Veteran journalist, writer Anil Dharker who founded the Mumbai Lit fest passes away

Journalist, editor, writer, lit fest curator, a powerful liberal voice...but above all a concerned and caring public intellectual. Anil Dharker defined being multi-faceted and the best that Mumbai had to offer. In a career spanning over decades, Dharker wore many hats... Starting out as an architect, he moved to writing and curating... driven by his love for art and cinema. New Cinema, also known as the Parallel Cinema, movement in India owes a lot to Dharker...

During Dharker's tenure as the head of the Film Finance Corporation, which later became the National Film Development Corporation, many legendary filmmakers, including Govind Nihalani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Aparna Sen, made their first films.

As a journalist, Dharker was the editor of publications such as 'The Illustrated Weekly of India', 'The Independent' and 'Mid-day'. He also wrote for several Indian and foreign publications. '

In 2010, he founded Literature Live!, which organises the Tata Literature Live festival in Mumbai every year. The lit fest soon became a global brand. Fellow commentator and columnist, Ayaz Memon, described Dharker best: "a man of delectable prose and varied interests. Sports buff. Compassionate and caring. Freethinker and fiercely democratic".

Mostly seen in public in his immaculate bespoke churidaar-kurta, Dharker will be missed by the lovers of literature and liberal values... as also by many whose lives he touched, and most importantly by the Mumbai art landscape... Anil Dharker was its pole star...