JAIPUR LITERATURE FESTIVAL

The 17th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) ended a few days back. As in the past, it was vastly attended and a resounding success.

JLF had a very humble beginning in January 2006. It was conceived by well-known authors, Namita  Gokhale and William Dalrymple. They roped in Sanjoy Roy, head of the event management company, Teamwork Arts, as the Producer and held the first edition in a small heritage hotel, Diggi Palace, with free entry. A total of 18 writers including Gokhale and Dalrymple participated and around 100 people attended. As Dalrymple put it, most "appeared to be tourists who had simply got lost!"

Truth be told, my story of the discovery of the Festival is on similar lines. After my retirement from the Navy and settling down in Delhi, Akhila and I regularly visited Mummy in Jaipur starting mid-January and staying till after Mummy's birthday on 3 February. It was the same in 2006. Our house is a stone's throw, albeit a strong one, from Diggi Palace Hotel. On arrival from Delhi that afternoon, we saw a fairly large crowd on the road leading to the Hotel and inquired from our well-informed maid what was going on. She said Amitabh Bachchan was coming for a book launch, hence the crowd, and that was that. 

In the evening, with no intention of going anywhere, we changed into our sleeping clothes when we heard some nice music emanating from the Hotel. Curious, we wrapped ourselves in shawls and walked to the Hotel. There, on the lawn, a live concert was in progress and we sat down and listened to some entertaining music.

Further inquiries revealed all that was part of a literature festival that was being staged at the Hotel. We took a copy of the programme and returned the next morning to listen to some interesting discussions. And then decided to attend items of interest at the rest of the Festival.

Next year, we came to Jaipur as usual and were glad to find that another edition of the Festival was scheduled. We attended that as well and discovered that the Festival was going to be an annual feature. From then on, we have been attending every edition of the Festival barring 2022 at the height of the Covid pandemic.

Gokhale and Dalrymple's idea had caught on and every year the numbers of writers/speakers and attendees rose exponentially. In just four years in 2010, there were 172 authors and speakers and 30000 attendees. By 2015, it was clear that Diggi Palace could not handle the huge crowd and the evening music programmes which were part of the Festival were shifted to Hotel Clarks Amer. 

In 2021, the Festival could not be staged live due to Covid and a Virtual edition was held. The normal Festival was resumed in 2022 but the venue shifted to Clarks Amer and attendees had to pay a small fee. To maintain past connect with Diggi Palace, names of the five intra-venues were retained, Front Lawn, Char Bagh, Mughal Tent, Durbar Hall and Baithak. Also, the Festival was now available both on-ground as well as on-line. In 2023, its digital reach was said to be over 250 million and digital views over 25 million.

Names of speakers at past Festivals read like a Who's-Who of literature. They include Nobel laureates JM Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk and Sir VS Naipaul, Booker Prize winners Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Pico Iyer, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood and Geetanjali Shree, Sahitya Akademi awardees Vikram Seth, Ashok Vajpeyi, Girish Karnad, Gulzar and Javed Akhtar, and literary superstars Amish Tripathi and Chetan Bhagat. Going beyond literature, Nobel laureates Dalai Lama and Amartya Sen, and eminent personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, the late APJ Abdul Kalam and Oprah Winfrey have participated in the Festivals.

In 2013, Ruchir was on stage discussing his maiden book, "Breakout Nations", with Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and head of Infosys.

Over the years, the Festival has expanded internationally and has been held in US, UK, Canada, Australia, Qatar, Maldives and Spain, preserving the brand name 'Jaipur Literature Festival'. From the small beginning, it is now described as 'the greatest literary show on earth.' 

Inaugurating the 2024 Festival, Diya Kumari, Rajasthan Deputy Minister and Minister of Finance, Tourism, Art, Literature and Culture, and other departments, stated that 'The contribution of the Literature Festival to the city of Jaipur in terms of tourism in just 5 days is more than what the Department of Tourism does in an entire year' and that 'The organisers have put Jaipur on the world map with JLF.' Strong words indeed from the state tourism minister herself!

This year, over 250 speakers participated and over 4,00,000 people attended the Festival. Prominent foreign authors included Paul Lynch, Booker Prize winner for "The Prophet Song", Kal Bird, Pulitzer Prize winner for "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer", Bonnie Garmus, "Lessons in Chemistry", and Nicholas Shakespeare, "Ian Fleming: The Complete Man". Among Indian speakers were Neerja Chowdhury, SY Qureshi, Sudha Murthy, Margaret Alva, Navin Chawla, Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj.

Of particular interest to me was the discussion on a book "Guardians of the Seas" by Rear Admiral SK Gupta, MVC, and Commodore Gurnam Singh, conducted by Commodore Srikant Kesnur. The book tells the naval story of the '71 war highlighting the operations of the aircraft carrier "Vikrant" and the Seahawk squadron which Adm Gupta, then a Lt Cdr, commanded. Lt Cdr Gupta led the first air attack on East Pakistan and was given a hero's welcome on his successful return by being garlanded and carried round the flight deck on the shoulders of the ground crew. Many more attacks followed till the eventual surrender and birth of Bangladesh. I was on Vikrant on the operational staff of the Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet with a ringside view of all operations and can relive them vividly. Lt Cdr Gupta's brave actions were accorded recognition with the award of Mahavir Chakra to him. It was great meeting him after many years; our acquaintance dates back to 1956 when, as cadets in 'King' squadron, NDA, he was the Squadron Cadet Captain and I, two years his junior. Also nice was spending time with Cmde Kesnur who is a fellow Communications specialist.

There was naval touch in another discussion when Tarun Tahiliani spoke about his book on fashion. Tarun is the son of late Admiral Tahiliani, ex-Chief of the Naval Staff.

Curtains came down on the 2024 Festival with the customary Writers Ball wherein all the participants and sponsors are invited along with a small number of guests. It is said that a person invited for the Ball is deemed to have ‘arrived’! Well, Akhila and I have been rooted where we have always been so we have not 'arrived' anywhere either. However, we are blessed with good friends who have facilitated our presence at the event most of the years.

A regular feature of the Ball has been the outstanding music. This year, two bands, The Bluegrass Journeymen playing Bluegrass music, a synthesis of southern American, English, Irish and Scottish music, and Chugge Khan and Rajasthan Josh providing Manganiyar folk music, first performed individually and then combined in superb fusion leading to a rousing crescendo.

Next edition, please!

Tailpiece: Naval connect. Some may not be aware of the deep connect between the Festival and the Indian Navy. Sanjoy Roy is the son of the late Vice Admiral MK 'Micky' Roy, a distinguished naval officer and aviator. He was the head of the Eastern Fleet when I was commanding Katchall, one of the Fleet ships. He liked my ship and Mrs Roy always addressed Akhila as 'Bahurani'. He retired in 1984 and I had lost touch with him. Imagine my surprise when I bumped into him at the 2009 JLF and learnt that Sanjoy was his son!

The other connect is with the owner of Diggi Palace, Ram Pratap Singh, who is married to Jyotika, daughter of another fine naval officer and pilot, Capt RN Singh. The latter has a unique achievement of having travelled from London to Delhi or vice versa by air, sea and land, the last by driving a car all the way with two colleagues after completing initial training in early-1950s in the UK.