illegal if a transaction involves “two willing individuals” to IPS officer D Roopa talking about how unequal treatment of rich and poor inside prisons comes in the way of positive reforms.
The event had its share of lighthearted conversations with actor Soha Ali Khan, theatre-person Sanjana Kapoor, poetic performances by Sonam Kalra, William Dalrymple, Anjum Hasan and music by The Clinton Cerejo Band.
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