#JLF: A Group Blog

Good Times #JLF

Abba’s favorite sessions:

1.     The Flight of the Falcon

I picked up Jamil Ahmad’s book, “The Wandering Falcon” when I was in Kerala for the New Year.  I loved the book – it is a compilation of short stories about tribes in Pakistan that are loosely bound together.  Ahmad, who is 80, worked with different tribes when he worked for the government.  He noted at the beginning of speech that he was always interested in tribes, like the Fulani and Hausa, since childhood.  So that helped explain why I liked his book so much!  He was a graceful speaker who appreciated the values of the tribes he worked with, and unflinchingly stood up for them. The other author on the panel, MA Farooqi, was eloquent as well so we bought his most recent book, “Between Clay and Dust”

2.     Laughing, weeping, writing

Connie and I both loved this session.  The author of “Absurdistan”, Gary Shteyngart, the author of “The Best exotic marigold hotel” and an Indian author, Manu Joseph, talked about their writing while simultaneously making us laugh hysterically.  Shteyngart joked that very few people in America (600,000) read because they are consumed by technology.  However, he followed up with a poignant explanation of the joy of reading- being connected to an outside world by going inside someone else’s head and being transported to a different place and time rather than using technology to transport yourself.

Stage at Durbar Hall

3.     Women on the path

This session was about women in Buddhism.  Ani Choying, a Buddhist nun whose very moving autobiography I just finished, spoke about how simply asking the question of why or why not helped her get more rights as a Buddhist nun. Kunzang Choden, Bhutan’s first published female author was also interesting so I bought her novel.  Ani said that women have too much humility and that we need to STEP IT UP.

4.     Falling off the map: the question of failed states

This session had panelists from Somalia, Iran, India and Palestine discuss whether or not the concept of a failed state was useful (they unanimously decided that it was not) and then discussed the ramifications of this phrase.   I enjoyed their discussion of why the term offended them and what the world does about the nations that are not necessarily winning.

5.      Saving Face

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, the documentary filmmaker who is best known for the Emmy she won this year for a documentary about acid victims in Pakistan, was smart, interesting, brave, and had very important topics to discuss.  She discussed all her documentaries including “Children of the Taliban” and “Lifting the Veil”.  The first is about children growing up in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (she said they’re forever scarred and are either violent or completely passive) and the second is about women in Saudi Arabia.  I can’t wait to watch all the movies.  

Con’s Picks:  The Best of The Best

1.     “Kinships of Faiths: Finding the Middle Way”

The Dalai Lama in conversation with Pico Iyer.  The eternally inspiring and loving Dalai Lama in conversation with Pico Iyer, his friend and biographer.

2.  “Laughing, Weeping, Writing”

Manu Joseph, Gary Shteyngart and Deborah Moggach in conversation with Ashok Ferrey.  So funny, so smart, so ingeniously wicked.  There is so much to laugh about in the world, and they found lots of it.  3 very funny writers from 3 very different cultures.

3.     Most of the Sessions on NATIONAL DAY

I learned a lot about what Indians care about, disagree on, and hold near to their hearts.  A small number, true, but I felt more informed, and it was more engaging than a newspaper.

Favorite People:

1.     HHH Dalai Lama: What a joyful soul.  Something to aspire to, for sure.

2.     The trio of humor writers.  It was like being at a great party.  THANKS for the laughs.

3.     Michael Sandel:  After the first one, I knew I was watching a master teacher, so I attended all his sessions.  He is a virtuoso of the Socratic method, and shows the world how learning, thinking, and teaching should take place.  BRAVO. I’m going to take his free online E course (the first Harvard has offered) called JUSTICE.

4.     Pico Iyer & William Dalyrymple:  The first was so sweet and smart, the second scary smart and loved to giggle.  Gotta love those characteristics in a smartie!

5.     Nadeem Aslam:  His short reading of his book The Bind Man’s Garden clinched the purchase of several of his books.  This man must be haunted by his talent.

