An inexplicable urgency enveloped Zee Jaipur Literature Festival 2020, akin to the ‘Y2K’ rumours that had convinced an entire generation of its doomsday at the turn of the century. Only time will tell if this chaos is inevitably waiting at the cusp of a decade or is a mere coincidence, but the urgency is palpable and perhaps, even welcome. Five days of revelry awaited the city of Jaipur where visitors, speakers, authors, thought leaders travelled far and wide to be a part of the “greatest literary show on earth”. However, that air of urgency hung low and deep, be it in anticipating disruption from anti-CAA protestors or humourless, tactless tweets from a supposed JLF Insider making fun of speakers anonymously. Be it in every conversation naturally being steered towards climate change and politics to gnawing feeling inside that, for some reason, seemed to scream “the time to act is now”. January 23 onwards, Diggi Palace was transformed into a rainbow of vibrant colours with six large stages playing host to over 200 sessions of exchanging ideas, debating vociferously and launching books.
L-R) Howard Jacobson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Avni Doshi, Leila Slimani and Chandrahas Choudhury discuss all things fiction at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 (The Telegraph)
The idea of an idea
Much has been spoken of ideas and their supposedly impenetrable powers, but the idea of ideas has never invited criticism in any form. An errant question from a rebel in the audience could prove to be the source of a great idea, as could a stray answer from a fellow panelist at a session. “Where does fiction come from?”, a session dared to ask Booker prize-winning author Howard Jacobson, who sat in conversation with famed author Elizabeth Gilbert, Franco-Moroccan author Leila Slimani, author Chandrahas Choudhury and author of Girl in White Cotton, Avni Doshi. Gilbert, who shot to unfathomable levels of fame with her book Eat Pray Love, disclosed the macro process of writing fiction and ‘The Shoebox’ was born. “I have a shoe box filled with notes of my research that I sit and put together through the years before actually sitting down to write,” she said, within seconds of which Jacobson had formed the idea of an eponymous novella where a man buys a shoebox in an effort to write and doesn’t end up putting anything inside it. Only after his death is the box recovered with a few pieces of bones in them. “I will be back next year and you all will be lining up to get The Shoebox signed by me,” he assured the laughter-afflicted audience as Gilbert demanded royalty. However, every idea doesn’t translate into pages worth considering, the old man was strict to remind us. “If I write a lot the night before, I tend to feel like I have projectile vomited and I can’t wait to wake up the next morning and delete and edit. My fear is that if I died, these would be the last words they’d find written by me and that can’t be allowed,” he lamented about his art.
The Calcutta contingent was led by (l-r) Kunal Basu, Arunava Sinha, Devapriya Roy and Ben Judah, authors who’ve all found home in this city at some point in their lives (The Telegraph)
The Elusive Source of Fiction
Some ideas perfectly fit into previously conceived boxes while some step out of the infamed boundaries. Some work only on paper while some fail to make it out of the confines of the mind. Some were meant to be novels, while some strictly remained a memoir — or at least that’s what Gilbert believes of her book Eat, Pray, Love. What about Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny that put her on the literary map in France and the rest of the world caught up? In her lilting yet frantic French accent, with flailing hands to boot, Slimani said, “I found the book so boring after the first 100 pages. I mean, it’s a nanny. What could she do except feed the kids, bathe the kids, put them to sleep, wake up the next day and repeat. Life of a nanny is so boring. So around the 100th page, I decided to kill the children,” sending jitters marked with shocked amusement amongst the guests not aware of her extensive work! Perhaps, therein lies the glory of a literary festival –– its ability to excite you, make you laugh, worry you, and better you in ways you were blissfully unaware of.
