A lot of literature with a little of this and that: JLF ‘15

My anticipation of three years for the prestigious Jaipur Literature Festival owing to the rigorous and uncompromising academia I was part of, culminated this year with a plan, over a dinner with family friends, one of the most memorable, if I may add.

So, the journey with the self proclaimed literati, mostly of my age group comprised of conversations from homosexuality, God, culture and casteism among others headed by my critic uncle, formed a fraction, majority of which was devoted to music: listening, singing and a combination of both.

The opportunity to listen to an array of authors, journalists, politicians and celebrities and see them casually move about was a humbling experience I cannot fathom to chronicle, but here’s an attempt.

Out of the six back to back sessions at different venues of the Diggi palace, my first day and the festival’s second began with ‘A revolution is brewing- women uninterrupted’ owing to my feministic instincts followed by travel writing where authors read out some hilarious incidents they experienced while in India and others which excruciated their very ‘Indian-ness’; and culminated with the story of Princess, suffragette, and revolutionary:  Sophia Duleep Singh and the challenges Anita Anand faced in deciphering her life and thus being of aid in communicating it.

Getting the hold of things better, subsequent days made more sense to me in ways more than one. ‘Reaching for the Stars’, explored space writing’s incorporation into relatable and gripping stories. Likewise the ‘Selfie’ discussed the art of memoir and diary writing. It was a refreshing conglomerate of the title and the area of discussion. I was in a literature festival after all. Nevertheless, it was equally agonising when Shobha De herself iterated the use of dance in ‘Dance Like a Man: Refiguring Masculinity’ as a metaphor but nowhere in the session did she herself for that matter proceed to discuss it as she proclaimed, with the other three panellists.

Then there were Rajdeep Sardesai’s rather forthright remarks on the ‘Deconstructing Change: The Election That Changed India’ (in context of the Modi wave and the general elections of 2014) and how the one thing that unites India today is aspiration, the nasty role media played under the big power heads blocking out Mr. Kejriwal. I’m sure he has much to say after the recent Delhi polls.

Amidst his forgetfulness, V.S. Naipaul’s session was rather an encouraging call to young writers through his insights like, “I thought if I don’t have faith in myself and my talent that would be the end of me as a person” or just blatant remarks like, "if a writer has to make a living, he has to write a book” in the session aptly titled ‘The writer and The World’ following which I attended, ‘Cities and their Shadows’ introduced by the Red Herring columnist, Indrajit Hazra where discussion gained momentum to define a city as more than just a place made of brick and mortar. But, “a city is people, a city is its stories”, concluded Navtej Sarna whose work focused on Jerusalem. Among the panellists were Yatindra Mishra talking on Ayodhya, Malvika Singh on Delhi and Esther David on Ahmedabad, and all collectively on cities- the great levellers.

Simon Singh talked about mixing of math and science with popular culture (by not necessarily undermining the math or science) through the sitcom The Simpsons. The entertaining and enlightening session, as promised by Anuradha Sengupta in a response to the furore of thronging fans to hear Abdul Kalam in the nearby front lawns, well delivered, marked the end of an engaging day.

From Chetan Bhagat’s commercial cacophony to the irony of writing a biography of Socrates in a session so passionately led by Bettany Hughes and the journey of Narayan Murthy from a confused leftist to a determined capitalist, ending with Ram Jethmalani’s life, years of lawyership, politics, and of course women. The last day covered it all.

Mesmerising sessions, surprisingly heart-warming PDA not narrowed to an age group, and the freedom of company of cordial people and enchanting books coupled with the diversity of individuals, clothing and food marked my days at the fest which was rendered by avant-garde decor, is an experience I very much cherish and reminisce.