6.     The dictator-facilitator in the Google Mughal Tent.  She didn’t allow saved seats, made everyone state their name and speak directly into the mike, and shamed non-question askers.  She could make a great elementary teacher.

Steve:

JLF was like nothing that I’ve ever attended before, an intense five day gathering devoted to art and ideas expressed through writing and speech. In addition to gathering ideas from authors, the audiences participated very actively through questions (and comments). Because of this, I received a much better sense of what educated Indians think and feel. So let me pick some favorites in the spirit of our joint blog:

1.     “The Man Within My Head: Pico Iyer in conversation with Akash Kapur”.

I’d read Iyer’s book before I knew of this (and reviewed it here). It’s not an easy book to classify, and I was relieved when Kapur remarked on this at the beginning, thus reinforcing my perception and alleviating some of my anxiety that I’d gotten it all wrong. Kapur’s conversation brought out not only the subtly of the book, but also revealed the author, who struck me as a very perceptive, thoughtful, and gentle soul. This program displayed the value of a good interviewer working with an author to further reveal the value of a work.

2.     “Inside the Game, Outside the Game: Shashi Tharoor in conversation with Trun Tejpal”.

Shashi Tharoor is the Bill Clinton of India: he can take a topic of public policy (in this case Indian foreign policy) and talk about with authority, clarity, and insight while making it seem effortless. This guy is very sharp and very insightful. He’s currently a government minister, and he was a serious contender for U.N. Secretary General. Given his commanding voice, personal grace, and mastery of issues, I can now understand why he’s held in such high regard.

3.     Republic Day sessions.

Several of these sessions were very enlightening. The 26^th is a national holiday that celebrates the inauguration of the Indian constitution, and as it turned out, the conversations will test some of the articles of this constitution in the days and weeks to come.  Ashis Nandy, Edward Luce, Ruchir Sharma, and Gurcharan Das especially shed light on the Indian political, social, and economic situation. 

Entrance to Diggi Palace

4.     “A Sense of Place: Peter Heessler, Pico Iyer, Akash Kapur and Samanth Subramanian in conversation with William Dalrymple.”

I took two things away from this session: first, travel writers have to maintain a heightened sense of listening and observation that we could all benefit from (and do vicariously through their writing) Second, like Iowa Guru, I got a sense of William Dalrymple (a co-director of the festival) as a lively figure in person as well as a dynamic writer. My admiration for “travel writers” grows.

5.     “Taming the Gods: Religion & Politics with Ian Buruma, Reza Aslan, Ahdaf Soueif and Timonty Garton Ash in conversation with Shoma Chaudhury”.

This is a live issue in India, in Europe, and in the U.S., and this discussion from writers who have knowledge of a variety of religions and polities really offered some interesting insights. Aslan, a University of Iowa Writers Workshop and comparative religion alum, was especially insightful (and blunt) about the contemporary Republican Party.

I’m going to stop with five, quite arbitrarily. Because Iowa Guru gave him a shout-out already, I’ve ignored my Michael Sandel session, and I heartily concur with her take. And the Dalai Lama? He’s in a class by himself. Amazing. I’ll write more later, but, again, this was a real treat.

Things Abba loved abt JLF:

Mini-notebook with lined pages AND a schedule

Great DECORATIONS and a beautiful setting

The enthusiasm of my fellow attendees (connie and steve)

GREAT food options (froYo, pizza, paneer shwarma)

FREE TO THE PUBLIC

Great bookstore to buy the titles of the authors

Stuff Connie loved about the JLF:  I concur with Abba, but have a few extra….
1.  The feeling I had of unearned importance because I was attending an event that I read about the next day in various newspapers. Finger on the pulse, baby.

2.  THEMES for each day:  for their National Day, they talked about the state of politics in India, another was a day focused on Buddhism.  Well done, JLF!