The conceit of gender roles
This urgency of ideas was feverishly felt in all the sessions that spoke about gender roles in literature and its supposedly inherent need at this hour. There was panic induced by immense empathy for women and their social roles, as translator and author Arunava Sinha exclaimed, “Don’t read books written by men,” in his session ‘Negotiating the Male Space in Contemporary Literature’ with authors Roshan Ali, Perumal Murugan, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, in conversation with Manasi Subhramanium. The incredulity of the situation dared to raise the question, is ‘negotiating the male space in fiction’ only a responsibility of male authors? Especially when a fiercely independent woman like Gilbert spent 20 minutes of her hour-long session speaking about the complete futility of marriage and its detrimental effects on women. Throwing well-researched numbers at the audience, the thrice-married author vouched how marriage is statistically certified to drain a woman of her life by a few years and be the cause of immense health and emotional detriment. “Whereas, a married man lives longer, flourishes at work and gets run over by cars less than a single man,” she declared to an amused audience, leaving the womenfolk in splits. Commoners like us in the audience could only wishfully agree and dream of the carefree life she advocated. Championing the female agenda, she added, “Why must all conversations about female sexuality be limited to consent? Of course, consent is of utmost importance but female desires are beyond that,” she added.
Elizabeth Gilbert spoke about how being a single woman is the best thing that can happen to womenkind. Speaking at length about the emotional imbalance of marriage, she won over everyone in the audience (The Telegraph)
The breaker of roles and rules
The idea of a fiercely independent woman emerged further in the conversation about Susan Sontag, the American trailblazer who broke norms and social structures with her philosophies, ideas and antics. Chiki Sarkar, founder of Juggernaut books, was in conversation with Benjamin Moser, the man who dared to write the autobiography of Sontag, the intellectual thinker who partied with Andy Warhol and went to Cannes, flouting all possible societal rules. While this biography has been mildly criticised for being too critical of the thinker, Moser revealed how, in reality, he chose to withhold and condense certain parts to disallow readers to get distracted from her politics towards her personal.
An anecdotal story was revisited when, during Salman Rushdie’s fatwa on his book Satanic Verses, publishers in the USA had to form a consortium and publish it without associating a name to it, for people were getting murdered and plundered rampantly. At its launch in New York, it was Sontag who personally ensured a full house of audience. “She understood the connection between power and art and she used it,” said Moser. “I wanted people to be led towards her ideas and not what she did with her personal life in this book,” added the biographer; and only reading allows for that to happen.
The manual for reading
Speaking about reading at an amusing session titled ‘Eating Books’ by authors Nilanjana S. Roy, Keshava Guha and Chandrahas Choudhury, an eight-year-old’s question had the panel stumped. “I love to eat books but mom says I have to study. How do I choose between the books I want to eat and the ones I am forced to?” asked the little girl, leaving everyone in splits. “Since none of us are parents on this panel, I can say that eat the books you want to eat, whenever you feel like and just ensure you do it in complete secrecy,” said Roy.
While the little girl faced the problem of plenty, a frantic mother was seen asking another, at a different session, “How do I ensure my four-year-old falls in love with reading?” Mother of two, Leila Slimani had a simple answer to that. “In my household, all my children see me do is read so they believe that is the way of life. Children imbibe what they see. All mumma does is read and they do too. That’s the only solution I can provide from my personal experience,” she said amidst thunderous applause.
Ravish Kumar (The Telegraph)
Leila Slimani (The Telegraph)
The positivity of politics
The loudest applause perhaps was reserved for the Ramon Magsaysay award-winning journalist and author Ravish Kumar, who managed to draw the largest audience at the festival. His ideas weren’t radical — it was their simplicity that won everyone’s heart. Promoting his book Bolna Hi Hai, his commentary on the current political situation wasn’t an attack. It was a gentle nudge to not play the blame game by pointing at people and instead, looking within to play your role as a citizen. “We used to be voters for one day and citizens for 365 days, for five years. Now we are being made to feel like voters 24x7. Achcha beta ya beti toh ghar ghar mei bana lete hai par achcha naagrik nahin bana paate (they manage to make great sons and daughters in every house but fail to make great citizens),” the eloquent man said. He blamed the seat that created the sense of power that makes people hungry for more, instead of blaming the people occupying those seats. The most heart-wrenching moment of the session, which also happened to be on Republic Day, was when he cast an image of Shaheen Bagh that very morning as thousands thronged to attend the flag-hoisting.
