Jaipur Literature Festival 2014 Retrospective Pt 1

Fun for the whole family: cool, cloudy weather doesn't dampen our spirits as we enter JLF on Day 1

C, the Glamorous Nomad, Abbas, and I returned to Jaipur over a week ago to see old friends and attend the literature festival. What a treat! I'll do a bit of a retrospective and commentary about the festival over the next few posts, but first, a few words about Jaipur, our home last year.

Upon arriving in Jaipur, C and I felt a pang of nostalgia. Compared to TRV, it's a much livelier, more interesting city. We also have many friends in Jaipur that gave us a rather active social life, while in TRV we've fewer contacts. Part of the explanation seems to be the people and part of it our circumstances, such as living in a high-rise versus the Jaipur Heritage House, my lack of a local work place, and so on. But I perceive that the people of the north are more outgoing and their English-speaking ability no less than that of those living in the south (suggestions by northerners to the contrary notwithstanding). I find the food in the north more varied and interesting, and I've even developed a soft spot for Hindi compared to Malayalam. To my ear, Malayalam seems an absolutely incomprehensible mouth full of syllables and soft consonants spoken as if the speaker is in a race to the end of a seeming endless stream of syllables. (Do you know how long it's taken me to learn to say "Thiruvananthapuram"?)

Of course, Jaipur still has its downsides. The traffic remains utterly chaotic and noisy. The "honk every three seconds" rule remains in effect. I noted that after the hard rain, the storm sewers and parts of the recently paved road (in honor of a Sonia Gandhi visit) were collapsing. I'm certain that when the motorcycles take to the sidewalks during rush hour as they do each night, several riders would flip over the tops of their cycles when they hit the holes created by the cave-ins. Nobody seems to care about much about the maintenance of infrastructure. The mass transit line is closer to completion, but friends told us  that it wouldn't open until after the election this spring. Of course.

Finally, I must comment on the weather. When we left Jaipur last June, it was--quite literally--110 in the shade. Certainly, last winter temperatures dropped, sometimes into the 30's overnight, which made our unheated apartment amazingly cold. It rained a couple of times overnight, and we had one early morning hailstorm. But each day the sun came out and warmed us up.

Not so this year. The weather was for the most part cloudy and cool, with only intermittent rays of sunshine at the Festival. On the final day, an early morning downpour flooded a couple of outdoor venues. Organizers were forced to transform Char Bargh from a 400-seat venue to about a 40-seat venue. Everyone trooped on, but to say the rains dampened spirits is a cliché that just seems too apropos. During the opening session of the final day, English novelist Jim Crace said he felt right at home with persons straggling in to avoid the rain and cold regardless of the topic. The bookstore, in a tent, was closed the final day. Fortunately, we'd been through our book-buying frenzy before then, so we didn't have to leave any titles behind that we simply had to have. We had enough in overage baggage charges as it was, but some may not have been so lucky.

Our China and Africa experts, a/k/a The Glamorous Nomad & Abbas, warm up with some delicious Diggi Palace chai

Despite the weather, the Festival was again a success. The attendees were enthusiastic and the presenters for the most part quite lively and knowledgeable. I was again impressed by the young Indians who attended in large numbers and asked questions and made comments. Sometimes India strikes me as so slow and cumbersome and out of date, but then you see again that India has lots of everything, including a core of bright young people. (The question is whether the core is large enough to help India to lift-off, which remains to be seen.) Also, India does have a vibrant literary and scholarly scene as well, which has been widely recognized before this, but festivals like this one reinforce that knowledge and certainly serve to move public awareness of their insights forward.

Two favorites of C, the Glamorous Nomad & Abbas: Gloria Steinem on the left. I opted for another session but I received a full report. JLF is full of some tough choices. 

In following posts I'll share some thoughts gleaned from the various sessions that I attended and authors that I heard speak. It was an intense and engaging five days.