AT CAFERATI, SUPPORT AND FEEDBACK OVER A CUPPA

“Our imagination can take us places, and a writers’ group is a great place to meet people who think like you,” says Manisha Lakhe, co-founder of Caferati. Launched in Mumbai in 2004, with the aim of offering an open platform for aspiring authors and poets, Caferati soon became a buzzing network of writers sharing their work and offering each other feedback and inspiration.

“We set it up because we realised that there were many of us who could write but did not have a platform to share our creations. Through Caferati, we could quench our burning need to share our works with people who thought like us,” says Lakhe, a writer.

Caferati started out with 16 members in one city and today has about 6,000 people attending read meets across 13 Indian cities and overseas, in Dubai and Singapore.

Group members include homemakers, management consultants, students and sci- entists, all of whom drop by to read their works out at the meets.

“The profession does not matter. We are just a bunch of people who enjoy playing with words,” says Suniti Joshi, 60, an interior designer who has been attending Caferati meets for 10 years.

Meets are conducted once a month, usually at a member’s home. Writers can read any piece of original work, and each reading is followed by a discussion. During each meet, one member volunteers to act as moderator, to keep the discussions on track.

There is also an active Caferati Facebook page, where people are free to post their work and feedback is offered in the form of comments.

And, in 2004, Caferati conducted a short story contest and featured the 32 finalists from across the country in a book titled Stories at the Coffee Table, released at the 2007 edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival.