Things I’ve Been Thinking About Before Kala Ghoda Arts Festival
The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival has always been there. I don’t even remember the first year I noticed it. It just feels like something that exists in Mumbai whether you actively plan for it or not. You hear about it. You see pictures. You walk past the area and feel like something is happening.
This year I’ve been thinking about it more than usual, and I’m not entirely sure why.
Maybe it’s because literature has been given space this time. Maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling a little tired of reading alone, quietly, without conversation. Or maybe it’s just one of those phases where you want to sit in rooms where people are thinking out loud instead of scrolling past each other.
The literature sessions curated by Bound India, by Tara Khandelwal, don’t feel like events I need to attend with intention or preparation. They feel like something I want to show up to and let wash over me. Listening without trying to extract anything useful immediately.
Lately, reading hasn’t felt linear for me. I don’t read just to finish books anymore. I pause a lot. I reread sections. I Google things mid-chapter. I think about why a sentence was written the way it was. Stories don’t feel like just stories. They feel like containers holding history, language, politics, memory, and personal experience all mixed together.
That’s probably why translated literature has been pulling me in so strongly. It makes you aware of how small your reading world actually is. And instead of feeling intimidating, that feels grounding. Like being reminded that literature is bigger than you and will continue to be, no matter how much you read.
I keep thinking about how stories aren’t built around one main character anymore, at least not in the way they used to be. Women characters, side characters, overlooked lives feel like they are no longer waiting their turn. They change the story itself. Sometimes I finish a book and realise I wasn’t following one narrative at all, but many running parallel to each other. That kind of storytelling feels closer to how life actually unfolds.
What I think I’m most excited about is being around people who care about these things in different ways. Readers, writers, storytellers, all sitting in the same space, bringing their own understanding, their own reading histories, their own disagreements. It makes me feel less alone in how seriously I take books sometimes. It also makes me hopeful when people keep saying that reading is dying. It doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels like it’s just quieter, more dispersed, harder to spot unless you’re looking for it.
There’s also something I’ve always loved about hearing writers talk about where their work comes from. Not summaries. Not themes. But beginnings. What made the book necessary. Listening to someone like Vir Das talk about the thinking behind The Outsider, or understanding the world that shaped The Heart Lamp, feels like tracing a story back to its first impulse. That part always feels more honest to me than interpretation.
I also like that humour and performance are part of this programme. Literature can feel heavy to people who don’t already feel comfortable around books. Humour makes it less intimidating. Performance gives it another way in. It doesn’t make stories smaller. It just gives more people permission to enter.
I don’t think I’ll come back from Kala Ghoda feeling changed. I think I’ll come back feeling stirred, a little restless in a good way, wanting to read more, wanting to sit with books differently. Feeling creatively nudged rather than overwhelmed.
2026 feels like a year where I want to move beyond what already feels safe. Read things that confuse me a little. Listen to people who don’t sound like me. Let literature stretch me instead of just keeping me company.
Maybe that’s why this festival feels important this time. Not because it promises answers. But because it feels like a place where it’s okay to sit with curiosity without rushing it into meaning.