Sports Lit Fest to be an annual affair

Bhubaneswar: The sports bibliophiles of Odisha are already over the moon as the capital city will host the first-of-its-kind sports literary festival in Asia – the ‘Ekamra Sports Literary Festival’ Friday and Saturday. Now, their joys know no bounds as the organisers announced Wednesday that the festival will not only be an annual affair, but will get bigger with each year.
“We plan to make it bigger next year. It’s a two-day event this time and I am confident that next year it will be a four-day affair and then onwards a five-day event,” Sundeep Misra of Emerging Sports, which is organising the event along with Odisha government, declared at a media conference at the Kalinga Stadium here, Wednesday.
“One thing that I would certainly try from next year is to add more and more authors because that is what the literature part is all about. Ideally, we should have an equal number of authors and sportspersons at this event.”
According to Misra, the Ekamra Sports Literary Festival is probably the only platform in the continent where a sportsperson and an author can talk on the same topic.”
Vishal Dev, commissioner-cum-secretary of the Odisha Department of Sports and Youth Affairs, also addressed the media alongside Misra. He informed that wrestler Bajrang Punia, who recently won a silver medal in the World Wrestling Championship in Budapest, has confirmed his participation in the event, while recently retired former India hockey team captain Sardar Singh is also expected to be a speaker.
When asked why there is no representation from the badminton arena when the Indian shuttlers are doing exceptionally well worldwide, Misra was quick to rejoin that Saina Nehwal was scheduled to attend the event, but couldn’t because of her commitments in Fuzhou China Open starting November 6.
“In fact, we would have liked Usain Bolt to participate in this event. But, as you know, it requires more than just effort to get someone like him to participate in such events. Nevertheless, I am sure we will have Bolt in Bhubaneswar for the event in a couple of years,” Misra remarked.
Replying to a question on the current sports literature scenario in India, he said “Sport literature is still in its infancy in India compared to the United States and Europe.”
“There are few books on sports in India. You can’t really compare with what’s happening in the UK or Americas or even in Europe. There almost all sportspersons write an autobiography after retirement. Looking back at India, we have only a few sports writers like Bharat Sundaresan (author of ‘The Dhoni Touch’) at present,” he asserted.
Misra claimed that the popularity of ESLF has spread across the world so much so that a journalist from Oman will be reaching the city to cover the event. “This is a start and it will grow in the coming years,” he concluded.