Weather Report: Dry Day

Debating the Constitution

Censorship debate

Men bathing in street leading to Festival

It is getting crowded at the Festival! 

Special Lamb

We awoke and went for breakfast. There was a sign on the door “Dry Day”. I thought good, no rain, no monsoon. Leave the umbrella behind. I soon learned, to my dismay, that today is Republic Day (The day the Indian Constitution was signed). On this day it is illegal to serve Alcohol in India. That is what a “Dry Day” means in India. We immediately freaked. How would we get through the dinner without wine? We finally remembered that foreigners bearing passports are allowed drink in hotels. We were relieved!

We met a woman friend, we knew from a previous visit to The Jaipur Literary Festival. Catherine is a fearless woman, who travels to very dangerous areas (Egypt during the revolution, Kashmir, etc.) She is filmmaker and textile importer. In addition, I think she is an adrenalin junkie. She had just returned from Pakistan. She felt like she was the only white person in all of Pakistan. Although she had a driver and bodyguard, being there really traumatized her. She related to us the un-relenting hatred of the Pakistanis for America. It was very frightening to hear her speak, because you had the feeling that nothing is going to stop them. And they have nuclear weapons. Not a great way to start the day.

The first panel that we went to was excellent. It was about the utopian idea of India. The ideal of the state was to create equality. India was a very unequal society, separated by caste, religion, language, education, etc. The Indian Constitution tries to rectify this inequality and this is the primary challenge of India. The authors were passionate in their views on how the constitution has either helped or failed to help the people.

Overt corruption is the bane of India, and there was much discussion about it. One panelist suggested the only four areas where there is true meritocracy, without corruption are: 1) Sports, 2) Entertainment 3) Crime 4) Politics. In any of these 4 areas anyone could rise to the top.

The sessions all end with audience questions and the panelist are challenged by provocative questions.

The next session dealt with the economic potential of India, which depends upon a sorely lacking infrastructure. India has a very centralized government, but very independent states. It is very difficult to govern. One interesting thought was that countries have hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure. Hard Infrastructure includes, roads, dams, electrical plants, etc. Soft Infrastructure includes vigorous press, independent political parties, etc. Hard infrastructure problems are easier to fix then soft ones. Advantage: India over China. Is this wishful thinking or the truth? We will find out.

There was a lot of discussion of the problem of dynastic succession; especially the  non-rise of Rahul Ghandi. Will he step in as a national leader or is he a lightweight? Stay tuned.

We went to a rather boring lecture on literary criticism. The one take away for me was that literary critics are the only critics that use the same medium (writing) as the one that they are criticizing. Painting critics don’t paint their criticism for example. The outcome of this phenomenon is that many critics feel they are as good a writer (or better) than the author they are writing about, jealousy is a major problem.

A much better session was on freedom of expression. India has many laws (as do other countries) trying to limit speech on the internet. India’s constitution mandates only limited freedom of speech. You cannot say something in India that will offend another group. The problem of course is what is offensive speech. This leads to a lot of interference by the government with movies, books, and even events like this one, where Salmon Rushdie was prevented from speaking  last year. So much of the issues especially in India, deal with cultural sensibilities and the way that people so easily take offense at what is said and written. There was much discussion back and forth about the role of censorship, self-censorship and freedom of expression. It was a very stimulating hour.

One idea I hadn’t really thought about is how intricately freedom of speech is correlated to freedom of assembly. If you can assemble to protest, freedom of speech is meaningless.

We finished the day by returning to Baba, to pick up some jewelry, almost all of which were ready, and check on Cliff’s suit, that wasn’t ready. I did make sure that Baba took care of our driver. Baba gifted us with some items which made me realize Indian Jeweler 1, Jew 0 in the negotiating game. Bargaining is the true national sport, not cricket.

Returning to our Haveli, we spent an hour drinking and talking with Gary Shteyngart.  We also talked about Anti-semitism, Israel and England with the writer Linda Grant. She has written many books about Jews and Israel. She practically fell out of her chair laughing when Cathy and I said and tried to defend the idea that the US isn’t an imperial power.

We had a delicious dinner at the hotel, and wine was served – we toasted the Indian constitution and all of its flaws with Indian wine. After dinner I joined a group of writers for talks and drinks. Laurence Norfolk discussed his new historical novel, “John Saturnall’s Feast”. It is set in the 17^th century about a chef. I think iRobby and Tamara would love it!