Bringing together artists, activists, authors and publishers together for a week-long online literary festival from June 22 to 28 was Oxford Bookstore with The Rainbow Festival, to celebrate Pride in all its glory. From queer representation in mainline cinema to books, the festival saw stalwarts from various industries discussing their work for the LGBTQ+ community. The festival kicked off with the digital launch of an anthology of poems edited by Akhil Katyal and Aditi Angiras, with representation of queer communities in a multitude of languages forming the crux of their conversation. Every day of the festival had an author conduct online readings as well as discussion on topics like ‘Love in the time of war’, ‘motherhood and transgender’, and ‘activism and theatre’ by the likes of Madhavi Menon, Sandip Roy, Nemat Sadat, Ajay K. Pandey, Raymond Caldwell and Andrew Sean Greer.

Manjula Padmanabhan Sourced by The Telegraph

The changing scenario may be heartening to witness but it’s still a far cry from an ideal world that activists dream of. This changing landscape was the topic of conversation between Parmesh Shahani, director of Godrej Culture Lab and Balachandran Ramiah, administrator of Gay Bombay organisation. Founder of Sampark Publications, Sunandan Roy Chowdhury, Nupur Asthana, director of Four More Shots Please: Season 2, authors Manjula Padmanabhan, Devdutt Pattanaik and writer and academic Saikat Majumdar too formed a part of this panel.

It is imperative to start the conversation early to bring a change in the society so young adults and kids formed a part of the audience with special sessions by Amar Chitra Katha, Scholastic and Anjali Sankar. British Council conducted a writing workshop for students while Alliance Francaise partnered with the bookstore for a digital poster competition ‘This is Me’, which was won by Simran Sachdeva. Poetry slam by Little Known Creation and poetry writing competition by PaperCup too formed a part of the inclusive festival. Some of the other partners of this event included Amazon Westland, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Sage India, Simon and Schuster, Speaking Tiger and American Center. Identifying the spaces and opportunities one can create and provide to better ourselves in this fight for equal rights for all, Oxford Bookstore did a fine job executing it on their social media platforms.