Jaipur Literature Festival - A‘jamboree’ of literature?

Photo clicked at Jaipur Literature- outside the registration gate.

 

Jaipur Literature Festival - A‘jamboree’ of literature?

So, like every year in January, Jaipur Literature Festival held at the cultural heritage capital of India in our very own pink city Jaipur.

Where we witness many festivals especially in cold gone winter of January where cold is not that much cold as compare to other region of world, actually, it’s pretty warm here.

Like every year, Jaipur witnessed famous Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) – the ‘Mahakumbh of literature’ held in the pleasant weather of Jaipur at the Royal Diggi Palace Hotel from 21 Jan to 25 Jan.

The 5 day festival was divided into 100* sessions (including book launches) at 6 different places at the same premises with almost 400 speakers including famous writers, entrepreneur, artist, historians and performers, which included famous authors like Margaret Atwood, Ruskin Bond, Christina Lamb, Amish Tripathi and the regular speakers like Shashi Tharoor, Shobhaa De, Madhu Trehan, Suhel Seth and Homi Bhabha and to attract more crowd, well known face like film actress Kajol, Veteran Bollywood actor, BJP executive Shatrughan Sinha, actor Anupam Kher and Cricketer Anil Kumble were also there at the festival to attract audience towards the festival by the organisers. This year the opening session (keynote) was addressed by Margaret Atwood.

Apart from its speakers and ‘celebrity speakers’, JLF is known for its freedom of expression, artistic thoughts , thought provoking sessions, meeting intellect minds and book launches and even controversies (that weren’t as heated up as the ones in the previous years.)

JLF is a place where 'words' are supreme and 'art' is superior.

It is a place where people can gain lots of wisdom and knowledge if they sincerely attend the sessions according to their interests. An attendee can learn so much from this festival itself. JLF’16 witnessed many true literati who came from all over the world to listen to their favorite authors, intellects, and laureates with utmost desire, and on the other hand there were some percentage of people, especially from the youth, who just came here for the “Selfies” and to do “time pass”, because the festival was much talked about in the news and social media because of its growing popularity. There were people who came to attend the festival just because they were bored at home and wanted to enjoy their weekend and not because of having any actual intentions to listen to those intellects and authors who came here (at JLF) from different parts of the world just to share their ideas, thoughts and opinions and have inspired many beings with their ideas, knowledge and their respective crafts. 

Every year the crowd at JLF increases and it has increased this year too (a lot more than it was expected to.)

According to the organisers, there was a "40 per cent increase in footfall, with average age of visitor being 15-25 years". So much crowd that you don’t need to go somewhere- you just have to stand at one place and the mob will take you to the desirable or undesirable place and even land you up in a session.

Most of the people in the crowd were Jaipurites and some of them were not really interested in listening to the speakers at all, only a few were true literati-who came to listen to their favorite author(s) or speaker(s).

But still, there were many people who were genuinely and sincerely attending and listening to sessions and speakers.

I, myself, witnessed many people who have never heard of names like Stephen Fry, Margaret Atwood and Christina Lamb. All what they know is names like Javed Akhtar, Anupam Kher and Chetan Bhagat (even though he did not come this time).

When I asked an acquaintance whom I met there at the fest about whose session he was looking forward to attend. His answer was “I am here for ‘Jawed Ali’."

(Actually, he mistook Javed Akhtar as Javed Ali)

Poor fellow, he didn’t even know the proper name, but he was not alone. I am sure there were many ignorant selfie clicking people who don’t even know who is "Stephen Fry"(A famous comedian) and Christina Lamb (The author who wrote "I am Malala"- on the life of Malala Yousafzai) - who were the specially invited speakers and have won many awards and recognitions from all over the world for their respective crafts.

Since social media was the driving force of most selfie activity, youngsters kept clicking selfies at various destinations and were seen posing for their social media accounts and tagging each other by claiming to be pseudo literati. In fact, Jaipur lit fest organisers put many selfie and photo clicking spots to allow people to click as many photo as they like, they made a spot where various sculptures were placed like a pig wearing a tuxedo and walking a dog, a 10 foot long sculpture of a witch holding a book in her third hand and a zombie looking sculpture which was totally made up of scraps and waste materials - a perfect spot for clicking photographs.

You could also see people with a pint of beer in one hand and a burger in the other, as there were so many stalls and kiosk at the fest just to serve you whenever you felt hungry or craved for some "less amount of alcohol” drink. It was all available there.

At the fest, I felt the need to carry a water bottle along with me because it was an impossible task to get yourself a glass of water. You could see people standing in long queue at the water place, holding their paper glasses and waiting for their turn to fill their cups. It took me almost 7-8 minutes just to fill my cup. *Sigh* it was like winning a battle or something not less than that, so I preferred carrying a water bottle with me the next day and also taking along a friend who would take care of me when I felt exhausted in the crowd and vice versa.

From 2009 to 2016 JLF witnessed many footprints and growing percentage of people coming to the fest and marking their presence with its growing popularity.

Even the royal venue "Diggi Palace" Hotel seemed to be not big enough to accommodate so much of junta. Even at the closing ceremony of JLF, one of the core organisers and founder of JLF Sanjoy K. Roy raised this concern. He said” find me a place of 40000 square feet for the next year”

Because he knew that the fest is growing in popularity every year and with the growing number of visitors, they need a bigger space than the Diggi Palace.

Mind you! Diggi is not that small, it has enough space to accommodate 10 "big fat Indian weddings" at same time but for JLF and its plethora of visitors, it seems to be insufficient.

Many media houses and people suggested that only "online registration" mode to enter the fest should be kept open and "On the spot registration" mode should be shut down- which might help genuine literature lovers- who seriously want to attend the festival without any interruptions.

But as it is a free festival some people are against the "only online registration" thing. Alas!

In Spite of the chaos, crowded Book launches and jam-packed sessions, Jaipur Literature Festival ended with a promise of coming back next year. The dates for the next year, announced by the organisers, are 19 Jan 2017 to 23 Jan 2017-which we all are looking forward to.

Feel free to share your opinions and suggestions on the concern raised above. Thank you.