A Witty and Piercing Take on the Jaipur Litfest

I have never attended the Jaipur Litfest (JLF). But I have been intrigued, like many other writers, by the manner in which the JLF has reshaped the Indian literary scene. Sparked off in 2006, as a smallish event with about 100 attendees, the JLF has morphed into a necessary cultural stop. It features on most Indophile bucket lists, perhaps even upstaging the “Kumbh Mela” as a tourist must-do. 

Fortunately, for those of us who haven’t yet embarked on the physical trek to the Diggi Palace and its history-licked environs, Namita Gokhale, a seasoned author and the festival’s co-director, offers us a wickedly delightful alternative. A rollicking glimpse into what the festival feels like, from the perspective of sharply etched characters, all of whom collide with each other over five days of the mela. In her novel, Jaipur Journals, Gokhale deploys her tart wit and impish eye to evoke the manner in which authorly pretensions and writer appetites for success – be that for money, recognition or grandiose thrusts to remake the world – jostle with grittier realities.

Here’s a sneak-peek into some of the colourful characters that inhabit her pages, which give you a flavour not just of the festival, but also of its spirited co-founder:

RUDRANI RANA, with her stray grey hairs gathered into a knot, is happy to call herself a ‘troglodyte’ – a word she gleans from India’s widely-known lexical Master, Shashi Tharoor. (In the book, real-life personas mingle with fictional characters). A troglodyte, as Rana finds out, can be a “person who is regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old fashioned.” In other words, a write-off. She totes around two bags with her, one with a noticeable bulge. Inside, resides her “UNSUBMITTED” masterpiece, something she has worked and reworked. She seems contented to remain a “failed novelist,” and is perhaps wary about emerging from her bitterly-spun cocoon. To break out among panel-inhabiting word wielders, whose movements are closely tracked by breathless fans.

Watching her closely, is ANIRBAN MUKERJEE, a graphic artist, who surveys each person for their most distinctive feature. Who, while quickly penciling caricatures, observes more tangy going-ons – the spiteful patter and backbiting that ripple beneath sophisticated discussions on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex or Walt Disney’s biography. He’s among the first to realize that Rudrani is dropping off sweet anonymous cards with various authors – purple cards with adorable kittens romping among balls of wool. The words inside couldn’t be cattier. “You faithless bich, I know what you have been up to, how many women you have betrayed…You plagiarizer, you pornographer…Your time is up.” Just like some folks drizzle the world with small acts of kindness, Rudrani does the opposite. She diffuses displeasure and anguish with graceful elan. 

The writer, who seems bizarrely more passionate and less pretentious than most, is BETAAB. He hasn’t just made his way to JLF as a pompous intellectual, or even to network and sell his own work, but to meet his poet idol: Javed Akhtar. But he also had another agenda. After all, Betaab was a tailor’s son, who had learned to make money – sometimes shockingly enormous sums – by stealing. Even at JLF, his intention was to cover the cost of his trip with a few “well-executed burglaries.” Unlike most of the other inflated wordsmiths, his art – his ghazals, with their exacting metres – flows to him “as naturally as the whirring of the sewing machine and the rhythm of his foot on the pedal.” Later, when he attends a session on “Why do I write?” he’s the only one, who can honestly acknowledge to himself, that he doesn’t write for money. “He wrote because he was in love with words, with their sounds and extended meanings.”

GAYATRI SMYTH GANDHY is a historian and cultural anthropologist, who’s trying to morph into a novelist. She champions folk traditions, like the Bhopa of Rajasthan, singer-priests who perform before an unfurled scroll called the Phad. On stage, she introduces Madan Bhopa, who will enact a live demonstration of an ancient tradition. Soon after, GAYATRI the diversity-loving, folk champion is subjected to a hilarious character test. At a nearby hospital, where she has chased an ex-beau to re-ignite a romance, she confronts a bleeding Madan Bhopa, the poor man having been accidentally knocked down by an auto. She’s hurled into the horns of a dilemma: to pursue the ex-lover or help the dying Bhopa and his wife. She chooses the lover. And later, experiences fleeting remorse on hearing of the Bhopa’s death, before she pens a tribute to the folk artist.

ZOYA MANKOTIA is a zealous feminist, quick to take umbrage at this or that misogynist view or patriarchal word. At the session on The Second Sex, she insists on a word being expunged, her voice sputtering, her body shaking with rage. While the anger still simmers, she attempts to answer a young girl’s question on menstruation. Just then, the sound system gives way. This is exactly the kind of scene, where Gokhale’s devilry shines through. Because the familiar arguments and overheated academics are suddenly overtaken by other uncaring creatures. “A parrot swopped across the stage, like a daring trapeze artist. A peahen seated on the low branch of a mango tree let out its harsh call. A tattered yellow kite, impaled against the mango tree, fluttered in the gentle afternoon breeze. And then a monkey appeared, jumping from the highest balcony to the next, and then almost on stage.”

Reading the piercing and deftly-penned Jaipur Journals gave me a sense that the JLF is akin to an Indian wedding. Kicking off on Day One with a frisson of excitement, with participants gearing up for intense exchanges at life-changing panels, or just selfies with Bollywood celebs and authorly heroes, then petering off on Day Five into abandoned chairs with dried marigold flowers strewn around. After all the jibber jabber – talking to each other, talking past each other, talking around and among and about each other – perhaps Jaipur and its various venues settle into a pleasurable silence. When the parrots, peahens and monkeys reclaim their rightful place.

References

Namita Gokhale, Jaipur Journals, Penguin Random House India, 2021.