WD
was taking about how Rushdie lives on in the US on a "culture" visa and
how he (WD) needs to arrange for accreditation as a journalist to stay
in India. I hope our government begins a culture visa program too. (Shashi Kolar - https://www.facebook.com/shashi.kolar.7)
From Farah: https://www.facebook.com/farah.dailystar
Day 2 at the Bangalore Lit Fest has been hectic, eventful and in parts, rather wonderful. One of the highlights, for me, was the session with the amazing novelist Shashi Deshpande (onstage alongside two best-selling authors and two publishers, as part of a discussion ably moderated by Karthika). I especially loved Shashi's response to all the conventional wisdom about the necessity of social media hype for authors, tracking sales through spreadsheets etc, making sure your story 'hook' was up by page 12/18/36/whatever, and the various horror stories about authors who send laddoos to book-store staff, and buy up thousands of copies of their own books in order to beat the numbers game and make it to the best-seller lists. She spoke out robustly, pointing out that she DIDN'T use social media, and had never even sent anyone laddoos, *let alone* bought copies of her own books to boost sales - and yet people were still buying her books! Yay for those writers who just write so beautifully that people buy their books because of their talent rather than their social media profile/performance skills Another highlight for me came while I was lining up to have her new book signed by Shashi-ji, and someone actually approached *me*, while I was in the queue, to sign a book for them, following it up with an impassioned feedback on my panel earlier in the day!
In fact, our panel - supported by HIMAL Southasian - was surprisingly lively and well-attended, especially given that it coincided with not only lunchtime, but also a simultaneous panel of very talented Indian writers, which I would have liked to have attended myself! The five of us onstage represented Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and our moderator was there as, in her words, the token Indian! Some interesting issues were raised in the discussion on "The South Asian Voice: Writing for Ourselves": among other things, on who defines identity (Ashok Ferry from Sri Lanka said that he considers nationalism anathema to creativity), how the wider issues in the region impact individual countries (Babar Ayaz talked about the politics of terrorism and his book "What's Wrong with Pakistan?") and who writers write for as an audience (I suggested that it might be best to write for oneself, and think about who might want to read it afterwards ).
The atmosphere at the festival today was lovely - the fragrance of freshly-spun cotton candy mingling with deshi street food (phuchka, different kinds of chaat, dosas etc), people scattered over the emerald green lawns listening intently to their chosen set of panellists while a gentle breeze took the edge off the unseasonal heat, eager questioning - and occasional fireworks - from the audiences, and children running around with broad grins on their faces and books in their hands, while smiling adults browsed through their own recently-purchased treasures. Wish you were all here!
=======================================================================
Day 3 at the Bangalore Lit Fest ended on a distinctly high note. Some of the highlights of this festival (for me) have included the following:
Sessions where you were given important insights into the minds of authors - albeit not always the kind of insights you might have expected. For example, at a panel of the crime and fantasy writers, Anita Nair revealed that her preferred method of knocking someone off would be cooking them a mushroom omelette; Madhulika Liddle went wider and more non-specific, perhaps in order to insure against the discovery of future sins, saying simply that she would go for a plant-based method - perhaps something like oleander, widely available and highly effective; but the wickedly funny Nilanjana S Roy as usual took the cake, saying that as an animal-lover, she favoured feeding enemies to the crocodiles at the ghariyal reserve near her home - thereby making the animals happy *and* getting rid of the evidence
Spot-on observations were forthcoming from Ashok Vajpeyi, who said that literary festivals are an easy way of making writers feel important and noticed - and that this is particularly helpful, given that most authors' sense of unimportance is so deep that the opportunity to participate in a lit fest provides an important morale booster! William Dalrymple took this argument even further, helpfully pointing out that authors are also cheap, relative to say rock stars, since they will come to a lit fest just for the opportunity of being heard, and without expectations of significant remuneration
One of the nicest things in Bangalore was meeting old friends, making an unexpected number of new friends, and crossing paths with Facebook friends, family friends, friends of friends and *relatives* of friends! This might go down as the friendliest festival yet
Add to that opportunities such as the meeting with Lavanya Sankaran, whose book "The Red Carpet" I read and loved years ago, and hitting it off with her unexpectedly well - or realising that Jahnavi Barua whose novel I just bought on a whim, is in fact the author of an excellent collection of short stories "Next Door" I read and loved a couple of years ago - and the serendipity factor at BLF will become apparent.