3. Young Writer’s Workshops each day:  Didn’t attend, but a great idea.

4.  For the final debate they had a drummer start playing when the speaker’s time was out.  They need to adopt that for ALL their sessions, particularly for long-winded facilitators and people who have a comment when it’s supposed to be a question.  We learn about that in Kindergarten, folks, it’s just not that hard.

Char Bagh Tent: One of Five Venues

SINGLE REGRET:  JLF also sponsored a musical performance each night from 7:30-10:00 but I didn’t attend a single one.  Too pooped.  Next time I will condition better.

#JLF: The Jaipur Literature Festival

Imagine a buffet. You are served a choice of five courses every hour. Each hour you can find some serving that looks very promising. You do this for seven courses over the course of the day. And then, you do it again the next day. By the end of the next day you're feeling full, but then you look at the menu for the next day. This is a menu that seems to have endless, delicious looking courses. Of course, not all of them prove delicious, but enough of them do to make-up for any disappointments. By the end of the fifth day, you fear that you're like the Terry Jones character in the "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" who's gorged himself but who can't resist the one last mint.

Fortunately, filling your head with interesting insights and engaging in thought-provoking discussions don't leave you looking like the disgusting glutton above, and--best of all--you don't blow up. But you are tired. You look like this: 

 
The above photos and paragraph suggest something of what is what like to attend five days of the Jaipur Literature Festival. We (Iowa Guru, Abba, and I) will be blogging in greater detail soon, but it was fabulous. If you can attend this level of event, I highly recommend it. More to come! 

See Iowa Guru's account as well: http://iowaguruinthepinkcity.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-jaipur-literature-festival.html
 

#JLF on Twitter
 

A View of India from Steve Ratner

This article by Steve Ratner in NYT provides a perspective on India, especially in comparison to China, that I find persuasive. I haven't been to China since early 2005, but even then it seemed further ahead in economic development compared to what I see in India now. Ratner's oberservations comport with mine and with those whom I read about India. Of course, economic development isn't the only measure of any nation's standing or success, but when so many people are in absolute poverty as they are here and with so much potential going untapped, it certainly is a crucial marker and the most objective. 

The Inscrutable Panda has always said that corruption is China's biggest challenge, but objectively (see the article) and according to almost anyone here, India leads in this sad category. With a burgeoning and well-educated (although numerically small) middle class, I would have expected more of an uprising against corruption and inept government, but after a lot of publicity last fall, I haven't noted much activity. Maybe its percolating below the surface in anticipation of the 2014 elections. I hope so. 

One parting, random thought however: if the world gets serious about climate change and if carbon-based fuel use is reduced (by whatever means), will less developed nations like India gain a comparative advantage because it is not as deeply tied into the petroleum economy? Just a thought. Goodness knows there's lots of sun light here, although we don't have a good way of converting that to transportation energy yet (do we?). But if the world changes in this manner, perhaps India would be in a better position to prosper. Just a thought. 

Nazis in India?

Nazis in India? Well, no. First of all, there is no Nazi remnant hiding hear, this isn't Argentina or Paraguay in the 60's. Rather, I'm thinking of two phenomena, one quite benign and one quite troubling. Let's start with the benign story first. 

A neighboring property displaying a swastika

This photo shows a swastitka (卐) (Sanskrit: स्वस्तिक). In fact, well before the Nazis appropriated this symbol, it had been a staple Hindu icon from the days of the Indus Valley civilization. Buddhists and Jains later incorporated the symbol as well into their traditions. Wikipedia says the following about translating the term: 

swastika literally means "to be good". Or another translation can be made: "swa" is "higher self", "asti" meaning "being", and "ka" as a suffix, so the translation can be interpreted as "being with higher self".

 A far cry from the Nazis! So how did it arrive in Hitler's Germany? 