“Shaheen Bagh is now bigger than the highest seat of power in the country. No one asks the prime minister for a quote any more, they ask what Shaheen Bagh thinks and Shaheen Bagh answers. That is the power of the common man,” he said. Commenting on the power of women, his thought was simple — “When women speak, those who silence them, follow suit”. His promise of the real ‘achche din’ had the audience burst into applause and standing ovation that undeniably came straight from the heart. He ended with the lines, “India ka yehi hai ki koi na koi khada ho jata hai. Kahin se Bal Gangadhar Tilak aa jayenge aur kahin se Lala Lajpat Rai (that’s the thing about India, someone is always there to stand for her. There will be a Lala Lajpat Rai somewhere and a Bal Gangadhar Tilak somewhere).”
Along with Ravish Kumar, there was another television journalist who was a part of JLF — Rajdeep Sardesai. While both spoke along similar lines, there was one point they both harped upon, repeatedly, in their own ways — don’t consume television! “When you feel like watching TV, go for a walk instead. It will help diabetes as well,” said Kumar while Sardesai reiterated, “Watching TV now is injurious to health.”
The bookstore was managed by the JCB Prize for Literature and hosted the best from the literary world (The Telegraph)
(Pic: The Telegraph)
The revolution is now
The flair of Faiz Ahmed Faiz could only be captured by the flamboyance of author, lawyer, literary critic Saif Mahmood. In a session which saw recitation, performance and conversations around Firaq and Faiz, Mahmood was accompanied by Nishtha Gautam and Chinmayi Tripathi. Needless to say, the session ended with a rendition of ‘Hum dekhenge’ by the poet laureate with every single person in the audience joining in.
Most conversations at the Zee Jaipur Literature festival steered towards politics and climate change, with some special sessions reserved to discuss the urgency of the two. Author Jeet Thayil, at the launch of his 2020 novel Low, spoke of Amitav Ghosh’s non-fiction book The Great Derangement, where the latter challenged all writers to create works without mentioning climate change. “He almost seemed to say that as a writer, if you don’t mention climate change, years later, people are going to read your work and wonder if you were senile to have not done so,” said Thayil. The man who wears multiple hats, enthralled the audience with his musical performance at a party thrown by Harper Collins India, Juggernaut Books and Harvard University Press. While his politically charged lyrics left the audience squeamish, his thoughts on stage had everyone agreeing, as he spoke about the connection between his first novel Narcopolis and the more recent Low and the role of climate change in the latter.
A session aptly named ‘Climate Emergency’ presented by United Nations India had team member Renata Lok-Dessallien, engineer-turned-education reformer Sonam Wangchuk, Shubhangi Swarup, CEO of Aga Khan Rural Support programme Apoorva Oza, author and journalist Namita Waikar and actor Dia Mirza. The actor teared up speaking about her own childhood and the faith we need to have in children, to realise the world through their eyes.
Anybody who has been to JLF is aware of the madness that ensues with throngs of people shuffling from session to session, trying to grasp at ideas and conversations. The best of food, art, decor and fashion descends upon the venue, setting up stalls selling their wares. Managed by an exemplary team of TeamWork Arts, it’s a flawless event with gorgeous highlights keeping one busy. Being amidst the best minds of the country and around the world, makes one feel insignificant in a way that actually feels pleasurable. There is hunger to know more and better the self. The bookstore by JCB Prize for literature was a haven for bibliophiles, and inclusivity was the call of the day with JCB Prize even launching their shortlisted books in braille format. The positivity of the festival is awe-inspiring and waiting to be soaked in. Would we visit again? Who knows but with this sense of urgency in heart, one can surely hope.
