My experience at Jaipur Literary festival was great! It was my first time there and I was quite excited for the same. After reaching Le Meridien by the noon and relaxing, we were ready for an enlightening Author’s evening moderated by Amrita Tripathi for Chitra Banerjee Devakaruni. It was a great session and I have written a separate post for the same.Food that evening was sumptuous and totally irresistible.
Jaipur Literary Festival
Next day morning, we were at Jaipur Literary Festival. There were many venues having discussions on current affairs, travel, fiction , religion and more. I being interested in Travel stories attended two sessions on Travel. First session was from famous authors telling their stories from life experiences and fiction.
Venue – Samvad
First session I attended was Footloose: The Travel Session
Panel comprised of Aarathi Prasad, Bee Rowlatt, Brigid Keenan, Nidhi Dugar and Simon Winchester in conversation with William Dalrymple introduced by Karan Anand Presented by Aga Khan Foundation
Venue- Charbagh
As the author told his story about seeing the same mountain having more height than he had ever noticed. He wanted to confirm and yes, he was right. The height had increased by 50 feet. An interesting, magnetic yet dreadfully lconic mountain, born from the sea.
Another author told about his story on an Italian travel writer who was going through Mary Go round in his journey of cancer, writing 6 days, he moved to Delhi at his life’s end. He decided not to go through chemo and went to Himalayas to realise life and death are two aspects of same thing. He realized that the silence outside matched the silence in him. He had moments of ecstasy. Chain of mountains, flowers to animals. Infinite now to various forms, each part held together in a same thread. Wonderful wheels of creation taking place.
Nidhi Dugar told a story of Godna ritual in a village in Rajasthan and how the girl who was undergoing the ceremony felt and reacted. As per the tradition in that village, Godna is a tattoo that has to be inscribed on girls before teenage. There was a tilak that had to be inscribed on the girl’s forehead. Blood was oozing out from girl’s forehead and she was crying profusely. To distract her attention, dancers were performing. Author felt a strong strangeness of humanness.
Per my discussion with Bee Rowlatt going away and coming back is very common. This process matures a person. If you are not travelling you are stuck. You need to discover something. She said travel had opened a blind spot for her which she will, remember throughout her life.
Williams Darylimple said travel is an ancient form of literature in the world. Wandering of Pandava Brothers, in China by Peshawas and more. He feels from emotions, pictures, unique people and collects things .
These stories were really gripping and I was totally immersed in sessions. The session was an eye opener in terms of thoughts and perspectives of various people about various things in the world.
Next session was from Khwaja Gharib Nawaz: A Message of Love with
Imtiaz Ali, Reema Abbasi and Syed Salman Chishty in conversation with Sadia Dehlvi Presented by RED FM. Being a fan of Imtiaz Ali, I had to attend this session. Panelists spread the word of love and discouraged hatred.
Session on Message of love
Another session was by panelists coming from varied parts of the world and I was super curious to know what people imagine and think on the other parts. Session was
In Many Tongues: Voices from Brazil, Iceland, Wales, Latvia, Mauritius, Luxembourg, Croatia and Macedonia: with panelists-
Angelica Freitas, Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, Eluned Gramich, Inga Žolude, Issa Asgarally, Pierre Joris, Roman Simić and Rumena Buzarovska introduced by Alexandra Buchler
Session – In many tounges
Per my discussion with Roman Simic, he said travel makes him better. He gets to know so much about the world, peoole and things. Anything that bothers him and rings a bell, he uses it later.
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir author shared a story of a lady who knew 14 languages. There is only one road – ring road. 14 languages she knows. She was driving with a travel companion-4 year old deaf on Arctic Day when there is very less time for daylight. People prefer to stasy at hime in Arctic Day. But, she drove with a little boy. There were many sheep on roads. She ran over a sheep and will cook it. Whatever animal she runs over, she cooks.
This story intrigued many questions in my mind.
There is a world beyond languages. Police doesn’t carry weapons. There is no army or military service in Iceland.
Issa Asgarally threw light on languages of the world. He said , about 7000 spoken languages are spoken and only 400 are written. Mauritius is a country with 1.4m population with 12 spoken languages of various origin. Bhojpuri, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu n Marathi, Hindi and Urdu. If a cvountry has 14 languages, its as good sign. Country with onlky 5 spoken languyages is not a good sign. As per him, one language used in a country is tragic.
By this time, I had learnt and observed lots of stuff. Each session was a learning for me.
Premises also had a big sign board where people could sign and a tree would be planted against it. Thee were enough conveniences, food stalls. Book store was also there. Overall, a great event tho attend! I thoroughly enjoyed Jaipur Literary Festival. I hope I could create curiosity in you too to attend the same. Kindly provide feedback
Nidhi KM
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