William Dalrymple, Radhika Vaz, Monica Dogra & More To Speak At Magnetic Words 2016

Magnetic Fields Festival has added a storytelling stream to its already extensive lineup of music, called Magnetic Words.

This is an entirely new, intimate space, which will feature some of India’s finest journalists, writers, performers, activists and artists. The speakers will come together with their stories, ideas and opinions on a range of different topics.

Curated by British-French freelance writer Rebecca Hobson, the carefully selected roster includes award winning writer and co-founder of the acclaimed Jaipur Literature Festival William Dalrymple, who will speak in public for the first time about his upcoming book 'Koh-i-Noor: The History Of The World’s Most Famous Diamond', singer, actress and spoken word poet Monica Dogra whose talk will concern intimacy and empathy in the digital age, and stand-up comedian Radhika Vaz with a frank and comical conversation about sex, marriage, feminism. Award winning journalist and founder and editor-at-large at The Wire Raghu Karnad will speak about the unbelievable events covered in his powerful piece for The Guardian - Confessions Of a Killer Policeman.

Joining them will be Delhi based writer Janice Pariat who will discuss her book ‘Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories’, expert perfumer Jahnvi Dameron Nandan who links smell to memory and ideas, science historian
Rohit Gupta a.k.a. Compasswalla who’ll take us through the history of navigation, while Delhi based performance journalist Constantin Simon relives his journey to the Kumbh Mela in his talk ‘Welcome To Gonzo Guru Land’.

Co-founders of Helm design studios Rajan Zaveri (journalist at Al Jazeera, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Vice, BBC among others), Mridul Sharma (creative director at Studio Ananas) and human rights lawyer Shikha Silliman Bhattacharjee will be giving a collective talk on the power of VR and 360° in revolutionising the way we tell stories. Award winning artist Shilo Shiv Suleman and founder and director of human rights organisation Engendered Myna Mukherjee will also be speaking, as will Delhi’s own Dentist, who will be reading from his novel - ‘A Series Of Small Adjustments’.

You can check out the full lineup of speakers here at the Magnetic Fields website. Follow them on Facebook and use #MagFields2016 to follow the fesival across social media, and #MagWords2016 for more on this stream.