the prettiest wall in leh behind which the young donkeys grazed while their minders sat in gossipy circles knees a-folded, skirts hitched to the calves in crass womanly poses flashes of turquoise and silver skin curling under the barking mad ladakhi sun that doesn't forgive anyone why did you have to travel so far, it seems to say, to find this place
in delhi on 26th jan seemed awful to be missing the parade but flagging a rickshaw outside the TOI building the universe sent a little excerpt my way yay
p.s. someone teach me how to make animated gifs please.
many little-little more gems from the festival, many of which i can hardly remember.
there were kites in the trees
and women with the most gorgeously appropriate bags
and geoff dyer whose reading from jeff in venice, death in varanasi had people running out like mad dogs to buy his book (me too and made me realize reading a book is a vastly different experience from listening to it being read by the author and can often seem totally disconnected, unrelated literary experiences) and s. anand of navayna press whose talk i attended quite randomly (and also adored) and later happened to travel to delhi with and chugge khan who is a mad man on the khartal and tony wheeler! and tony wheeler at mrigya! and, oh, the bauls! william dalrymple performing nine lives with the bauls whose videos i will certainly not put up, it would be a sin really. and the pretty diggi palace rooms and snakey lunch lines and people "insinuating" themselves into queues (a sweet word thing i have officially imbibed from geoff dyer) and silver shopping (maharani market rocks!) and whining authors (amit chaudhury, you know who i'm talking about) and witty new discoveries (omair ahmad with the gorgeously pronounced name) and flamboyant displays (coughcoughsunilsethicoughcough) and many lunches with ndtv royalty later... jaipur lit fest was over, and delhi started saying pack those skirts away and hurry up and get here already.
one of the nicest hours i spent at JLF was in the durbar hall listening to javed akhtar read his standard old poems (from perfect memory). i'm not sure if it was the yellow walls or the chill in the air or how my long flowery skirt felt twirling around my legs all day... but it felt very close to perfect, that evening. pooja and i stepped out from different corners of the durbar into an evening getting steadily colder and quickly needed a glass of wine inside us.
waking at 3 am to get the 5 am flight suddenly got a lot more worth it when the sun started to rise on the horizon
discovered the "merrill lynch" tent with the worst acoustics but bestest ambience. yellow! and tree silhouettes that keep moving, responding. apparently ten days before the festival the organizers discovered they were 30 lakh short and merrill lynch just sent them the cash just like that. so.
devdutt pattnaik said, who came first? even the gods came later. roberto calasso said stories are 'not a less powerful' means of accessing the gods than ancient rituals the moderater ananya whateverhernamewas stuttered and stammered and ruined everything
my favorite speaker of all the five days spoke in the pretty tent. tenzin tsundue (with also wonderful isabel hilton and ever wonderful william dalrymple).
he autographed my copy of his book of poems! but someone else got it for me because i was shy :P
was a bit conscious/hesitant about being alone so much of the time but JLF is wonderful alone and many people are just reading, smoking, listening, shopping, writing
the best place for which is by the pond in the middle of the courtyard with the durbar hall in front, merrill lynch on the left, and loungey baithak on the right. behind was flow, a fancypants cafe mostly occupied by the celebrity writers who kept wanting to "get away from the crowds and autograph hunters". that overheard often. so why'd they come?
p.s. by the last day, the water was full of coffee cups and cigarette butts. sigh.
else, i hung out with my feisty room mate, pooja, from whose interesting/intelligent phone conversations you'd never know she was speaking to her 7 year old kiddo.
the durbar hall was the most important venue, with all the big author talks held there. also yellow! gorgeous, painted, flowery, mirror-y. the tweed jacket and old newspaper and green socks in these picture i loved.
unfortunately it would get so full that was the only view i had of it for four days, standing way at the back, behind the last row of chairs, kicking off my jootis and sinking down to the floor when exhausted along with all the others who were as bad as i was at being elbowy and pushy with getting a seat. literary people are not less rude than women in a second class ladies compartment. they just dress better. but on the last day, just before i left, when JLF was gorgeous and empty of celebrities (and therefore crowds), i got to sit in the front row all excited! only to discover the talk was entirely in rajasthani. o well. small price to see that giant gilt mirror up close. i bet you see reflections of nautch girls and twirly-mustache rajaas in it at night.
shabana azmi (the red speck) and urvashi butalia (the green and black speck) spoke there. the hindi parts were nice, the english translation (which they were launching) not so much. shabana azmi would randomly arrive in spaces and just stand and allow people to hover around her with cameras. she always looked pissed off except when on stage.
but some were very nice. that's navtej sarna in the blue pagdi taking notes at om puri's talk with a perfect fountain pen. his handwriting looked just like him.
my favorite venue was the baithak tent where all the readings happened and authors sat with their feet up. like everything else it was super crowded the first few days but got wonderfully comfortable with cushions and chaarpais by the end.
and the front lawn was the other big venue where you could hear acoustic guitars over lunch in a patch of sunlight and grand operatic world music at night with wine and a full moon.
after dark, there was nowhere to go but the front lawns with all the food and wine and music. all the pretty people would mill around air kissing and getting high. every other conversation started with the words "my book..." not really my scene and i mostly hung out with the girls from teamworks (the event management company) who gossiped about the writers (fun!) but most of the performances were crazy brilliant.
