WAYANAD: At a stall strewn with her creations, Selly is busy weaving ‘maani pullu’ into beautiful boats and hats. She stops in spurts, to explain her products and process with a smile. The booth has no signboard to identify the Panavally native or her products, but she keeps at it from the comfort of a chair.
“I have been weaving the grass since always. Though I don’t know how to read or write, I get to travel far and wide thanks to my craft,” she adds.
‘Maani pullu’ - a variety of grass endemic to Wayanad – has also accorded Seetha a sense of purpose. Despite the fact that she has recounted her story ad nauseam, she weaves another tale around the grass – adding her spin.
“I am exaggerating a bit, but the grass helped keep the dignity of a queen who was cheated by a ‘veppatti’ (concubine) of the king,” Seetha says.
They are here for the Arts and Crafts Fair, organised as part of the second edition of the Wayanad Literature Festival (WLF), touted as the largest rural event of its kind in the country. There were many from Wayanad who attended the festival, organised on a grander scale in its second iteration. This year’s event was spread across four days and ten venues.
A distinctive feature of WLF over the two editions – the first was staged in 2022 – has been the participation of the local population. Be it the student volunteers and teachers of Sacred Hearts HSS, Dwaraka, the main venue, most of those running the stalls at the farmers’ market or arts and crafts fare, or those who have come to meet the literary stalwarts, who they have only come across through the pages of their works.
For Jeena Jose, a nurse at the Nalloornad Government Tribal Hospital, in Mananthavady, this is her second WLF.
“This year, the venues are much larger,” says Jeena, who applied for leave immediately after the event dates were announced a couple of months ago.
Sreerag, a college student who lives near the main venue, was excited to be part of the heritage walk organised along the very lanes he frequents. “These are the very roads and mud tracks that flood every year,” he quips.
Saritha O T, who settled down in Mananthavady a couple of years ago, says local participation has been much higher this year.
The local outreach at the fest is not limited to attendees, but also reflects in the topics covered. Environmental issues unique to Wayanad, human-wildlife conflict, etc., have been talking points at the event, which this year also saw the participation of artists from the district, including filmmaker and actor Basil Joseph, and writers Sukumaran Chaligatha, Dhanya Vengacheri, Bindu Irulam, Sheela Tomy, among others