On 1 March 2025, the ninth edition of the three-day residential Pondicherry/Auroville Poetry Festival opened at Sri Aurobindo Society’s centre SHARANAM, located near Ousteri Lake, the main water body of Pondicherry.

Hosted by Gayatri Majumdar (Festival Director) and Anju Makhija (Co-Founder/Co-Curator) of The Brown Critique and Pondicherry poets, this year’s festival saw 25 poets participating from across India as well as from Bangladesh and Nepal. The evening attended by 45 people, began with a musical offering by Gautam Mitra and Shivam Ojha followed by a panel discussion on ‘A Crisis of Belonging: Can poetry be the common language?’ The evening ended with dinner for all those attending the session.

Apart from poetry readings, there were book launches, talks, music, a play and a farm walk at Matri Udayan (Ashram Farm) called ‘Learning from Nature’ conducted by Auro Vanam’s Kavita Dutta. All the poets were very appreciative of the way the Festival was conducted in various venues such as Unity Pavilion in Auroville and Palais de Mahe in Pondicherry. They were especially charmed by the serene surroundings of Sharanam and emphasized that this Festival was unlike what they have ever experienced.