SWEET AND SOUR

It started off as a normal, sweet trip.

In January and February, we've been going to Jaipur for many, many years and so did we this year reaching there on 25 January well in time to settle down before the start of the famous Jaipur Literature Festival (LitFest) starting on 30 January. We got in touch with friends and relatives looking forward to meeting them in the Festival and later.

The LitFest got off with a bang with William Dalrymple holding forth brilliantly on his latest book, "The Golden Road-How Ancient India Transformed The World". As against the mythical 'Silk Road', Dalrymple recounts how India spread our culture and commerce to faraway places helped by a strong shipping industry guided by favourable monsoon winds. The largest Hindu temple, nay, the largest temple of any religion, is not in India but Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Among other Southeast countries, Ramayana is celebrated in Bali, one island in Islamic Indonesia which has a big Hindu majority. Buddhism spread all over East Asia including China. And India exported spices as far as the Roman Empire and got paid in gold. Truly a golden road!

A highlight of the opening day was the presence of Rishi Sunak, ex-PM of UK, who came with his in-laws, the Murthys, to attend a session where his wife, Akshata, spoke to her author mother Sudha Murthy about the latter's book, "The Child Within". Mr. Sunak obliged by standing up and doing a smiling 'Namaste' to the audience and was cheered appreciatively.  

The next day was a big one for the Sharma clan for which as many of us as could had got together in Jaipur. The event was the introduction of the book "Purde Ke Peechhey", an autography of the popular actress Ila Arun transcripted by my cousin Anjula Bedi, herself an actress, as told to her by Ila. The two were on stage with the moderator and theatre actor and director, MK Raina. Anjula read some passages while Ila kept the home audience (Ila is from Jaipur} entertained with her tales as also some singing and dancing. Midway during the session, Raina staged a sudden walkout apparently because he felt that Kashmir's troubles were being trivialised by filmmakers. Ila, however, continued gamely and retained the enthusiastic attention of the audience.  

On the final day of the Festival the organisers came up with a masterstroke bringing about a unique and unbelievable meeting of the descendants of two great thinkers of the last century, Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi, marking it the first time that family members of Tolstoy and Gandhi physically met after their ancestors' letter exchanges more than 115 years ago. Daniil Tolstoy, great grandson of Leo, and Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma, were on stage enthralling the audience with the real life story of the extraordinary exchange of letters between the two famous men. In 1909, Leo Tolstoy, a Russian Count and renowned author, was 80 and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a lawyer in Johannesburg, half Tolstoy's age at 40. On a visit to London, Gandhiji chanced upon a revolutionary manifesto by Tolstoy,"A Letter to a Hindu", in which, drawing from his own experience of the bloody 1905 Russian Revolution and quoting from Hindu scriptures, Tolstoy urged Indians to give up violence and 'embrace love as the only path to liberation'. Gandhiji was highly impressed by the 'Letter' and wrote back to Tolstoy setting up an exchange of letters for about a year before Tolstoy passed away in November 1910. Non-violence thus became Gandhiji's philosophy and to start with, he opened a Tolstoy farm outside Johannesburg where Satyagrahis could gather.  

The curtain to JLF 2025 was drawn with the customary Writer's Ball where a good time was had by all with sumptuous food and dancing to the music of a jugalbandi of Western and Rajasthani Manganiar music.

Akhila and I had planned on spending about 10 days in Jaipur after the LitFest. So we thought of taking it easy for a few days before catching up with friends and relatives. But on 6 February, Akhila developed a hacking cough and I got it soon after. As advised by a doctor friend, we started taking biochemical medicines and felt initial improvement. But suddenly our condition became worse and by 11th night, we were very ill. As advised and facilitated by our friend Rita, Pranab Roy's wife, who was recovering from a similar illness, the next morning we sought admission in a hospital and were kept in the CCU for over a day followed by 3 in a private room. Alarmed, Shumita flew to Jaipur to look after us.

We were discharged on 15th evening feeling completely debilitated and drained out. According to doctors, it was a viral infection that had affected the respiratory system. We discovered there were other victims in Jaipur including naval friend Polly Byce and his wife, Ranjana. The more we talked to people, the more we heard about cases from as far as Coorg and Varanasi. A neighbour in Delhi told us it took her 3 months to get her full strength back!   

We were advised two weeks of rest after which we returned to Delhi on 1 March. We have recovered from the infection but are still a little weak with some aches and pains.

So a sweet trip turned sour. Looking forward to an early return to 'sweet'!