Just when you thought it couldn’t get any bigger, the DS Jaipur Literature Fesival is back with Season V (Jan 21-25), with more international writers, more Indian writers and certainly a bigger anticipated audience than previous years.

Writers who’ve confirmed attendance include Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle and Amit Chaudhuri, widely regarded as India’s best-known writer of his generation.

To pretend that there is a hierarchy or even a social pecking order at the fest would be misleading. There are no tickets; entry is free to all. Everybody queues up for lunch and dinner — everybody including Salman (Rushdie), Pico (Iyer) and Vikram (Seth). Writers and readers lounge in the winter sun, signing books, drinking coffee and gossiping (oh, the gossip).

The Lit Fest is the baby of writers William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale. Writing for The Guardian recently, Dalrymple said: “Wherever I appeared at literary festivals around the globe, all the usual celebrated Indian writers were there – everywhere, that is, except India.” 

And so, began India’s quest for a fest. Starting with 17 writers over three days, the fest will this year include 160 writers and performers. [See the complete programme and list of writers attending here.]

This year’s festival is set once again in the charming, heritage Diggi Palace, the haveli of the Thakurs of Diggi, a small princely state. The Durbar Hall with its Venetian mirrors and framed portraits of venerated gods and ancestors seats about 300. Over the years, however, as the number of writers descending on Jaipur has gone up, Diggi Palace has sprouted new venues. There’s the Mughal Tent (which seats about 100 people), Baithak (about 75) and the front lawn (can easily take upwards of 1,000).

It was at the front lawn, last year where Vikas Swarup received news that Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle’s film based on his book Q&A had received 11 Oscar nominations. The crowd erupted in a roar as Swarup made his hasty departure for the film’s Mumbai premiere. Jai Ho.

Every fest has its own little gem, its highlights: Salman Rushdie ticking off ‘hostile’ journalists for what he saw as unfriendly reports in the press. Vikram Seth getting ticked off by a local newspaper for sipping a glass of wine while speaking to his moderator Sonia Faleiro.

This year’s showstopper could well be a controversial, woman writer and thinker. Her name is not up on the official programme yet, because she is yet to get a visa. But, do watch this space. If she comes, fireworks.

Previously on AW

The greatest literary show on earth

Slumdog glory

Rough Guide to the Fest

You are the first Indian writer to have got, and continue to get, a big advance, in a way professionalising writing, making it possible to earn a living from it without resorting to a day job?

I never thought that would happen.

If you look at my first two novels — The Golden Gate and A Suitable Boy — no one would have thought they would get a decent advance — and, of course, The Golden Gate didn’t. That (money) was never my initial motivation. But I am very grateful that it actually gives me the time to concentrate on writing and other things that interest me, rather than being tied to some kind of job. Or worse, a job involving words which I think depletes one of a particular kind of energy. more

The theme of the London book fair this year is Indian writing. Vikram Seth, Amartya Sen, William Dalrymple and other writers in frequent circulation in this country are going to be joined by writers – K Satchidanandan, Javed Akhtar – distinguished or popular on their own terrain but less known here, for five days of discussions and celebrations. Something like this happened in 2006 to the Frankfurt book fair, when planeloads of Indian novelists and poets descended on the Intercontinental Hotel, waved to each other over breakfast, and then read from their work to courteous audiences in the afternoons and evenings.

The theme then, too, was India; and the “idea of India” acted as a catalyst to a process that might have already begun, but received, at that moment, a recognisable impetus – the confluence, in one place, of literary and intellectual dialogue with what is basically business activity, each bringing magic and movement to the other. The India-themed Paris book fair followed swiftly.

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Every January, the ancient city of Jaipur, India, celebrates the written word in a literary festival co-founded by Indian writer Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, the British travel writer and historian, that easily places first in Asia for cultural cachet and star power. It’s hard to believe that the festival is only three years old, given the crackle and buzz around its events and personalities—Salman Rushdie chose the occasion for his first public appearance after the fatwa. And this year too, through five sun-drenched mornings and vivid, musical evenings in the dignified old Diggi Palace, the festival made headlines across India.

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And Jeremy Kahn in the International Herald Tribune  says the fest has grown from a small, regional affair to one of international stature

In India’s headlong rush into modernity, Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is hardly on the cutting edge. A fixture on the tourist circuit, it is best known for its pink-walled old city, its 18th-century Maharashtra’s forts and havelis, its classic jewelry and its traditional, technicolor patchwork textiles. But for a few days each January, this city lays claim to a place at the heart of the contemporary literary world.

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I know the organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival (Diggi Palace hotel, Jaipur, January 21-25, entry free to all) love to say that the festival is democratic and that they don’t want to pitch one session over and above the others but here’s what I think will be the star events at the Lit Fest:

1. The Indian premiere of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. That the film has reaped awards at the Golden Globe and is tipped to be an Oscar favourite has only added to the curiosity factor. And now that Amitabh Bachchan has blasted the film for daring to show the ‘murky under belly’ of Mumbai (has he taken over from where Raj Thackeray left off?), the pre-publicity hype has just got a notch hotter. As they say in showbiz, any publicity is good publicity. Anyway, to come back to the film: present at the premiere will be, no not Danny Boyle (he’ll be in Mumbai) but Vikas Swarup who wrote Q&A, the book on which the script is based, and also, apparently, Anil Kapoor. I’m a bit alarmed by the filmi flourishes which the festival’s PR guides seem to favour (they roped Aamir Khan in last year), but I guess they’re doing it because they believe it sells the festival. If you ask me, the festival (now in its fourth year) doesn’t need much selling.

