VoW-Daly College host 22 Schools at the 4th Edition of Young Adult Vertical- 8 Weeks to go

Dr. Tania Saili Bakshi & Nikita Aggarwal

Daly College, Indore  in collaboration with Valley of Words (VoW), Dehradun and AFS India, is proud to announce the latest edition of G-Literati | Young Adults Vertical, a festival that brings together the spirit of literature, art, and imagination. This year’s event promises to be one of the most diverse gatherings of young readers and creative minds in central India, with twenty-two participating schools from Mumbai, Gwalior, Dehradun, and Bhopal etc including leading institutions from Indore.

As Dr. Sanjeev Chopra, Festival Director of Valley of Words, has observed, education must be holistic, and pedagogy for young adults should focus on interactive learning as well as the ability to ask critical questions. By integrating literature with art and imagination, the festival allows young minds to experience both joy and intellectual engagement. Dr Chopra’s latest book, The Great Conciliator: Lal Bahadur Shastri and the Transformation of India will also be discussed at an interactive session with the students. What is interesting to note is the book also has references to the institution for Acharya Kriplani who also taught at Daly College, Indore. The students will be in conversation with the Festival Director on Shastri’s leadership style, about Jai Jawan Jai Kisan, and the leadership displayed by the great statesman during the sixty-five war.

Adding to the vibrancy of the event is the presence of VoW authors who will bring their stories, experiences, and creative journeys to the young audiences. Kripa, with her remarkable project art is a Voice, exemplifies the long and layered process of blending poetry and visual art. She recalls how the project began: “At first, after I wrote the poem, I also wrote lengthy essays on each couplet. These essays turned into mind maps and further into illustrations. I created three banks: a Word bank, a Visual bank, and a Texture bank, each filled with material I read, drew, or collected around the book’s theme. Meeting 11 artists whose work appears in the book shaped my understanding of the issues. It took nearly two years to build these banks, and another two years to construct the collages.” Her journey shows students that art is not simply self-expression but also research, dialogue, and reinvention, and that creativity thrives at the intersection of form, meaning, and social consciousness.

Another distinguished presence at the festival is filmmaker and illustrator Suresh Eriyat, whose book PNK Panicker’s Ghost Stories highlights the power of oral storytelling traditions. For Eriyat, the book emerged from deeply personal spaces of memory, family, and folklore. “Kandittund! grew out of a deeply personal space memory, family, folklore, and the act of translating oral storytelling into visual and written form. Many of the creatures appear and disappear without explanation, just as they did in my father’s stories. I wanted to stay true to the rhythm of oral tales, where mystery itself is the magic.” By refusing neatly tied endings or imposed morals, his work invites students to see that the strength of folklore lies not in structure but in lived rhythm, mystery, and play.

Equally captivating is the work of Jatwang Wangsa & Tara Douglas, whose book Myth, Memory & Folktale of the Wancho Tribe of Arunachal Pradesh is rooted in cultural preservation and anthropological sensitivity. Tara describes her inspiration: “I first visited the Wancho area in Longding District in 2019 to record myths and folktales, as no written collections existed. Gaining permission to enter was itself a gift. The elders’ stories were organic, fresh, and unusual, revealing much about the culture. Translating from Wancho to English took time, but the purpose was always to share narratives that show the integrated relationship between humans, the land, rivers, animals, plants, and unseen dimensions.” For students, Wangsa & Douglas’s work highlights the importance of recording voices that often remain unheard and of respecting traditions that speak to ecological and cultural interconnectedness.

Author, Arundhati Venkatesh’s book Raman and Chandrasekhar: Lighting Up the Stars brings a touch of physics filled with humour and amusing anecdotes which resonate with the captive audience at the Daly College. 

Returning to Daly College as an alumnus is author Probal Dasgupta, who will speak about his book Camouflaged: Forgotten Stories from Battlefields. Speaking of his trip back to his alma mater, Probal said, “Daly College with its strikingly beautiful campus holds unforgettable memories from my teenage years. I was fortunate to have remarkable friends and the best teachers who taught me the early life lessons. These lessons have stayed with me through my army, corporate and writing careers. I learnt the precious lesson of writing and speaking fearlessly. More importantly, teachers such as Mr Ahmed Ansari and others gave me the freedom to think and act.” For Daly College students, his return is not only an intellectual engagement but a reminder that their alma mater has produced voices that continue to shape national and cultural discourse.

Beyond these author interactions,  a T-shirt painting event to interpret the shortlisted books by transforming literature into wearable art is the highlight of the one day event. Participants will share the inspiration behind their designs, linking creativity with critical thinking, and turning the act of reading into a living, performative expression. This embodies the larger mission of G-Literati: to make literature an interactive, holistic experience. the event will feature a dynamic book fair where leading publishers will display titles, giving students opportunities to purchase books and have them personally signed.

In keeping with G-Literati’s ethos, panels will be moderated by students themselves, allowing young interlocutors to question authors directly and develop confidence in public speaking, analytical skills, and critical inquiry. The collaborative nature of the festival, with schools from across India participating, demonstrates how literature builds bridges between geographies, languages, and experiences. As Dr. (Ms.) Gunmeet Bindra, Principal of Daly College, remarked, “Hosting G-Literati in collaboration with Valley of Words and AFS India brings immense delight. I hope we give our children a world in which they will read, be read to, imagine, and understand. No graphic or digital form can replace the book, man’s best friend.”

As the 2025 edition unfolds at Daly College, it will stand as a celebration of literature, art, and youth engagement.  Literature here becomes not only the text on the page but the colours on a T-shirt, the storyline of a great politician, the rhythm of a folktale, the brushstroke of an illustration, the echo of oral tradition, thrown in with a bit of physics, and the voices of young students learning to connect stories with their own lives. G-Literati affirms that the act of reading is not solitary, but a community celebration, a festival of imagination, and above all, a promise of the future.