Mumbai, October 31, 2015: Interactive discussions continued into the third day of the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest held at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). One of India’s most prominent international literature festivals, the event was attended by a set of eminent personalities like DBC Pierre, Stephen Kelman, Ashok Chopra, Nick Davies, Malavika Jayaram, Shantanu Moitra, TM Krishna and Stefano Ragni, who engaged in knowledgeable conversations throughout the day. A series of panel discussions were spread across the first half of the third day and addressed diverse issues such as the current state of news organisations, igniting inspiration on to paper, challenges faced by classical music and the art of writing biographies.

Session on Caught in the Loop with Carnatic music vocalist TM Krishna, music director Shantanu Moitra and Italian musician and composer Stefano Ragni

 Release The Bats - chaired by author and literary critic Nilanjana Roy along with Authors DBC Pierre, Stephen Kelman and publisher Ashok Chopra

Nick Davies and Manjula in the Session Bad News discuss everything from phone hacking to the future of news.

Under the Skin - chaired by Manjula Narayan,  was a passionate discourse between Rachel Holmes, Stephen Kelman and Sidharth Bhatia on how subjects influence the lives of authors

Opening the day on a musical note with ‘Caught in the Loop’, Carnatic music vocalist TM Krishna, music director Shantanu Moitra and Italian musician and composer Stefano Ragni discussed the challenges faced by Indian classical music today. Overpowering the stage with musical prowess, the session began with a short performance by the three musicians of their individual art forms. Chaired by journalist Sumana Ramanan, the panel discussion was a jugalbandi on the challenges faced in different forms of music in terms of the audience’s size and composition.

One of the many stimulating sessions, ‘Release the Bats How authors bring out the book inside’, was chaired by author and literary critic Nilanjana Roy and looked into both sides of the literary world - writing and publishing. Authors DBC Pierre and Stephen Kelman along with publisher Ashok Chopra, presented their individual views on the techniques to draw inspiration from real-life experiences, handling rejection from publishers, and how to publish a book successfully. Commenting on his inspiration to write his celebrated book Vernon God Little, Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre said, “It was the image of a 12-year old student killed in a high school massacre in the US, which I saw on TV that grew a critical mass of frustration in me and I was angry with the world. It ignited a fuse inside me and I put it into words on paper.”

British investigative journalist, writer and documentary maker Nick Davies discussed the state of news organisations in today’s age with lawyer and fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, Malavika Jayaram in the session Bad News. Speaking on his acclaimed book Flat Earth News, Davies addressed the hooked audience on exposing falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the Global Media. Sparking witty comments on how news organisations and journalists face the pressing issue of the lack of time and thus recycle second hand information instead of going outside in the real word and finding news, Davies spoke about the unravelling of the source behind WikiLeaks. Davies also commented on the level of public debate in Western Europe versus the United Kingdom, the Official Secrets Act (UK) and the flow of information through Twitter and social media where “the Internet allows you to consume the news that suits you and in turn produce the news that suits you”. Davies ended the conversation with an interactive Q&A session and encouraged young minds to aspire to be journalists and live out “the powerful fantasy that reporting your opinion on bad news will put an end to it.”

Kicking off with the challenges faced by authors while writing a biography and chaired by Manjula Narayan, ‘Under the skin’ was a passionate discourse between Rachel Holmes, Stephen Kelman and Sidharth Bhatia on how human subjects influence the lives of authors. Commenting on how a biography calls for a deep understanding of the various layers of person's life, Kelman said, “When you become friends with your subject there are many things as a novelist that you need to be careful about while writing your story. It must be something that is both satisfying to the author as well as being fair to their subject.” Sidharth Bhatia added, "Biographies is not a popular writing form in India today. We do not have a sense of archiving our history and lives and this creates a problem for writers when they are creating a narrative. Personal histories are going to go big in the next few years and it would be great to have more people archiving their lives for authors to write more biographies in this country."