Potpourri – The literary and debating club of IIM Udaipur successfully hosted The Udaipur LeapDay Litfest 2015(ULLF), IIMU’s annual literature festival at the institute. This is the third such edition of the event, held today.

ULLF is a celebration of Indian writing and aims at promoting love for reading and writing amongst IIMU students and the Udaipur Community. Started in 2013, ULLF is an annual event that aims to bring together connoisseurs of literature and arts to share their views, and provides an opportunity to students and residents of Udaipur to interact with eminent personalities.

This annual event is organized on every February 28, with a special two-day festival during leap years.

The theme for this year’s fest – ‘Beauty in Chaos’ was aimed at celebratingthe charming order that takes shapein the turbulent journey of an artist. Apart from prominent authors, this year’s festival featured artists, screen writers, poets, dancers, comedians and photographers who shared their perspectives on the beauty that is the artist’s struggle to recognition.

The event began with the lamp lighting ceremony by the guests, which was followed by a brief introduction to the event by Prof. Vishwanathan from IIM Udaipur who discussed the importance of creativity and how being creative is encouraged at IIM Udaipur through activities conducted by different student-driven clubs and committees.

The first talk was by Piyush Mishra- musician, poet, actor and famously known as the lyricist for the movie Gangs of Wasseypur. Mishra started off with a beautiful performance on the harmonium, which was followed by a candid discussion on his life, his struggle to make it big in Mumbai, Anurag Kashyap and amusing moments in the making of Gulaal and his preference of theatre over cinema. His talk ended with a beautiful rendition of Husna followed by a satiric poem on Hamlet that had the crowd in splits.

This was followed by a talk by Padma Bhushan awardee Dr. Mallika Sarabhai- classical dancer, activist and a theatre artist. Dr. Sarabhai began with a highly amusing story of a whistling princess, then moved on to a more serious story about her version of Gautami’s story from ancient Hindu religious texts.

What transpired next had the entire audience’s rapt attention as Dr. Sarabhai went on to describe in vivid detail the veiled truth behind the story of every woman in India- the sexual harassment and violence she faces and how both men and women are responsible for it. Dr. Sarabhai’s session was an eye opener for everyone present.

The second session of the fest focussed on story-telling as an art form. The session had two expert story-tellers Anu Singh Chaudary, author of e-retail record-breaking collection of short stories ‘Neela Scarf’and Giti Chandra, author of the ‘Book of Guardians’ trilogy. Both authors regaled the audience with stories of their life and also shared some snippets from their books.

The final session for the day had Sandeep Jha- founder of Emotional Fulls an online entertainment channel ‘EmotionalFulls’ and Rahul Raushan, founder of online satire-news portal ‘Faking News’. Both speakers first shared stories about their life and work.

Udaipur’s LeapDay LitFest was a grand success and was applauded by the speakers and audience alike with everyone in attendance eagerly looking forward to the next edition.

This year’s event was sponsored by Sahitya Akademi and the education partner was Aryas Publication. The other partners of the event were Niranjan Associates, Ashoka Cinemas and Pirates Publications, book partner – National Book Trust and food partner Jaisingh Garh, Raaj Bagh and Kaju’s.