The symbol arrived in Europe centuries before its appropriation by the Nazis, and it was considered a symbol of good luck. However, in 1920 the symbol suffered some bad luck of its own when the Nazis adopted it. Based on their crackpot theories of race, the Nazis designated the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan race. Nazis believed that "race" (as they defined it in their warped way) was the controlling factor in society and politics and that the Aryans were "the master race". Aryans were the group of people who invaded and conquered north India centuries ago, and somehow this morphed in Nazi ideology as a manifestation of the "master race". Crackpot science carries the day. 
 
In sum, if you read the Wikipedia article about it, the swastika has a long and famous history, and Nazi adoption of it was a temporary and unfounded perversion. If you come to India or see it elsewhere in South Asia, don't be alarmed. It's intentions are good. 




   When I first came to India and began haunting the bookstores, I kept coming across the title shown in the image above. At first I treated it as a mere curiosity, perhaps someone had an overstock. Titles in bookstores here can prove quite eclectic. However, I realized that this was not an aberration but a revelation of something deeper. Two items of information came to me that provided me some insight. One source came as the result of a man in Mumbai named Bal Thackeray (named after the British novelist). He was a right-wing political leader who professed some admiration for Hitler and his methods:  “If you take Mein Kampf and if you remove the word Jew and put in the word Muslim, that is what I believe in.” His death (from natural causes) created quite a national news item, and it pretty much shut down Mumbai for a couple of days. This guy was not just any right-wing kook it turns out. 

However, my sense of disquiet grew when I read this article, which recounts the experience of a school teacher with a well-to-do set of students in Mumbai. Hitler proved far more popular then Gandhi. (Nine students admired Hitler; one admired Gandhi.) Students professed admiration for Hitler's oratory and "love of country". And some vehemently disparaged Gandhi. While I have criticisms of Gandhi, Gandhi (and any criticisms of him) are in a different moral universe than what we can say about Hitler. Hitler is about as close to unmitigated evil in a political leader as we can find. How could Indian youngsters profess any admiration for Hitler? Some Germans did (and perhaps a few stragglers do) profess such admiration, but I couldn't imagine anywhere in Germany or the U.S. where Hitler would receive any such favorable mention. 

The article is worth reading. From this I conclude that rampant, virulent nationalism lives here as it does in many other nations. Like a shingles virus, it waits quietly in the body politic until conditions are ripe to manifest itself and deploy its deadly DNA to run riot through society. Note well, per John Lukacs, nationalism is not patriotism. But few understand and appreciate the distinction. Let's hope here, and everywhere, a sane group of women and men  grasp the distinction patriotism and nationalism and keep us free from the malady that Hitler so horribly manifested. 

 

"Who's Laughing Now?" or "Baby, It's Cold Inside"

Or "The Lizards Really Have It Figured Out" or "I'm Freezing My Arse Off!" The possibilities for titles to this blog seem endless. 

In mid-December I scoffed at those locals who spoke about the cold. The days and evenings reminded me of late September, warm and sunny during the day and cool--but not cold--at night. Such whimps, I thought. Talk of colder days to come was that: just so much talk. 

Then something happened. It got cold. 

Since returning from Kerala (on the coast, further south), where you didn't need a jacket in the evening and you ran the air conditioning all night, we returned to record low temperatures here in Jaipur. In other words, temperatures down into the 30's (F). 

"Steve", you say, "have you forgotten your roots, those cold, if not frigid, Iowa winters?".  
"No", I reply, "I haven't forgotten them".  
"Well, then, don't complain, compare". 
"But, there's one difference."
"What's that?" 
"Central heating." 

There lies the rub. It's really not so much that it's cold out there, it that it's cold in here! Our little two-room apartment (and I'm counting the bathroom as a room) has no central heating. We have a small space heater, but I can assure you that it doesn't heat much space. The cold seems to strangle the heat before it reaches me. 

This is what makes it tough, that it never really gets warm in here. In fact, I open the windows and doors to allow in some ambient warm air (it's still into the 60's during the day), but it doesn't make much of dent with our tile floors and concrete walls. 

So now, in the morning, I follow the example of the locals and dress myself warmly and go sit in the bright morning sun (after about 9 o'clock). The clothes idea I get from the humans, the sun basking from the geckos. 

Okay, enough for now. I've got to go sit with Gordon. 

Keep warm.   

Women and India

The current American shame is our idolatry toward guns, our Moloch, as aptly Garry Wills describes it. We sacrifice innocents to it: women and children as well as men. I feel a sense of shame and despair when I consider this subject. But I suppose that every country has a shame that it must own and deal with, and in India, that shame is rape and the treatment of women. India is not alone in mistreating women, of course. Rape and other forms of degradation happen in all societies, but perhaps because of its high ideals and aspirations, the shame is more pronounced here. 

When I first came to India, I thought that India stood fairly well in the treatment of women. Women had served as leaders in the pre-Independence Congress Party, India had a female prime minister (Indira Gandhi), female politicians, famous Bollywood actresses, and young professionals. The de facto leader of the country is Sonia Gandhi, the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and widow of Rajiv Gandhi (both of whom were assassinated, but that is a separate issue and one that in its macabre way is gender-neutral). I have commented earlier on some issues related to women, but the event in December and the subsequent national outcry have raised the issue in a new and poignant way. 

I understand that news reports worldwide carried the report of the Delhi gang rape and murder of a young woman traveling home from a movie one night with a boyfriend. The event was—is—shockingly horrible. I have since learned that this brutal act is not an aberration, but only the most visible manifestation of an ongoing problem. Women in Delhi, especially, are subject to sexual harassment and groping on a regular basis. (Interestingly, some report that Mumbai does not suffer the same level of sexual harassment.) I’ve learned that reactionary politicians claim that the these acts are because of city life and an attendant liberalization of mores, such as allowing women out of the house or out at night. But in fact, things are much worse at the village level. One politician claimed that such events don’t occur in Bharat, another name for India, but Bharat seems to serve as code for a very traditional (i.e., patriarchal and hierarchical) way of life. In fact, the treatment of women is worse in the villages and areas of "tradition".
 

My thesis (hypothesis, really) is that "Bharat" —the village mentality—is the culprit here, not the cities as such. Delhi, at population of around 14 million, has seen a huge influx of migrants from the villages hoping for work and success, but work and material success are very hard to find. Because of a gender imbalance (mistreatment, even murder, of females at young ages have treated a population imbalance in genders), we have groups of young men without guidance or real hope for a better life. These are yougn males without family, mentors, spouses, or anything other than similarly situated young males--a sure recipe for crime. The mores of the village, where women are “kept in their place” by force and violence, including rape, are now transferred to the city, where keeping violence under any limitations becomes an even greater challenge. 

What is the answer? Politicians and the public are howling for a quick execution by hanging the culprits. If the heinousness of the crime justifies capital punishment, then surely this case qualifies. However, politicians who posture for the death penalty in all rape cases ignore the fact that this would make convictions more difficult. However, the practical intention of such statements is to mollify popular feeling and allow the politicians and the public to ignore the wider issues about the treatment of women. The Indian middle class, men and women, seemed to have mobilized around this issue, but it will remain a long struggle. A shocking number of Indians still live in rural settings, impoverished and undereducated. These stubborn facts will continue to place a huge drag on social progress in India. 

One note about this: I don’t know anything about the perpetrators. However, I don’t’ think that this is a religious issue. I assume that the perpetrators, to the extent they claim any religious background, were Hindu. But the problem is not one of Hinduism, or Islam, or any other religion. Rather, it’s a reaction to modernity and the pressures that modernity places on traditional societies, like rural India,  and including the rural Indians now living in cities. They perceive that they can’t keep up. Much of this part of the world is losing as it watches some among them prosper. Remember, for every fact or situation in India, a counter-example likely exists just a stone’s throw away. 

