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| Anne, a/k/a The Glamorous Nomad, gracing a sari |
On January 26, I sat down with Anne (a/k/a “The Glamorous
Nomad”) on our balcony in Trivandrum to discuss her experience at the Jaipur
Literature Festival. Anne had not been able to join us last year, so I first
wanted to ask her about her expectations. She confirmed my suspicions by
reporting that her “expectations were high because of all the praise that she
had heard from us from the previous year.” She expected the panels to be
interesting as she looked at the program carefully before coming, and she’d
planned her schedule carefully. She had no idea how it would all work out at
Diggi Palace, and she found it very crowded. The chai at Diggi Palace was
perhaps the best surprise.
I asked her to compare this to her academic conference experiences
(she’s a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science). Anne reported that this was a
much more enjoyable experience because she wasn’t under an obligation to
present a paper or to respond critically to any presentations. She also noted
that the quality of the speaking was higher, although there were places where
she thought there was a bit too much of poetic license or sophistry. She expressed
her agreement with author-presenter Antony
Beevor that nonfiction must be distinguished from historical fiction. An example
she provided of this is Rana Dasguta’s Capital,
his new book about Delhi. Anne reported that it was “beautifully written, but I
wonder if his style convinces when I’m not sure that there’s a cohesive
argument being made.” In one of his talks, Dasguta claimed that partition was
not so much motivated by hatred as by love and fear. Anne found this an
interesting thought, but one not supported by any data or extended argument to
support his conclusion.
I asked Anne to
comment further about the difference between academic writing and general
non-fiction writing that was a popular subject of discussion at JLF this year. She
responded bluntly, “Most academic writing is boring and suffers from cumbersome
citations. Nonfiction for the general audience, on the other hand, enjoys a different
audience and, therefore, a different format for addressing issues of
documentation. Although nonfiction won’t normally use the cumbersome citation
systems of academic writing, good nonfiction does validate its claims with
endnotes, bibliographies, and the like.” I noted that legal writing often
suffers from the same problem of burdensome citations that break up the flow of
an argument.
I asked Anne for her opinions about the format of the sessions.
Anne commented that there were a number of different formats. In one session,
Gloria Steinem and Ruchira Gupta held a one-on-one conversation. In another,
Michael Sandel conducted a Socratic question-and-answer session involving the
entire audience. In still another, William Dalrymple interviewed Rana Dasgupta.,
author of Capital, in a one-on-one
session. The keynote, of course, was a solo venture by Nobel economist Amartya
Sen. Finally, there were a number of panels. Some became unfocused and sometimes
left some members aside. However, she
noted a happy exception to this flaw in the panel about Afghanistan, which she
found extremely informative.
Asked about her discoveries at JLF, the first thing Anne
noted was a “rediscovery” She had heard Gloria Steinem speak about 12 years ago
when she was a student at Barnard College. She admitted to having forgotten how
wonderful and inspirational she found that talk. She had read Amartya Sen
before hearing him speak in person, but hearing him speak in person was a true
delight.
Asked about any new reading experiences arising out of JLF
and she reported that she’d read Maaza Mengiste’s Beneath the Lion’s Gaze about the Ethiopian Civil War in advance of
JLF, and after learning about Capital,
she is already out well into it and enjoying it very much. She hopes to read by
books by Taiye Selasie and Nadifa Mohamed as well. She admitted not to having
read any William Dalrymple before, except perhaps for some chapters from Nine Lives. She reported she hopes to
cure that however by reading The Return
of the King, which she purchased that JLF. Anne estimates that she bought a
total of 12 or 13 books at JLF that she
will be shipping back to her apartment in China for happy reading during the
course of the coming year there.
I ask her about any disappointments, and she quickly
volunteered a presentation by John Ralston Saul, which was a dialogue with
Hubert Vedrine. It started out with Saul trashing the work of Francis Fukuyama
( specifically The End of History and the
Last Man) and Samuel Huntington’s work The
Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.) Anne found
this irritating and defamatory and left after about five minutes. (This
interviewer stayed for the entire session and asked a question following the
presentation that led Saul and Vedrine to back off some of their criticisms of
Fukuyama. Saul also appeared in a dialogue with Michael Sandel the following day
that was much less inflammatory.)
I asked Anne for her recommendation to future JLF attendees.
