Books in the running brooks

          

I was at the Bangalore Lit Fest last week. Ever since I moved from Calcutta to Bangalore some years ago, I have been meaning to attend the BLF, to accord the festival its popular acronym. However, something or the other arrived to militate against my putting in an appearance. I reckoned that I was the poorer for it. As one who is never happier than when curled up with a Wodehouse on my umpteenth reading or the impressive offerings of the Amis father and son duo, Kingsley and Martin, or indeed, any of the great contributors and editors of the now defunct Punch magazine, I sorely missed the Fest. Even if I was not sorely missed by anyone.  I decided to make amends this year and registered my name online to indicate my eagerness to attend. Not that anyone checked. I just breezed in and there I was, surrounded by bookworms, bravely shouldering my way through a throng of eager beavers soaking in the heady atmosphere of intellect and erudition.

Wonderful thing, reading. And books. Which puts me in mind of one of Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson’s (The Finkler Question) columns where he had recommended the following succinct slogan for World Book Day: “‘Read, read, you little bastards,’ the exhortation to be delivered by a masked flagellator sent to every school in the land. A proposal the organisers rejected, presumably on the grounds that ‘little bastards’ contains too many syllables for the little bastards to read.”

During my days in Calcutta, winter gatherings of book lovers did not carry the impressive, some might even say pretentious, title of a literary festival. Plain and simple, it was just known as the Calcutta Book Fair. The exhibition, for that was what it was when you got right down to it, consisted of a plethora of book stalls, telescoping into each other, vying for space and attention. Publishers, famous and modest, advertised their presence and impressive titles on view in the local newspapers. It goes without saying that there were food stalls aplenty (‘the phees phry coated with mustard is to die for’), and cotton candy vendors dotting the grounds attracting children and parents alike. Not to mention the almost statutory Ferris wheel to keep the kids in good humour. It was a fair after all.

 In a separate enclosure, someone quite well known will present a talk on Rabindranath Tagore or dwell at length on Shelley’s influence on Bengali poetry and literature. It was an elevating day out for the family, students and the local intelligentsia, of which there was no dearth in our City of Joy. Boys were there to impress the girls (‘Have you read Salinger’s Franny and Zooey? You haven’t? Eeesh!). The girls were not found wanting with their tart response either (‘And have you even heard of Kafka’s Amerika, and don’t keep showing off about The Metamorphosis. We have all read it.’) And so the long day wears on as the mermaids sang each to each over several cups of tea and T.S. Eliot. ‘Hurry up please, it’s time.’

Pardon me if I droned on a bit about the Calcutta Book Fair, but to me it was an interesting counterpoint to what I witnessed at the Bangalore Lit Fest. First off, I must express more than a smidgen of sympathy for the organisers of the Fest as they were done in by the now infamous Indigo imbroglio resulting in quite a few prominent no-shows. That said, Shashi Tharoor made it as advertised and greatly anticipated. Hurrah, all is well! I will come to Tharoor in a bit. Bangalore based, much-admired historian Ramachandra Guha was spotted flitting about in a hurry (perhaps avoiding selfie hunters) while his budding author scion, Keshava held court with aplomb at a couple of the panel discussions. More celebrity spotting was to be there for the taking in the forms of International Booker Banu Mushtaq, Sudha Murthy, Vir Das and Pallavi Aiyar, to name just a handful off the top of my head. There were many more, in spite of Indigo’s shenanigans. Given the largely open environment, one was grateful that the fickle rain gods stayed away.

A word about the venue. What was once a prison has now been converted, with not a little imagination by the powers-that-be into a huge venue for all manner of gatherings – cultural and political. Organised protests also find a welcoming space here. Formerly the Central Jail, it is now called, appropriately, Freedom Park. Famous political leaders have done time here behind bars. Spread over a sprawling 21-acre land space Freedom Park, even without any event happening, is worth the trek for its curiosity value alone. With its imposing Central Watch Tower, Cell Blocks, Gallows and Sculpted Prisoners among other attractions, any student of history can spend an instructive afternoon in what is nothing less than a historic museum.

In the event, the organisers of the BLF should be commended for using intimate, and understandably constricted, prison spaces cunningly to organise panel discussions amongst authors and moderators. Wide open spaces were devoted to erecting large covered shamianas and a stage to conduct similar events. These spaces were used simultaneously to provide the general public with a packed feast of programmes. So much so that at times many visitors were found frantically poring through the supplied brochures to figure out which event they ought to be attending. As mentioned earlier, it didn’t help that some of the star speakers could not make it to Bangalore.

The food courts, to coin a term, were full to brimming. At one point, not finding room at any of the panel discussions and feeling peckish, I sauntered towards the eating joints, not knowing exactly where they were located. Spotting a group of young men and women in animated discussion, I asked them where the cafes or canteens were. They asked me to stay put exactly where I was as that is where the interminable queue ends. Moving at a swift snail’s pace, I guessed it would take me at least another hour to buy coupons and stand in another line to get my egg roll and Coke, if they had not been sold out by then. Happily, I found a friend holding two veg sandwiches walking by. To stop him and grab one of the sandwiches was with me the work of a moment. He was that kind of friend. At least, I wouldn’t collapse in a heap for some while.

Time to get to the climactic part of the evening. Shashi Tharoor in the spotlight, topping the bill. Hordes of men, women, boys and girls were seen rushing and descending on the venue like the ancient Assyrian, collectively coming down like the wolf on the fold. If the boffins at the BLF, troubled by the Indigo setback and consequent loss of important speakers, needed a celebrity to get the pulses racing, the politico cum writer cum eloquent orator, he of the dulcet tones was just the man they needed. As the gloaming set in on Freedom Park, the Shashi Tharoor show commenced. I am in no position to share with you details of what must have been a riveting finale. I could not see or hear a thing. Standing room only, miles from the proceedings. Rubberneckers stood on tip-toe well outside the packed venue to get a peek at the personable Congressman. Just as well Arundhati Roy or Vikram Seth was not there, else bedlam would have ensued. I wished the rubberneckers well and made hasty tracks towards the parking lot.

One concluding observation on the BLF. Almost every panel discussion ended with an invitation to the stalls where the books of the authors were displayed. Orderly queues were formed as visitors, having presented their mobile phone face to the ubiquitous QR Code, clutched their books and waited avidly for the author to autograph the flyleaf of the book and perhaps, agree to a selfie for good measure. This has now become standard practice, an integral part of book fairs, or lit fests as they have been upgraded to. Let us face it. Authors must put food on the table as well, and every little bit added to what they have already got makes just that bit more. That said, Lit Fests are now part and parcel of India’s cultural and literary landscape. Every important city has one. The downside of all this excess dabbling in book releases (can there ever be too much?) is that it can inevitably breed mediocrity. More can be less. The brilliant polemicist, the late Christopher Hitchens did not mince words on the subject. ‘Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.’

Finis.