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Magazine
FESTIVAL JOTTINGS
When authors come alive
TULSI BADRINATH
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At the Jaipur Literary festival, one finally got a chance to meet with authors with whom one has had a private relationship going, through their works, for a long time.
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All the time the eye falls on a face and a name, and reshaping it from the flat photograph, gifts it mobility of expression and shades it anew with colour. To do this is to realise that some of these images are deceptive, or outdated.
Worlds of discovery: An interactive session in progress at the Diggi Palace, Jaipur.
Walking on the lawns of the Diggi Palace past royal peacocks, or standing in front of the Durbar Hall while the sessions are in progress inside, or jostling for the free tea served by handsome, turbaned men, one’s eyes fall on, recognise and assimilate the faces of authors known until now only through their photographs. The names that go with those faces are names one has a private relationship with through the words of their books, the way those words appear on pages, leaping into one’s eyes. It is a matter of fact that this reading is done on buses or in libraries or curled up in bed while the author is elsewhere, usually far away.
Independent of books
At the Jaipur Literature Festival it seems as though the process is reversed. Released from the covers of their books, authors imprisoned so far in static author photographs, interviews that exist in perpetuity on the Net and the biodata on the flaps of their books, come to life, their presence very real among the crowds of schoolchildren and book lovers that throng the readings and discussions. It takes time to readjust constantly to this dreamlike situation where the author as imagined through this secret negotiation of their words is seen in a crowd, one among many other writers, something that never happens at a launch but only at such a festival. It is almost as though one has entered a magic forest peopled with beloved characters — authors all, a Michael Wood sprung from the confines of the television screen into a tall man; a burly, dread-locked Arthur Flowers; a dapper U.R. Ananthamurthy in blue jeans; a prettier-in-person Antara Dev Sen.
At this particular festival so much is happening simultaneously — three sessions at the same time — that it is difficult to choose. And if that were not all, there are little clusters of people holding intense conversations, begun, interrupted, resumed, interrupted again, on subjects perhaps far more interesting than those announced. It is those private conversations that one is curious about, just as one is amazed by the natural ease with which a sudden, meaningful exchange of ideas takes place with another, seated on a charpoy or beneath gay canopies. And all the time, new friendships are being forged, old acquaintances sought, and deals conducted in a relaxed manner.
And so through the many delicious lunches and enjoyable dinners, all the time the eye falls on a face and a name, and reshaping it from the flat photograph, gifts it mobility of expression and shades it anew with colour. To do this is to realise that some of these images are deceptive, or outdated. So those who looked out for a mass of curls, as I did, that would identify Nadeem Aslam might have missed him, for he now sports a closely shaven head. And it is not nearly satisfying enough to meet him without the curls, so in my personal mythology that is still the look he sports. And where the image is relatively unknown, then one may have just encountered the author in question but remain ignorant about it. A friend who spent her time trying to spot Daniyal Mueenudeen, handed a cigarette to a handsome stranger only to discover later that it was Daniyal himself she had met.
Of sacred bonds
Sometimes, too much reality can intrude on the sacred compact of a book with its reader. One reads a book with a certain voice in one’s head and to hear those very same words read out, even though by the author, in a different accent, at a different pace can destroy this bond. Ultimately, the relationship is always between words and the soul that absorbs them off a page, between the weight of a book and the hands that hold it with care, between the story-teller and the eager listener.
Authors released from their rooms, their desks, the search for the right words and the discovery of meaning, seem blithely convivial in the desert sunshine of Jaipur that falls steeply into coldness at night. Yet, to participate in a gathering of writers such as this is to realise that it is indeed books, written in solitude or privacy, through personal turmoil and the sheer business of living, that are at the base of it all. When the picnic ends in five days, and the writers return to their daily struggle of the self with the self, all that will be left will be this lasting entity, books, many books, and the names on their spines.
Tulsi Badrinath’s latest novel Meeting Lives was published recently.
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