Would you
like to accompany me to the JLF? The question poppled my rather still consciousness and the
struggling juggler in me was yearning to get the feel of what JLF had to offer.
It was still time and I rushedly got my
tickets etc done, lest the family change their mind of letting me go. That my
friend stepped out of the plan thanks to
other commitments is a different story altogether, but that she set off a spark
in me to go ahead with the plan is what I’d be eternally appreciative of.
As I set foot
at the venue, Diggy Palace, a huge surge of youthful energy welcomed me. “Wow”,
I said to myself, “Let me see what else is in store for me”. Diggy palace is a
story to behold. Each nook and cranny enchants you with a tale. A haveli turned
into a hotel, with a unique antiquity about it.
Strolling
past the delightful, multihued puppets adorning the place, I found myself in
the midst of the intelligentsia with a spectrum of subjects unfolding in each
session. What was largely unanticipated was that the various lawns were
brimming with enthusiasts in their teens, 20s and 30 among the younger ones in
their 40s and 50s. It was heartening to
see the youth positively channelizing
their vivacity.
Though much
has been said about JLf and that too with great expression, I too, in my
limited capacity, would love to collect my thoughts and put them on paper, or rather
screen.
If I talk
about attending a session with Shashi Tharoor and Salman Khurshid, the speakers
and the moderators were such that my disinterest in politics didn’t matter to
me all of a sudden.
Listening to Javed Akhtar talk about the
intricacies of literature, poetry and cinema left me spellbound. Even more
striking was the view around me, when Javed Saab uttered a beautiful line from
one of his father’s poems, and the enraptured
pack cheered with frenzy, asking for more.
My experience
of a lifetime was a live encounter with Gulzarr Saab, the distance between us, turning immaterial, with the informal hums of
his voice taking centrestage. The jovial remarks he passed every now and then
kept us all upbeat. The hour and a half long session ended in a few minutes..
fortunate were those who got a personal signature from him on his latest book .
Besides literature,
experts from the field of medicine, Dr Atul Gawande and Aarathi Prasad kept me
completely hooked to their conversation addressing the issues of ageing, a good
life, mortality, stories of his own patients and reading excerpts from his book
Being mortal.
It was lovely
to be a part of the various insightful sessions with Ronnie Screwala, Kajol, Karan
johar, Sangeeta Dutta and the likes, who brought out Bollywood and its ways
interestingly. The remarkable story of Rituparno Ghosh gave out the fact that
his absence has been bitterly felt by the masses in Bengal.
The colorful
venue got even more color with the variety of food and merchandise to buy. On the
flip side, it carried more expense but that was the way it was.
Rightly described
as the “greatest literary show on earth”, JLF has at its roots literateurs, William
Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale, who made sure, the festival was as structured as
it could be. Great thought and effort had gone into designing the festival with
humour, poetry, storytelling, children, partition, mythology, tigers and food to name just a few of the subjects
under scrutiny.
The brand JLF
boasted of connoisseurs Shobhaa de, MJ Akbar, Ruskin bond, Manish Mehrotra,
Avirook Sen, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Swapan Dasgupta and the list goes on as I shuffle
my notes from the JLF. I am sure , I have not justified the grandeur and beauty
of the event, but as I said earlier, this article is an offering of a mind of limited
capacity. To soak oneself in the literary juices, I strongly recommend you to
go and pay a vist to Jaipur next January.
By the way,
already declared to the family about my plans for Jan 2017. Suggest you do the
same!!! ;)
