Day 5 – 25th January 2009

Jaipur, Sunday: All good things come to an end. The 5th and the last day of DSC Jaipur Literature Festival started with the same enthusiasm on a bright Sunday morning. Some of the interesting sessions aptly fitted the conclusion of the festival.

THOSE DAYS: Sunil Gangopadhyay & Aruna Chakravarti

Renowned Bengali novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay and award-winning writer, Aruna Chakravarti read from Gangopadhyay’s powerful historical fictions, Those Days, and the sequel, First Light opened the last day of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival with moving and candid readings and discussion of aspects of Indian society that are too often under-reported, such as prostitution, widowhood, marriage and suicide. There was a hushed silence as the attentive audience listened carefully to Gangopadhyay’s unflinching prose, which was full of empathy and acute observation. The author discussed the famous suicide case of the daughter-in-law of  a very rich and important family in Bengal, and that all magazine and newspaper editors had agreed at the time to the family’s request not to publish any details, so he had to rely on memoirs and personal journals for his research, because there were no media archives.

WRITING ABOUT PAINTING: Simon Schama & William Dalrymple

Art historian Simon Schama talked to a huge crowd about the power and necessity of art, and his own struggle to articulate the relationship between prose and paint in his recent BBC series, Power of Art. In a charismatic address, Schama treated the audience to witty and fascinating anecdotes about painting, painters and patronage in the Western tradition, including Rothko and Rembrandt, speaking of the ‘intense yoga-like concentration’ in Rothko’s paintings. He explored the distinction between high philosophical art and material art, looking at Plato’s claim that artists were ‘passive conduits through which the mathematical, musical and poetic mysteries travelled,’ as well as the alternative tradition, which has a more ‘earthly’ understanding of art, in which ‘art tells us something about ourselves not about ineffable things.’ He used the example of Rembrandt’s paintings’, such as ‘the catastrophe that was his old face’ in his self-portraits, and explaining the particular textural detail of Rembrandt’s The Jewish Bride, accompanied by slides to illustrate. He said the dialogue about art as earthly or transcendent still goes on today. When asked whether he thought art should have a social purpose, the prolific writer replied that ‘a higher version of art does not think of itself as having a social purpose, thought that can often be a by product.’ Rather, he observed that art begins with ‘the desire to startle, to abolish the drone of the world’ in a way that is not otherwise available in daily life. Schama said that in his writing of the BBC series, he had tried to talk of ‘Passages of paint’ as narratives, and to be as precise in the detail of his writing as the paintings he was describing.

WANDERLUST -TRAVEL READINGS: Charles Nicholl, Colin Thubron, Pico Iyer, Vikram Seth & William Dalrymple

Festival Director, William Dalrymple described the panel of writers as ‘four of the greatest travel writers practicing today’ and went on to say that ‘travel writing is one of the most interesting forms of literature.’ He explained that the idea of quest is universal in almost all cultures and it is a form that is continually reinvented, even in this age of the web and mass tourism. The large audience was constantly laughing as Colin Thubron read some hilarious anecdotes of his travel experiences. Biographer and travel writer Charles Nicholl said there was ‘a sense of pursuing a character, following in the footsteps’ of his writing subjects as he sought to see the world through their eyes. Vikram Seth quipped that he had to buy a copy of his own book to read in the session, as he’d come to the festival without any copies. Pico Iyer said he didn’t think of himself as a travel writer, but rather, as someone who used the travel writing form as a vehicle of enquiry into life itself, more involved in the self than the place being written about: ‘it is less Richard Burton and more Proust now.’ The audience was in hysterics and spontaneous applause as William Dalrymple read from his work. He said he wrote travel books because he liked reading them, particularly the comic English writers. He said that when he started out, it was much easier to get published as a travel writer because it was in fashion at the time, with writers like Bruce Chatwin in vogue, and so he had been ‘very lucky’.

Daniyal Mueenuddin & Sudeep Chakravarti 

Writer Daniyal Mueenuddin read from his brilliant collection of short stories, In other rooms, other wonder and Sudeep Chakravarti read excerpts from his book Red suns travels in naxalite country based on India’s Maoist rebellion and Tin Fish. Daniyal read an excerpt from his short story, Lily, based on a woman with a fast paced lifestyle who decides to settle down for a farmer from Punjab but is soon bored with the simple life. To overcome boredom she starts calling friends over and engages in infidelity, which further leads to guilt and contemplation of her life if she had chosen the right path. ‘You take chances and make changes, but then nothing really changes’, said Daniyal. Sudeep read from his novel, Tin Fish, The novel is based on a story set in an elitist school in India, which Sudeep calls the, ‘Brown Sahib School’ and throws light on the national sentiment post emergency in 1970’s.

Nikita Lalwani & Alice Albinia, introduced by Rana Dasgupta

Alice Albinia started the session by reading an excerpt from her book, Empires of the Indus: The story of a river. The story is along the river, starting from its delta, at the Arabian Sea, north through Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, to its source in Tibet. She talked about the disillusionment and frustration of people. Alice ended the session with the passage of the Mohanas. She said her book was received with great curiosity in India.

Nikita Lalwani’s novel Gifted was long listed for the Man Booker Prize. Gifted is the story of a math Prodigy and illuminates the plight of the children of immigrants.

Socialism is Great!

