This year the festival runs from Jan 17 to 21 and boasts of 200 authors from eclectic backgrounds, including heavyweights like Nobel Prize winners Amartya Sen and Harold Varmus, Man Booker Prize winners Jhumpa Lahiri, Tash Aw, Alison Macleod and Jim Crace, Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan, Olympic boxing bronze medalist Mary Kom and lyricists Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi.
"The festival is on such a massive scale that now we have started working throughout the year on a daily basis to get the property ready. In the final three months in the run-up to the festival, we work with a workforce of about 100 people that includes masons, carpenters, painters, and welders," Jyotika Kumari Diggi, wife of Ram Pratap Singh Diggi, the owner of the palace, told IANS.