2. Actually, if you have problems with Bachchan’s comments on Slumdog, you could voice them personally to him. AB – I can already picture the frenzied crowds armed with autograph books – also makes his Lit Fest debut as Osian’s Neville Tuli kicks off Bachchanalia: The Films and Memorabilia of Amitabh Bachchan on January 23 at 12 pm at Diggi Palace’s Durbar Hall (how on earth are they planning crowd management?). The session is followed by lunch (by invitation only) hosted by Osian’s. No word yet on whether Mr B will stick around for a bit of daal-baati-churma.

3. I’m putting my money not on Slumdog or Bachchan, but the two big ticket festival speakers: Vikram Seth and Pico Iyer. Michael Ondaatje was supposed to have been there and, until as recently as last week was billed as one of the speakers. A more recent update of the website makes no mention of him and nor is he slotted in the festival schedule. So safe to presume that he’s not coming. Too bad.

The Vikram Seth session is at 11 am on January 21 while Pico Iyer is slotted for 10 am on January 24. These are the only two sessions to be slotted for the open front lawns at Diggi Palace, clearly because the organisers anticipate that they won’t be able to accommodate the audience that is bound to overrun the auditorium. Seth’s session will be moderated by sassy journalist-author-blogger-dog lover Sonia Faleiro. Pico will interact with author-journalist William Dalrymple who is also one of the festival’s organisers. Just FYI, Vikram Seth will be travelling to Jaipur with his mother Justice Leila Seth who is attending the festival as a author in her own right (On Balance, her autobiography was an 80th birthday gift to her husband, Premo Seth). I’m moderating the session with Leila Seth and Marie Brenner called First Person Singular. Do drop by the Mughal Tent at Diggi at 2.30 pm on the 21st of January if you happen to be there.

If you can’t make it to Pico Iyer’s big session on Jan 24, try and catch him on January 23 at 11 am when he raps with Patrick French on the art of biography.

4. I’m ready to bet that Nandan Nilekani rather than Tash Aw will grab more headlines. His book, Imagining India is already a bestseller. Ditto for Chetan Bhagat - his books have the ultimate certificate of success-they sell pirated copies at traffic signals.

5. The festival kicks off with a session with Jnanpith award winner U.R. Ananthamurthy at 10 am on January 21, moderated by Namita Gokhale (author and, like Dalrymple, one of the festival’s organisers since its inception four years ago).

6. In case you’re going to be in Jaipur for the festival, don’t miss some of the performances. On day one, there’s something called Mischievous maidens across mobile geographies – sounds too good to miss. And in these days of complete intolerance for our neighbours (including calls for complete annihilation from people who should know better), I’m definitely going to try to be around for the Junoon concert feat Salman Ahmed from Pakistan.

7. Finally, don’t miss Patrick French, Hari Kunzru, Mohammed Hanif, Tarun Tejpal, Madhu Trehan, Tina Brown. GenNext writers – Rana Dasgupta, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi and my former colleague and (present) friend Sudeep Chakravart should give the fest the edge it always has.

Salman Rushdie with one of his subjects (Photo: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation/Prashant Panjiar)

They include Booker Prize-winners Sir Salman Rushdie and Kiran Desai; Vikram Seth, the celebrated author of A Suitable Boy; and internationally-acclaimed writer and historian William Dalrymple. Other contributors include novelist Amit Chaudhuri, leading Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay, historian-writer Mukul Kesavan and popular novelist Shobhaa De.

[...] Sir Salman, for example, spends a day with eunuchs in the western city of Mumbai (Bombay) to write up a piece called The Half-Woman God.

“India has always understood androgyny, the man in the woman’s body, the woman in the man’s. Yet… the third gender of India still need our understanding, and our help,” he says.

Kiran Desai travelled to the southern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh to meet its sex workers. The state has one of the highest rates of infection in India.

“What I had seen, really seen, were lives lived with the intensity of art; rife with metaphor, raw, distilled,” Desai writes.

“The emotions of love and friendship, you’d assume would be missing or rotten, in these communities – existing even more so for their being sought amidst illegality, fragmentation and betrayal.

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HIV/AIDS and the ethics of responsibility in India

An extract from Amartya Sen‘s foreword to “Aids Sutra: Untold Stories from India.” From The Telegraph:

The ethics of responsibility has been a big subject in analysing the social aspects of AIDS. The point has been made, with considerable influence, that since HIV infection is primarily contracted through voluntary acts, such as unsafe sex, it is the individual rather than the society that should take responsibility for avoiding the disease and accepting the consequences of irresponsible actions. This way of seeing the social ethics of AIDS would have vast implications for what an afflicted person can or cannot expect the state to do for the ill…..

The idea that somehow the afflicted person bears the responsibility for his or her own unfortunate condition, since the infection could have been avoided through changing personal behaviour, is indeed quite prevalent – not just in advanced countries like the United States of America, but also in India. There is certainly an element of narrow plausibility in this general outlook. Many of the actions that may lead to the infection are certainly within the person’s own control, and the role of personal responsibility is indeed an important connection to bear in mind in planning strategies for prevention, through greater availability and use of information and more social education and advocacy. And yet to see this as an ‘open and shut’ case of just personal responsibility also misses the nine-tenth of the iceberg that lies below the water, hidden from view.

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