JAIPUR
It used to be a juggernaut, now it’s a security risk. The Jaipur Lit Fest, now in its fifth edition and still in its old venue at the Diggi Palace, has lost some of its innocent informality and easy-going charm. It’s now like entering Delhi’s Parliament House or leaving Tel Aviv airport: there are barriers, a heavy police guard, multiple security checks, electronic beepers and bar-coded passes for all categories of visitors. Inside, there are said to be two dozen surveillance cameras and 200 plain-clothes police mingling with the crowds. Festival organisers are locked up in endless security meetings.
How much of this elaborate bandobast is due to the S&O – Salman and Oprah – factor is hard to say. The Rushdie affair may have given the Lit Fest an undue political coating and a nice shot of national publicity, but it has also obscured its robust literary content. Some of the 250 writers and 100 performers attending from round the world cannot be blamed for feeling the chill of the Salman effect.
In other ways, too, the Lit Fest has acquired the trappings of a glamorous prodigy. The Thursday evening curtain-raiser used to be a cosy gathering of writers and guests around bonfires on the festival lawns. This week, replete with full-on maharaja regalia, it transferred to the formal gardens of the Rambagh Palace: liveried torch-bearers escorted individual guests down rose-strewn paths and the generous bar offered cocktails with names like “Ondaatje Slammer”, “Dalrymple Breezer”, “Kunzru Punch” and the “Boo Woo” — the last named after The New Yorker writer Katherine Boo, whose non-fiction account of a Mumbai slum is one of the most keenly anticipated titles of 2012. (“It’s horrible,” she said of the drink.)
There is a terrific choice of writers and themes, with specials on drama and poetry. Playwrights Tom Stoppard, David Hare, Girish Karnad, Ariel Dorfman, Kiran Nagarkar and Asghar Wajahat are participating, and there is a section devoted to Bhakti and Sufi poets. From the US two sought-after writers are novelists Annie Proulx and Lionel Shriver. Proulx’s fiction has been turned into highly successful film adaptations such as Brokeback Mountain and The Shipping News, and the movie adaptation of Shriver’s acclaimed prize-winning novel We Need to Talk About Kevin caused a small sensation at the Cannes festival last summer, avidly discussed for its theme of a damaged mother-son relationship that culminates in the young boy going on a murderous rampage.
A commonly expressed criticism of the Jaipur Lit Fest is that it has emerged as a playground for the roistering scene-and-herd crowd, weekenders zipping in for a taste of the parties and after-hours entertainment. In my opinion, this is not at all a bad thing — if, in the bargain, they buy a book or two, queue up for author signings, ogle Oprah or lend their distracted ears at literary tables. In a ringing endorsement of the trend, leading publishers are now in competition with each other to host parties every night; to celebrate 25 years of publishing in India, Penguin Books offers a painted car with Shobhaa De posing live as an anniversary special. In the run-up to the Lit Fest opening, I began to feel faintly nauseous at the number of e-vites that poured in.
Commercially the Jaipur Lit Fest couldn’t be in better shape. Listed infrastructure and manufacturing giants, mining companies and banks are now its biggest funders; the number of sponsors large and small has grown; its budget has crossed Rs 5 crore. That doesn’t seem particularly hefty for a publishing and retail industry that has one of the healthiest profiles in the world. This year, major newspaper chains were expected to pay for sponsorships rather than enter into media partnership arrangements.
Still, it may be a while before the Lit Fest embraces art and trade sufficiently to take its place alongside international book, film and art festivals in Frankfurt, Cannes or Venice. While writing this column, the power supply went off twice in the media centre.
