From March 4 to March 13.

[Picture by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Spring Fever, the annual literary festival by Penguin Books India, is taking place at the Amphitheatre at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, from March 4 to March 13. Time: 11 am to 7 pm daily. It’s open to all. The open air library will feature a complete range of Penguin India titles, old and new, as well as sessions with authors. Expect a few concerts too. The schedule:

March 4
The launch of Penguin’s special hardback editions of Classics with readings by authors Avijit Dutt, Navtej Sarna and Syed Shahid Mahdi – from Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana (tr. A.N.D. Haksar), Zafarnama by Guru Gobind Singh (tr. Navtej Sarna) and In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau (tr. Paul Losensky and Sunil Sharma). The first day includes a performance by singer Shubha Mudgal.

March 5
Authors Ira Trivedi, Madhuri Banerjee and Ismita Tandon Dhankher chat on love, marriage and relationships, followed by a rock music performance.

March 6
A dialogue on Coming of Age between authors Sheba Karim and Samit Basu at the launch of the Penguin Young Adult imprint that also features dramatized readings from Swayamvara by David Hair and a special screening of the first Penguin YA book trailer—The Return of Ravana series. The evening continues with The Big Bookshelf in which lyricist Javed Akhtar, authors William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale, and TV presenter Sunil Sethi discuss their craft and life stories.

March 7
Quizmaster Joy Bhattacharya hosts a quiz show on cricket.

March 8
Finding Ananda, a workshop by Osho International Foundation.

March 9
Economists Bimal Jalan, Gurcharan Das, Kaushik Basu and Vinay Bharat-Ram on the promises and perils of capitalism in The Culture of Consumption.

March 10
Screening of the Oscar winning film Alice in Wonderland.

March 11
A preview of forthcoming books. Novelist Shobhaa Dé reads from Sethji, historian William Dalrymple from The Return of the King: Shah Shuja and the first Anglo-Afgan War, and adman Suhel Seth from Jamil Ahmad’s The Wandering Falcon.

March 12
A dialogue on Hindi: Badlegi to Chalegi!. Authors Sudhish Pachauri, Ravish Kumar, Noor Zaheer, Anamika and Ashutosh Kumar on the changing forms of Hindi.

March 13
Author Ruskin Bond with film-maker Vishal Bhardwaj on the journey from the written word to the screen in Lights, Camera . . . Action! The festival ends with a qawwali performance by the Warsi Brothers of Hyderabad.