Must a Writer be an Actor?

Who Knew?

Chicken Tandoori

Foreign Correspondent Panel

William Dalrymple

Every day we are awakened by the “Call to Prayer”. We actually like it. The Haveli is located in a Muslim quarter of Old Jaipur, and there are many, many mosques. Each mosque has loud speakers on top of its minarets, and the Call is blasted. No two mosques start at exactly the same time, so for about a 5 minute period you hear the Call, coming from all directions, none in sync with another. You also hear the call at night, while we are drinking wine. We always pause our talking and listen, enjoying this most exotic experience..

We started off the day with a reading by William Dalrymple from his just released book “The Return of the King”. This one hour  with William Dalrymple was enough to justify this entire trip to India. We have read many of his books including what to us is his masterpiece: The Last Mughal. He spent the hour speaking and reading from his new book, “The Return of the King”. NOTHING I could write could equal the experience of hearing him. Not only is he a fearless scholar who travels to remote and dangerous areas, but he is also an incredibly gifted storyteller as he writes his amazing stories. Further, when he lectures he is like an actor, holding the audience in the palm of his hand as he relates his stories.

His story is amazing. In 1842, 18,000 British solders marched into Afghanistan. They easily captured the capital Kabul, and established a military base at Kandahar. Do these names Kabul and Kandahar resonate with you? The war was ginned up by the Neo-cons of the day, using flimsily evidence. Beginning to sound familiar? They installed a puppet government from the very same tribe that gave us Hamid Karzai. The British and their Indian Sepoys were opposed by the same groups that today are the Taliban. England at the time was at it very zenith, the strongest country the world had ever seen. Two years later, 1 British solder out of the original 18,000 survived and limped back to Jalalabad. All the rest of the army was destroyed. This was the biggest single disaster in the entire history of the British Empire. It was to be repeated, almost exactly by the Americans after 9/11. Dalrymple told this story, in the most vivid, exciting way. All of these sessions at the Jaipur Literary Festival are taped and will be available on the Internet. I strongly suggest you spend an hour and watch this. Most sessions end with Q & A, but this was so powerful a session, no questions were necessary. It took our breath away. One thing that surprised me was that I had always assumed that Afghanistan war was the right US War; the Iraq war was the wrong one, and we took our eyes off the ball when we switched from Afghanistan to Iraq. These writers believe that Afghanistan itself was a mistake from the beginning, urged on by NeoCons who had no idea of the history and peoples of Afghanistan.

The next session was about reporting from war zones. The writers who participated on this session, report for the major newspapers from the most dangerous areas: Pakistan, Congo, Afghanistan, etc. It is harrowing work. I can’t conceive of the difficult conditions they endure to write their stories, and ultimately the books. The main discussion was about reportage, where the writer tries to give the facts, and is subject to an editor and the ultimate writing of longer pieces and books, where only they decide what will be in print. These journalists and authors are fearless, I can’t even begin to comprehend their courage.

Next was a session on gay writing. India is a very traditional society and it was interesting hearing writers and readers discussing the difficulty of being gay in India, and how rapidly the norms are changing. Literature is the expression of freedom. Literature is often about sadness and difficulties, otherwise the book would be three words long: “Everyone was Happy”. In trying to explain, sexual and gender differences one Hindu scholar had a very Indian approach and said “What doesn’t make sense to man, makes sense to God”. I liked that idea, in spite of the reference to God.

The final session of the day was about a very interesting (I think) man who was a diamond merchant, magician, and other things in India. The presenter, who talked about his book, and read from his book, was absolutely awful. We walked out. It is interesting in an environment like this you have to be an actor in addition to a writer, able to entertain the crowd, to generate sales of your book. William Dalrymple is the best. He is a showman for his book. The author of the diamond merchant book was just not a public speaker. It is amazing, how this lessens the impact of what he is trying to say. It is unfair, a writer should be judged on his writing, but the commercialism requires him to be an actor, in support of his book. This author failed, and yet it is possible his book is wonderful. Life isn’t fair.