What is to be done? Education, education, education. Not just in the sense of school rooms and mastering the 3 R’s, but a true drawing out. Economic development must provide a foundation, but that will provide only a foundation. A society as large and diverse as this one will need all of help it can get from sources great and small. Let’s all contribute what we can to this task. 

Addendum: Here are some articles I recommend pertinent to this topic:

https://www.readability.com/articles/vwqkn68m (NYT article by Manu Joseph that criticizes the village mentality and cities should be havens of liberalism in the traditional sense. A very good article.)

https://www.readability.com/articles/f7st8o9n (NYT article by Sonia Faleiro, who grew up in Delhi & later moved to Mumbai. She details the problems from a woman’s perspective)

http://www.readability.com/articles/qjbf1mrk (The Hindu article by Ramachandra Guha about empowering women, especially politically)

Commentary by Amartya Sen: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Amartya-Sen-shocked-over-politicians-comments-on-Delhi-gang-rape/articleshow/17906800.cms (Bangladesh now exceeds India in indicators of development because of its better treatment of women) and more of the same in The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bangladesh-ahead-of-india-in-gender-equality-amartya-sen/article4277151.ece  (note the comparison to China). 

Here he speaks about "missing women" & related develop  issues in The Hindu: http://www.readability.com/articles/yntutxxf 

 

Tarquin Hall: The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken: A Vish Puri Mystery

Since learning that we’d be coming to India to live, I’ve tried to read a great deal about this vast nation. The amount written about this country is immense, and given that I’m a promiscuous reader wanting to master several topics at once, I’ve only made a dent in learning what I can about India. Thus, while I have completed relatively few books, I have read a good deal or learned vicariously from IG and her reading. Amartya Sen, William Dalrymple, Shashi Thoroor, Andre Betielle, Richard Sorabji, Pankraj Mishra, Kathryn Boo (via IG), NYT articles, The Economist, and so on have served as very enlightening guides. I’ve made a dent, anyway. However, now I’ve made a breakthrough: I’ve completed The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken: A Vish Puri Mystery by Tarquin Hall. 

Hall is a Brit, married to an Indian, and living near Delhi. His skill as a writer combines with his insider/outsider status to give me some delightful insights into India. In fact, I’d posit that the standard detective novel, the “who dun it?” may prove the perfect vehicle to learn about a new society or culture. In this case goes a long way in supporting that proposition. 

Vish Puri, a former Army intelligence officer turned private detective, with a caring (if occasionally bothersome) wife and meddling “mummy-ji”, assited by a stable of colorfully nick-named stable of helpers (labor is cheap in India), gets called into work on the death of a prominent Pakistani. The death involves two subjects of great emotional valance in India: cricket and Pakistan. The decedent is involved with cricket, the national game here, and (I think) in Pakistan as well. His investigation of the murder leads Puri to Pakistan, which, before these events, had simply been “the enemy” to Puri. But as Puri learns, the two nations share a great deal, including a troubling and sad history that still holds the memory of many wrongs on both sides of the border. Puri expands his horizons in the course of his investigation, while he’s also dodging or ignoring the dietary constraints that his wife wants him to follow. His nickname isn’t “Chubby” for nothing. 

This book caught my eye because the front cover displayed a favorable blurb from Alexander McCall Smith.  I discovered that Hall’s creation matches many of the attributes that makes Smith’s No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and Isabel Dalhousie series so successful: an endearing main character--not a super-hero, hard-boiled type, or super-sleuth--but a wonderfully fallible character deeply immersed in the culture around  her. So for shear enjoyment while learning a great deal about this vast country, and with the highest compliment in comparing this book to one of McCall Smith’s books, I suggest you put this in your reading pile, whether you come to India or only want to explore from your armchair. I don’t think that you’ll be disappointed.