INDIKA Festival 2025: Shared Reading with The Reader

One of the greatest strengths of Milap’s INDIKA Festival is the diversity of events taking place over the 15 days. From yoga to live music, the festival is a welcoming space for all people in and around Liverpool to interact with South Asian culture.. On Sunday the 26th of October, I attended a shared reading event at The Reader.

Before this event I wasn’t aware of the Reader, which is an incredible asset to our community. Based in Calderstones Park, the Reader is a charity which promotes shared reading. If you’re not familiar with the concept, shared reading is a way of coming together to explore a text and share experiences and ideas provoked by it. It brings together people from a range of backgrounds, combatting loneliness and aiding mental health.

I drove to Calderstones Park, but it’s about 40 minutes walk from Greenbank Student Village, or a short walk from the route of the 86A and 76 buses. Mansion House was a gorgeous setting for the event, and it’s lovely to see a building like that being used for such a worthy cause. The site also features a book shop, cafe, ice cream parlour, and story-barn for younger visitors. The whole site makes a lovely morning out, on your own or with friends and family.

When I arrived I was greeted by the lovely Jemma, who is Managing Director at the Reader and led the session. We were a small group of 7, but that helped the session remain focused and allowed everyone to contribute. During the one hour session, we looked at two texts. The poem ‘Prayer’ by Arundhathi Subramaniam and the short story ‘The Interpreter of Maladies’ by Jhumpa Lahiri. The two texts produced deeply personal responses from the group.

I feel it’s important to point out that shared reading is nothing like the GCSE English Literature classes that you loved or hated. There isn’t no emphasis on linguistic features or technical elements. Instead it is just about what you the text means to you. Sometimes this included the focus on a certain word or line, and other times its about the wider impression of the text. Much as I loved my English Lit days, it was refreshing to deep dive into a text without worrying about getting good points for an essay. I also really appreciated hearing the different experiences which informed the other group member’s opinions.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to The Reader. I plan to go back and join one of their regular shared reading groups, and will explore more Indian writers in the future. Thank you to Milap and all of their partners for putting on such a wonderful festival!

To read the rest of our coverage of the INDIKA Festival, please click here:

https://www.liverpoolguildstudentmedia.co.uk/category/arts-culture