In this episode of The BookJelly Podcast, I reflect on three days spent at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode - my attempt to understand what literary festivals are really meant to do to a reader.
I begin with a quiet skepticism I carry into every literary festival. Not cynicism, but doubt. What exactly am I doing here? Are festivals meant to inform us, impress us, validate us, or simply remind us why we read in the first place?
Using KLF 2026 as a lived case study, I talk about arriving early at the beachside venue, feeling the physical shift from North Indian winter to coastal warmth, and watching the festival transform from calm to chaos within hours.
I reflect on the burden of choice that large festivals impose and why incompleteness is not a failure, but a condition of serious reading.
I discuss sessions that stayed with me. I also talk about what didn’t work. The frustrations of virtual sessions, technical glitches, and how scale and spectacle can sometimes interrupt thought.
More than anything, this episode is about Kozhikode as a reading city and why KLF feels rooted rather than parachuted in. About readers, not audiences. About festivals that complicate you rather than flatter you.
