South Asian Literature and Art Festival brings together authors, artists, entrepreneurs

Encina Commons bustled with chatter as students, faculty and visitors gathered for the 2024 South Asian Literature and Art (SALA) Festival on Saturday and Sunday.

The two-day Bay Area festival has celebrated contemporary South Asian culture since 2019 and was co-presented by Art Forum SF and the Stanford Center for South Asia. 

While the center is a regular sponsor of SALA, this year’s event marked the festival’s first time on Stanford’s campus, encompassing six categories: art, literature, cinematic, epicurean, journalism and social issues and mental health.

“Coming to an area that has such a large South Asian population, and a school that has such a large South Asian population, I wanted to take advantage of the fact that [SALA] was happening right here on campus,” attendee Misbah Aziz ’28 said.

According to the festival’s organizer Ambika Sahay, SALA asks a specific question: how is South Asian culture significant to one’s everyday life?

SALA’s 60 expert speakers hailed from both diverse South Asian backgrounds and varied professions, from authors to chefs to CEOs, reflecting the community-centric theme of 2024: “Plurality in Collectivity.” 

Opening day

The festival’s two-day schedule was jam-packed from noon to 7 p.m. with more than 20 panels and keynote sessions.

One early panel was “South Asian Voice in an American Newsroom,” in which journalists Deepa Fernandes from NPR, Paresh Dave from WIRED and Anita Ramaswamy from The Information shared their experience as South Asian journalists. The speakers discussed how their South Asian identity has enabled them to uncover unexplored narratives, their exposure to workplace bias and what Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy means for the South Asian community. 

Between official panels, attendees ate lunch at South Asian food trucks. The festival also had book signings, poetry readings, performances by South Asian groups like Dance Sunita and an art exhibit. Ananth Raj Namboothiry, a high school student currently conducting research at Stanford, volunteered for the latter.

“I’ve been really interested in South Asian music my entire life,” said Namboothiry, who helped set up the artworks and direct visitors. “There’s so much more than just music here. I get to see so many different types of [art].”

SALA showcased a wide range of South Asian businesses, from artisanal textiles to handcrafted jewelry to sustainably-made shoes.

First-time SALA vendor Pooja Shah owns candle company Lavica, a small business that sells South Asian-inspired fragrances. Shah’s goods are made in her garage, and intend to “bring memories back from home.” She said she enjoyed SALA, noting the sales she made there. 

A highlight of the opening day was activist and artist Salima Hashmi’s keynote session on the history of Pakistani art. She emphasized the importance of the female creative and “was amazing,” said Ranjita Chakravarty, director of IT auditing at Stanford and actress in “Never Have I Ever,” a Netflix show depicting South Asian culture.

Chakravarty was pleasantly surprised to discover Hashmi was the daughter of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a highly influential Urdu poet. She praised how Hashmi brought attention to Pakistani art and women artists. 

“I’ve been coming to the festival for a couple of years,” Chakravarty said. “It’s just nice to see and learn about different artists — South Asian artists [and] South Asian literature.”

The panel following Hashmi’s keynote address, “Ink From the Island,” centered on Sri Lankan literary accomplishment. “Ink From the Island” featured Ilankai Tamil-American fiction writer V. V. Ganeshananthan, Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Shyam Selvadurai and Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka. All three authors presented brief readings of their work, then discussed their artistic process and how their love for storytelling developed. 

Another popular panel was “Beyond the Clouds,” where speakers discussed mental health concepts affecting the South Asian community, including the pressure of being labeled a model minority, the process of navigating narrow definitions of personal success and the tension caused by coexisting American and South Asian identities. 

The festival’s first day closed with a session featuring Indian film director Imtiaz Ali, whose works include “Rockstar,” “Tamasha” and “Amar Singh Chamkila.” 

Ali discussed the course of his filmmaking career in the Bay and beyond and dug into his creative process by referencing his characters’ propensities for grand journeys and self-reinvention. The artist had many fans in the overflowing room, captivated in spite of the long day. 

Day two

On Sept. 29, SALA featured another host of panels. Among them was “To Be Rich Without Money,” in which Deepak Ramola, MIT instructor and founder of Project FUEL — a social organization that collects the life lessons of everyday people — discussed how to be joyful without material goods. 

During his workshop, Ramola asked attendees to engage with one another by learning a song and singing it together.

“I thought it was a great way to get people to think,” attendee and Bay Area resident Vaishali Khandekar said of Ramola’s workshop. “I think the methodology used was interesting [and] engaging.” 

Khandekar added that Ramola illustrated “the importance of getting out of ourselves a little bit, looking at other people, other experiences and learning from them.”  

One keynote session the second day featured Indian lyricist Kausar Munir on her emergence in the literary sphere. 

The lyricist discussed how she was confused by the assumption that her gender affected her art-making capacity, as it rarely factored into her own creative process. She also described various artistic influences and read a poem for the audience.

Another panel, “Tapestry for Taste,” convened four culinary experts, all of whom shared their experience representing South Asian cuisine. 

For example, chef Heena Patel noted how cooking for her community helped her ease into America before she even spoke English. Today, Patel runs Besharam, a successful San Francisco restaurant.

After panels ended, author and former Indian parliament member Shashi Tharoor spoke at the Hoover Institute in conversation with Professor Sumit Gangly. Tharoor discussed his versatile literary career, which has ranged from Bollywood satires to the first analysis of Indian foreign policy, and fielded questions on everything from India-Pakistan relations to generative AI.

With Tharoor’s talk, SALA 2024 came to an end, having explored “caste, class, gender and borders to understand how individuality and collectivity can coexist and collide,” as its theme states. This year’s festival imparted diverse knowledge of South Asian culture as it lives and breathes in 2024.

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