A torchlit adventure

Many of us had our first brush with detective fiction through Agatha Christie’s novels. Her books absorbed you into a world where bad guys were quick to draw blood, but never escaped the long arm of the law, thanks to competent detectives like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. And now, an event titled Night at the Library, organised by ‘Katharsis’, will offer up the perfect ambience for you to revisit the thrilling tales of the Mystery Queen.

The event will do exactly what its title suggests, as participants will assemble inside the Asiatic Library after dark, and seated within the hallowed halls of this columned wonder, they will pore over Agatha’s works by torchlight. “Even though the event will start by 6 pm, the interiors of the library are quite dark when the lights are switched off. If the participants are on time, we might even take them for a walk around the library, so that they can be privy to the library’s staggering book collection,” reveals Sudhir Ajja, co-founder of ‘Katharsis’. Apart from boasting an exquisite, Greek and Roman-styled facade, and of course, a phenomenal number of steps, the Asiatic Library is also home to some priceless titles, like one of the only two original manuscripts of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Agatha Christie

“The book reading will be an important part of the session, because we have a fun game planned to go with it. So we might choose specific books and passages from Agatha’s works. The game will have participants solving a murder mystery, or something along those lines,” is all Sudhir is willing to reveal at the moment. If you like playing dress up, you’ll fit right in here, because participants will be encouraged to dress up as their favourite character or pick one from among those suggested by the event organisers (Your character could have a role to play in the game, so choose wisely). Plus, there will be puzzles to solve, quizzes to crack and prizes to win.

Although this event is the first-of-its-kind in the city, it isn’t the first such event organised by ‘Katharsis’, as the six-month old organisation has already done similar events around Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter and Shakespeare in the past. Sudhir explains that he and his co-founders, Yashodhara Mhatre and Suchitra Dalvie, were eager to make reading cool again, especially literary fanfiction (where fans write fictional accounts or stories around original literary characters), and decided to start ‘LitFanFests’.

Sudhir tells us more about this novel concept: “You have fan fests, like Comic Con and literature fests like the Jaipur Literature Festival, etc. But Comic Con has become too focussed on superheroes and merchandise sales, while literature festivals are only focussed on books. We decided to merge aspects of both, so we have cosplaying and other fun activities, but all of it is centered around authors and literary works.” Sudhir also hopes that these LitFanFests will give fanfiction writers a space to showcase their stories, as some of the events take in story contributions. “At one of our events around Harry Potter, a participant contributed a story where Harry Potter was set in India. It was such a beautiful concept, and there were some unique spells too,” shares Sudhir.

Additionally, the trio also hope that their events will rekindle in individuals a love for books and book-related spaces. And that’s why they hold their events inside bookstores as well. “Bookstores normally host authors, book readings and launches, which people may or may not attend. But our events create interest around a particular author’s works or genre of books and this makes people curious about the books, even if they’ve never read them before,” concludes Sudhir.