Karthika VK introduced Lijia Zhang, writer of Socialism is Great! Festival Director Namita Gokhale began the session saying that it was only fitting that one of the last sessions of DSC Jaipur Literature Festival with multiple cultured writing, ends with Lijia’s session. She is probably the first Chinese writer to be published in India. The Memoir of her life is almost lyrically written. Lijia was pulled out of school from the age of 16 and started working in a nuclear ballistic factory. It is here that she started writing. Lijia talked of Socialist China which is only theoretical and talked of how the hierarchy was followed in the factory where she worked. The book reflects what China was in the 80’s.

AIDS SUTRA: Mukul Kesavan, Nikita Lalwani, Siddharth D Shanghvi, Sonia Faleiro, Sunil Gangopadhyay, William Dalrymple & Penny Richards

The panel of distinguished writers and commentators read extracts from Aids Sutra, the hard-hitting and moving anthology of the human stories behind the AIDS epidemic in India, and discussed some of the issues and debates surrounding the disease, including conditions for sex workers and homosexuality. William Dalrymple talked about his research in the Devadasas community, and spoke movingly of the horrific conditions endured by sex workers, many of whom had their fate ‘pre-determined at a very young age.’ The practice has not been stopped but ‘driven underground into a situation where the girls are extremely vulnerable’. Sonia Faleiro talked of the ‘brutality of the police’ towards sex workers in Bombay, saying there were unfair laws which institutionalized this abuse, including claims of electrocution, rape and molestation:  ‘Armed with these laws, the police can cause chaos.’ Yet she pointed out that many police constables were themselves from marginalized communities, and also needed more protection in law. Penny Richards talked of the irony that the country which created the Kama Sutra finds it very difficult to talk about sex in an open and constructive way.

LITERATURE DOES NOT CHANGE ANYTHING: Imraan Coovadia, Urvashi Butalia, Rana Dasgupta & Tina Brown

Panelists Imraan Coovadia, Urvashi Butalia, Tina Brown and Rana Dasgupta asked whether literature actually leads to meaningful change or it is just a middle class past-time. Urvashi Butalia clarified that ‘I don’t think literature equals the novel,’ and observed that there are some books that ‘give a sense of dignity and voice’ to marginalized people, such as those books that have changed the way women consider themselves. Tina Brown observed that ‘it’s not only great books that change the world. Look at Uncle Tom’s Cabin ‘a mawkish pot-boiler that dramatized the social issue of slavery and had a profound effect.’  She also said that the internet would be the ‘saviour’ of intellectual authors because it means they do not have to be inhibited by commercial concerns, and thought that literature worked as a ‘subtle and slow creeping shaping of culture which seeps into our way of looking at the world.’ Imraan Coovadia said ‘causes of social change are impossible to establish’ so it is hard to know if a social cause is mirrored in literature or first brought to collective awareness through literature. He also quipped that ‘the easiest way to stop thinking yourself is to pick up a book.’ Urvashi talked of how many writers write to ‘express’ something inner rather than to manipulate externals, and sometimes ‘significant change’ can come from this.  It was also agreed by all the authors that the writer themselves is changed by the process of creating literature.

THE WAR ON TERROR HAS PROVOKED A CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS: INTELLIGENCE DEBATE WITH Ashis Nandy, Barkha Dutt, Christophe Jaffrelot, MJ Akbar, Mohammad Hanif, Simon Schama, Swapan Dasgupta & Tarun Vijay 

The passionate debate and closing event of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival examined the proposal, ‘This house believes that the war on terror has provoked a clash of civilizations.’ Leading intellectuals, commentators and writers discussed such wide-ranging issues as literacy, fundamentalism, colonization, 9/11 and the displacement of Kashmiri Hindus, before an audience of several hundred people, many of whom had the chance to voice their own opinions on the debate. Simon Schama pointed out that ‘Western history begins with an account of hatred between the Persians and Greeks’ and the clash of civilizations had happened repeatedly throughout history. He argued that ‘the conflict today is very simple. It is between toleration and theocratic coercion. Truth will prevail if left to itself. Rajiv asked the question, which clash of civilizations are we talking about?’ adding that it was far too narrow to define the clash as ‘Islam versus the west, rather it is a clash between modernists and extremists.’ Ashis Nandy said it was ‘the way America went about its war on terror that unleashed a clash of civilizations,’ calling the invasion of Iraq ‘the single and most bloody act to be conducted in the name of fighting terror  since 9/11′. MJ Akbar argued that Bush’s war on terror was against civilization itself, and said people shouldn’t blame Islam for the behaviour of some Muslims, just as people don’t blame Christianity for the existence of Hitler. Towards the end of the debate, matters got heated as passionate people defended their points of view. The crowd moved between rapturous applauses, boos and cheers as the two sides battled it out on stage. Tarun Vijay was attacked for making the issue of terrorism about religion and one member of the audience said it should be a war against terrorists, not terror itself. It was also pointed out that the debate should not just be intellectual; it was also something to be answered ‘from the heart’.
CONCLUSION

The fourth DSC Literature Festival drew to a close after a fascinating five days of readings, discussion, laughter and contemplation, enjoying the beautiful gardens of the Diggi Palace, host to the festival. Some of this festival’s dominant ideas and themes have included the rising wave of populism in Indian literature and the democratizing implications of this accessibility, the exciting emergence of so many highly talented Pakistani writers, the new era in American and global politics, and the importance of retaining cultural heritage in a rapidly modernizing world. DSC Jaipur Literature Festival, Asia’s leading festival of its kind, which brings together writers, musicians, readers, luminaries, children and celebrities in a free and accessible environment, proves it is possible to democratize culture whilst retaining excellence.