Her advice was succinct: “Bring a warm coat, read some of the books ahead of
time (two or three should be enough), come early enough to get a good seat, and
enjoy Jaipur.”
I turn the conversation then to Anne’s special interest,
China, and its presence and absence the JLF. Anne noted that China scholar Rana
Mitter presented a very fine talk regarding his book about China in the Second
World War. Mitter also presented at the panel titled “Who Will Rule the World
in the 21st Century?”. Anne found this a disconcerting title and the
panel discussion unfocused. However, she again found Mitter quite well spoken
and articulate in his knowledge about China. She was surprised that otherwise
there was not much the China representation other than one fiction writer. She
noted a lack of Chinese attending JLF. She
related an interesting anecdote on that topic that arose from JLF. While
waiting in a cue for the ladies room, she met an Indian woman who asked where
she was from. This is not an easy question for Anne to answer given her rather
extensive travel itinerary in the last year. Anne responded that she is from
America, but she had traveled to India from Ethiopia, and before Ethiopia from
China (apparently choosing to leave out Vietnam to avoid further confusion).
The conversation partner reported that she was in English literature Ph.D. student in
Jaipur. She then asked Anne if the Chinese government was as oppressive as it
is made out to be. Anne remarked that she pondered carefully how to answer the
question and came up with, “Yes and no. The government can be intrusive and
abusive in some instances, but in daily life, things are pretty good except for
the pollution”. Anne wondered what kind of coverage China receives in the Indian
media.
This led me to ask her about a comparison of China and
India. Anne replied that there is very little interest about India in China.
She is never heard any Chinese discuss India unless she happened to raise it because of the fact that her parents are
currently residing in India and that she been to India now three times to
visit. The Chinese do not see India as a rising superpower. Indeed, perhaps the
most frequent comment that she hears is that Chinese do not like the Indian
palate. On the other hand, almost all Chinese are intensely interested in the
US and other OCED countries, including those of Western Europe. China is
certainly in the throes of super capitalism. Anne noted that buildings in China
are named things like “The American Dream Apartment Complex” or “Paris Life”. People
will decorate in a French Baroque style and borrow the status symbols and vocabulary of
wealth from the American and European world. Many of the rising Chinese middle
class are engaging more and more and tourism, but the last place they seem to be interested in
going is India. Anne suspects that it’s too close to the poverty that they only
recently left behind. This is especially true of people over 40.
I then asked and to put on her hat to comment on the
difference between India and China, and her immediate response was that she wears two different hats, one “personal”
hat, and the other her “social scientist hat”. Using her social scientist eye,
she noted that median PCI (per capita income) is vastly lower in India than it
is in China. Everything in China is newer, safer, and more efficient, including
its infrastructure (at least for now). Indian culture seems to have co-evolved
with global capitalism in way that China hasn’t. A distinct Indian cinema, Indian
dress, Indian religion, Indian crafts, and other manifestations of native
Indian culture survive, but such arts have not survived nearly so well in
China. In addition, India enjoys a greater degree of freedom of speech and
overall a greater cultural vibrancy. China, on the other hand, has much less of
a public culture. She remarked it between the 1950s and 1970s, China wiped out
much of its traditional culture. In fact, if you want to enjoy traditional
Chinese culture, you’re better going off going to Taiwan than to the Chinese
mainland. India, compared to China, is much less westernized and Americanized
and has retained more of its uniqueness. The one difference may be that China
has retained its language, while India has adopted more to English as a global
medium, which is to its advantage.
Finally, I ask and for her reading recommendations. She
listed the following:
- Beneath
the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengiste. This is a novel about the
1972 communist coup and the following Red Terror. Anne found it a brilliant
novel that blends interesting insights about politics and human rights issues through the use of a strong storytelling capability.
- Capital by Rana Dasgupta. Anne is not
finished it yet, but she want to reiterate that it is a beautifully written
book.
- The Map Of The Invisible World by Tash
Aw is written about “ the year of
living dangerously” in Indonesia. This occurred in 1963 when Sukarno was
deposed from power. Anne found it a rewarding work about revolution, family, and identity in a
postcolonial context.
I wrapped up my interview with and by thanking her for
sharing her thought her insights. I wished her well on her travels that would
be taking her to Bangladesh, Seattle, Chicago, and back to her temporary home
in Chengdu, Szechuan, China. Happy travels, Anne!
