editor’s note – It has been brought to our notice that our blogger is struggling to keep up with the deluge of simultaneous sessions spitting out ideas ranging from the sublime to the mundane. There is, apparently, Just Too Much Going On. A few hastily written notes, marred with metaphysical coffee stains (or whisky?) have nonetheless arrived in the post this morning. Here are a few (annotated) recollections…
East South Asia, moderated by Prashant Jha (Nepal); with Tshering Tashi (Bhutan), Pradyot Burman (Tripura), L. Somi Roy (Manipur), Wipas Srithong (Thailand)
When L. Somi Roy checked into a Jaipur hotel two days ago and showed his Indian passport to a receptionist, he was asked, “Where is your visa?” “We know this is just ignorance,” said Pradyot Burman, “but this is also an aspect of Indian reality. It takes me about forty-five minutes from Tripura to get to Thailand, but it took me about eight hours to come to Jaipur.” Tripura is the third smallest Indian state, located in India’s northeast region.
The idea of East South Asia is largely hypothetical, said Prashant Jha during his introduction to the panel, but it’s important to discuss the concept and tease out what that means in terms of the regional boundaries and its hidden narratives. “Naming has mythical, magical powers,” added L. Somi Roy. The panelists discussed how the region comprising the northeastern part of India and the eastern part of South Asia is generally ignored and misunderstood, and largely detached from mainstream conversations. “The Northeast should be viewed as an integral part of India, and not through the lens of foreign policy,” said Burman.
ed’s note – We just don’t want Nepal to be viewed as an integral part of India, right? On a more serious note, this year’s fest disappoints in the dearth of writers representing Nepal, with the exception of the exceptional Prashant Jha, who is one of several writers who published in 2014. Nepal may not be ignored by the wider world, but remains generally misunderstood – we’d have loved our writers to explain us on these stages.
The Conflict of Dharma in the Mahabharata, introduced by Namita Gokhale; with Amish Tripathi and Bibek Debroy
The Mahabharata is a multilayered text that has undergone several rewrites over the centuries. Full morally and ethically ambiguous characters. It vies for the title of “the greatest story ever told”. In this morning session, publishing phenomenon Amish Tripathi and well-known professor Bibek Debroy drew a large crowd.
“I don’t like it when people think the word dharma means religion. That is simply wrong,” Debroy said passionately. In his interpretation, its meaning largely depends on context. It could be related to the four varnas (social classes) and four ashrams (shelter). Or it could simply mean good behaviour or conduct. Sometimes dharma also means governance. And finally, dharma means “last resort”, a person’s individual choice, without any notions of what is right and what is wrong.
ed’s note – Is it a coincidence that Amish Tripathi, who vies with Dan Brown as much in the quality of his prose as the scale of his sales, is launching a trilogy on Ram Rajya? I for one am not surprised our blogger couldn’t recall anything that Tripathi said at this session – all I recall from his presence at the Nepal Literature Festival a couple of years back is the gratuitously chummy line he’d throw out at audience members asking him questions that he never really answered: “What’s your name, buddy?”
The Murty Classical Library of India, moderated by Sharmila Sen; with Rohan Murty, Sheldon Pollock, Navtej Sarna, Rakhsanda Jalil, Maithree Wickramasinghe, C. Mrunalini, Yatindra Mishra
When Computer Science student Rohan Murty took a course on Indian philosophy at Harvard, he was amazed at the unavailability of ancient Indian texts. He founded the Murty Classical Library of India and successfully initiated a project with the Harvard University Press that has committed to translate about five ancient Indian texts into English every year for an indefinite amount of time.
Rohan Murty spoke eloquently about how he was largely unaware of India’s literary tradition and the intelligence and scholarship that come from hundreds of languages. With the intention of introducing the text to the world and to other Indians like himself “who don’t yet know where we come from,” he involved Professor Sheldon Pollock, who is now the general editor of Murty Classical Library.
During the session, participants read excerpts of original texts and translations from old Punjabi, Persian, Pali, Telegu and Brij Bhasa.
ed’s note – Sheldon Pollock was the keynote speaker at Jaipur a few years back. I still recall his impassioned speech on behalf of India’s regional languages as he warned of a “silent spring” that could mean Indians would lose the capacity to comprehend literatures that had been written in classical regional languages until quite recently, and thereby their access to “different ways of being”. In Modi’s India, there may only be one way to be.
Clearing a Space between Fact and Fiction, Raj Kamal Jha and Amit Chaudhary in conversation with Ashok Ferrey.
How do writers situate reality in their fiction? When Indian Express Chief Editor Raj Kamal Jha read from his latest work of fiction, She Will Build Him a City, it was difficult to decipher where the action was taking place – in the character’s mind, imagination, or was she narrating details from real life? “So you have sort of sliced up the character’s brain and just jotted down fragmented thoughts?” asked Ashok Ferrey. “Well, that’s how we think. That’s how the brain works,” replied Jha. The writer went on to talk about his professional experience as a journalist – being exposed to hundreds of stories every week – and how “life is part shock, part horror, part romance”; the line between fact and fiction is not always clear.
Amit Chaudhary, as usual, had insightful and thought-provoking comments to add to the discussion. He enlarged the conversation to encompass what good art really is, where inspiration comes from, and what kind of resources artists need. Chaudhary, an award-winning novelist, is also a prolific essayist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia.
ed’s note – And we end in anticipation of more from the Jaipur Literature Festival. I have duly reassured our blogger that yes, that feeling of mental overstimulation, that too many lights are popping on in one’s brain at the same time, combined with the more mundane desire to mingle and jingle, is quite normal at these things, and that I understand that he does not really want to go back to his hotel and hunker over his laptop. But word(s) must get out.
