Deep in the madding crowd at the Jaipur Lit Fest
It was a startling introduction to Asia’s largest literature festival for best-selling writer J.M. Coetzee, as he clambered over hundreds of people squeezed next to speakers, crouched next to seats, or sat on folded newspapers on the churned-up grass. Coetzee, a notoriously reticent author who rarely appears in public, gingerly picked his way through the masses to reach the stage and address the Jaipur Literature Festival that has in seven years grown magnificently into a cultural must-visit, but requires careful cultivation to ensure its rapid rise can continue unabated.
For all the intellectual finger-pointing whipped up by a public spat between organizer William Dalrymple and India’s Open magazine over allegations of a perpetuation of colonial-era Western superiority the Open-sponsored banner welcoming guests to the festival appeared as something as a peace flag – it was anyway unlikely to sour an event that is famed as much for its infectious atmosphere as its literary relevance.
There was a undeniable energy to the event, hosted in the grounds of a former royal palace, garlanded with striking orange, yellow and green drapes, and blessed with uninterrupted Rajasthani sunshine.
The excitement as hundreds flocked from one location to the other, or the electric murmur that steadily rose in volume from the main tent as an anticipated session approached is impossible to ignore.
Choosing between events was the only stress of the day, as the guests, who had paid nothing to get in, mulled difficult session choices over their free lunch.
“What does he expect me to do?” said one exasperated reporter of her Delhi-based editor. “Split myself into four people and make sure I see everything?” she suggested, to laughs from the group of journalists huddled over their laptops near her.
Orhan Pamuk, who opened the festival on Friday morning, attracted more people to main lawn stage that it could accommodate each time he took to the microphone, while fellow Nobel Laureate Coetzee attracted the largest crowd of all for a absorbing 45-minute long reading on Sunday afternoon that left some Indian critics nonplussed, but only enhanced his reputation as “a writer who writes.”
Does Indian literature owe its global success to the Raj?
As close to 50,000 people prepare to celebrate India’s bulging roster of nationally and internationally renowned authors and poets at the seventh annual Jaipur Literary Festival, a public spat between its British organiser and an Indian magazine over allegations of perpetuating “a Raj that still lingers” threatens to ignite a decades-old debate over the role of colonial English in the country’s literary success.
As Delhi-based William Dalrymple and his fellow organiser stress the festival’s intent to showcase works from India’s array of states and dialects to thousands of book lovers, an article in India’s Open magazine this month claimed the festival matters “because of the writers from Britain it attracts”.
India’s literary elite has long wrestled with its complicated post-colonial legacy, sharpened by the huge international success of Indian writers such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Kiran Desai, who have put the former British colony on the literary map, but live, sell more books and win more awards in the UK or the U.S.
In the past five years, two Indians — Desai and Chennai-born Aravind Adiga — have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize. While the prize has been attacked by some for its arguably colonial legacy of rewarding writers in English from the British Commonwealth, Desai and Adiga saw their international profile soar, replicating the global success of former winners Rushdie and Arundhati Roy.
The article, titled “The Literary Raj” argues that the festival reaffirms the inferiority complex among Indian writers who crave international and specifically British recognition, suggesting that through his western-centric festival, Dalrymple has become “the pompous arbiter of literary merit in India”.
“The festival then works not because it is a literary enterprise, but because it ties us to the British literary establishment,” wrote Hartosh Singh Bal, an Indian novelist himself, in the January edition of the magazine.
My initial impression of Bal’s first piece was that Hartosh Singh Bal has a major chip on his shoulder and/or is a publicity-seeker.
My opinion, after his rebuttal, did not change.
As has been pointed pointed out by numerous commenters and Dalrymple himself, the nature of audiences, sessions and speakers at JLF destroys Bal’s claims. Pre-JLF, Indians complained that no-one was taking notice. Now, Bal has found a new grouse.
In terms of approval, I think there is a larger phenomenon at work here. When it comes to politics and diplomacy, successive Indian Governments always sought the approval of the US in the post-Cold War 1990s period. Registering complaints against what they perceived as ‘transgressions’ by Pakistan occurred regularly. This probably happened because the US was seen as the world superpower at the time.
Similarly, Indians have traditionally grown up on a diet of British literature, reading about well-established British literary awards. It is natural to think of Britain as a leading literary power.
Apropos ‘celebrity’ writers getting more attention than ‘great writers [from Europe]‘, doesn’t the celebrity culture pervade all aspects of public life? Who does Bal think would get more media attention during red carpet movie award/music events?
As for any ongoing need for British approval, more and more Indians in the middle-class see the US as their choice for higher education, etc. American television and cultural influences, American slang, trends are all more prevalent in India today. Gone are the days of domination of English public-school and Oxbridge-educated grandees in the Indian political and diplomatic circles. It therefore baffles me how Bal finds this particular kind of cultural cringe to be very strong in India….. And his tone in his first piece is shockingly offensive (as with most such offensive pieces, a result of his ignorance).
To me, Bal’s pieces suggest his refusal/inability to accept Dalrymple as an Indian writer. And refusal to accept that a British-born writer could head a major Indian literary festival without it having imperial-colonial implications.
Table laid out in the winter sun
Ever had a lotus stem salad laced with fermented fish, evaporated cane juice cookie, chopped eel spiced with chillies or a plate of fried mountain onion roots?
Okay, they’re probably not on the menu of your average restaurant but to my pleasant surprise all the above and much more were on offer in New Delhi at a cultural event dedicated to northeast India.
The main attraction seemed to be the food — cuisines from all eight states that occupy India’s hilly northeast region. Maybe it was because of their novelty factor (not many restaurants in Delhi offer such dishes) but many people lined up at the food stalls (although admittedly, many were probably just gawking at the unusual dishes on display).
Consider this. Manipur state offered a peculiar salad known as the “Singzu” made from lotus stem, cabbage, powdered sesame seeds, mountain herbs, peas and gram touched up with pungent fermented fish.
The main attraction at the Mizoram stall were the fermented bamboo shoots, fried mountain onion roots and even fermented crab mixed with sesame seeds. While the ‘thali’ at the Nagaland stall comprised rice, pork, fried eel flavoured with a highly pungent chilli known as Raja mirchi and fermented soya beans.
The Northeastern states are connected to the rest of India by a tiny strip of land sandwiched between Nepal and Bangladesh and are traditionally more isolated.
Initiatives like the festival aim to promote and expose the culture of the region to the mainland audience.
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