Oye! Reel to Real

Sharmile Tagore

Potatoes with Mustard Seed done in the Tandoori

This was the 2^nd day of the Jaipur Literary Festival. Each hour there is 5 different venues each with a different panel. You have to read up on the program to figure out which panel you want to sit through, because you can only see one of the four. In addition, you are faced with some panels are more popular then other, which means, getting a seat can be frustrating. We did our homework and decided on several panels that we wanted to see.

The first one we attended was entitled “The Writer and the State”. It had a wide range of authors that have written in or about totalitarian states or states going through transitions. The countries covered ranged from Chile, to China and even India. The discussions were heated particularly about the Latest Nobel Winner who is Chinese. He has defended to some degree the Communist censorship. Some panelist condemned him in the strongest terms, other expressed sympathy for his delicate situation. It was very thought provoking. One idea they presented was that time is the ultimate critic of the quality of a work. Some things are written under the worst political conditions of repression and government control and it is very easy for us to criticize the compromises the author made, however, with the passage of time we can better appreciate the work, almost independently of the author. The entire session was like an intellectual tennis match, it was quite fun to see the authors dropping quotes and names of obscure authors and being responded to in kind.

There was a very funny presentation with among others Gary Shteyngart. There was an absolutely hilarious, quick witted Indian writer: Manu Joseph that stole the show for me. We have read his books and he just released a new one. Gary S. especially believes we are country of writers not readers.

Javed Akhtar, is an Indian legend and probably the most beloved person at the festival. He was born an Urdu speaker. He is a Bollywood screenwriter, a lyricist, a poet, a reciter of poetry and political activist. He is natural actor and raconteur. When he speaks he switches between English, Urdu and Hindi. He is incredibly animated and he holds the audience in the palm of his hand, even if they don’t understand the words he is speaking. He is a passionate atheist, who detests all religions and dogmas. We heard him last year when he spoke and it was just as enjoyable to hear him this year. He discussed for over an hour: Ghazals the poetry form that came from Persian, and has morphed into the most beautiful way of expression. It is quite formalized in its construct. I never thought I would enjoy hearing the ins and outs of writing poetry, from Javed-Ji it was a fabulous experience. Urdu which was the language of spoken mostly in Delhi and Lucknow, is now the language of Pakistan. It has morphed from a secular language to a very political / religious language. Javed-Ji, mourns this greatly. He summed it up by saying the Pakistanis thought Kashmir and Urdu belonged to them, and they were wrong in both cases! The Indians in the crowd loved it. There were hundreds of school kids in attendance. At the end the entire audience begged him to recite one more Urdu Ghazal. Can you picture children in America pleading for another poem?

There was a great session with the Bengali Actress Sharmile Tagore who has acted for over 55 years in starting in films directed by Sangit Roy. She has seen it all – from Art Films to Bollywood. She had a loving adoring crowd. Like many of the speakers she tied the recent rape case in Delhi into her responses.

Javed’s wife, Shabana Azmi, is a very famous actress who is very politically involved. She had a session on Sex and Women in India Cinema. India Cinema as do many cinemas objective women, and she is an activist against gender discrimination in all forms. She, like Javed, is extremely passionate in her speech and life.

There was a spirited session about the novel post 9-11 we saw the end of the session. Reza Assam, from America, defended Islam against the idea that 98% of terrorists are Muslims. He disabused an audience member who asked a question based upon this idea. Meanwhile the other panelist brought up the idea of religion and martyrdom as a major issue. The discussion was excellent.

The final session we attended was hilarious. It was entitled: “The Jewish Novel”. It started with the story “At a conference it was announced that the subject would be: Jews like to argue – a man stood up and said: “excuse me, but I beg to differ”. Because India has a large Muslim population and there were Pakistanis attending the festival, I couldn’t have predicted how this session would go. It was like a Jewish Comic Smack down. Although there were others on the panel, we thought Gary Shteyngart and Howard Jacobson were great. I can’t do the jokes and funny responses to questions justice, but bottom line, they are both outrageously funny. I don’t think the Indian audience got a lot of their jokes and word twists, but we were laughing out loud. If you haven’t read: The Finkler Question or Super Sad Love Story, you are missing two great books! The authors gave outrageous answers to the interlocutor. I could have imagined Woody Allen on the panel.

The weather here on the Rajasthan desert is very cool at night and warms up during the day. We eat and drink at night outside, warmed by gas heaters and wood fires, during the day we slowly shed our jackets, scarves and sweaters. The food at the hotel is excellent. We keep trying different dishes and wonder why it Indian Food in Los Angeles can’t be like the hotel food. It is the Muslim festival of Eid, and Indian Republic day is coming up. They expect the Literary Festival to be even more packed today (Sat). We will see.