“Today one cannot imagine an India without religious symbols' ', opined writer Francis Narona. Citing examples from the Bible, he said that religious texts were written for a certain age which is quite different from the situations today. This makes them pretty outdated. But people are still taking them seriously. He was speaking at the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters, in the session “Kadhayile Kallanottangal”. Writers K Rekha, E Santosh Kumar and author cum screen-writer Madhupal were the other speakers.

E Santosh Kumar welcomed the creative discussions on literature from the part of readers. However, he criticised the ongoing trend of threatening and abusing writers for exerting their creative rights. He added that the religious symbols are so much part of the society today that they can’t be excluded from the literature. 

Rekha quoted Vaikom Muhammed Basheer and said that she always wondered how writers like Basheer and Ponkunnam Varkhi would have survived if they were writing in this era. She added that today the writers have to give a second thought while giving names to characters. VKN’s character Nanu Nair would be simply “Nanu” if it was today. 

Madhupal added that today making controversies is the easy way for authors to get their books sold out. But sametime, he commented that the majority of the people who threaten and abuse the literature and the author are not readers of the book. They comment and abuse without reading the text, which is quite unfortunate, he said.