My one objection is that we were lured here with promises of 'salubrious' weather, and it has been insalubriously warm, not least today! But to complain about that would be utterly graceless, so I must let it pass. Besides, the heat gave me some of the most memorable mental 'snapshots' of the day: the little girl sitting spellbound under one of the canopies with her parents, while her father read to her from a new book (presumably part of her festival haul); the people sitting happily with their delicious snacks under a tree with heavy foliage and dense lower branches hanging some three feet above the ground, thereby ensuring coolness for those who sought shelter underneath it; and a young mother with a lovely three year old boy, sitting on the grass with their paper plates of chhola batura and dosas, and conversing animatedly with each other about the activities at the festival Thank you, BLF, for all of this!
From Farah: https://www.facebook.com/farah.dailystar
Day 2 at the Bangalore Lit Fest has been hectic, eventful and in parts, rather wonderful. One of the highlights, for me, was the session with the amazing novelist Shashi Deshpande (onstage alongside two best-selling authors and two publishers, as part of a discussion ably moderated by Karthika). I especially loved Shashi's response to all the conventional wisdom about the necessity of social media hype for authors, tracking sales through spreadsheets etc, making sure your story 'hook' was up by page 12/18/36/whatever, and the various horror stories about authors who send laddoos to book-store staff, and buy up thousands of copies of their own books in order to beat the numbers game and make it to the best-seller lists. She spoke out robustly, pointing out that she DIDN'T use social media, and had never even sent anyone laddoos, *let alone* bought copies of her own books to boost sales - and yet people were still buying her books! Yay for those writers who just write so beautifully that people buy their books because of their talent rather than their social media profile/performance skills Another highlight for me came while I was lining up to have her new book signed by Shashi-ji, and someone actually approached *me*, while I was in the queue, to sign a book for them, following it up with an impassioned feedback on my panel earlier in the day!
In fact, our panel - supported by HIMAL Southasian - was surprisingly lively and well-attended, especially given that it coincided with not only lunchtime, but also a simultaneous panel of very talented Indian writers, which I would have liked to have attended myself! The five of us onstage represented Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and our moderator was there as, in her words, the token Indian! Some interesting issues were raised in the discussion on "The South Asian Voice: Writing for Ourselves": among other things, on who defines identity (Ashok Ferry from Sri Lanka said that he considers nationalism anathema to creativity), how the wider issues in the region impact individual countries (Babar Ayaz talked about the politics of terrorism and his book "What's Wrong with Pakistan?") and who writers write for as an audience (I suggested that it might be best to write for oneself, and think about who might want to read it afterwards ).
The atmosphere at the festival today was lovely - the fragrance of freshly-spun cotton candy mingling with deshi street food (phuchka, different kinds of chaat, dosas etc), people scattered over the emerald green lawns listening intently to their chosen set of panellists while a gentle breeze took the edge off the unseasonal heat, eager questioning - and occasional fireworks - from the audiences, and children running around with broad grins on their faces and books in their hands, while smiling adults browsed through their own recently-purchased treasures. Wish you were all here!
=======================================================================
Day 3 at the Bangalore Lit Fest ended on a distinctly high note. Some of the highlights of this festival (for me) have included the following:
Sessions where you were given important insights into the minds of authors - albeit not always the kind of insights you might have expected. For example, at a panel of the crime and fantasy writers, Anita Nair revealed that her preferred method of knocking someone off would be cooking them a mushroom omelette; Madhulika Liddle went wider and more non-specific, perhaps in order to insure against the discovery of future sins, saying simply that she would go for a plant-based method - perhaps something like oleander, widely available and highly effective; but the wickedly funny Nilanjana S Roy as usual took the cake, saying that as an animal-lover, she favoured feeding enemies to the crocodiles at the ghariyal reserve near her home - thereby making the animals happy *and* getting rid of the evidence
Spot-on observations were forthcoming from Ashok Vajpeyi, who said that literary festivals are an easy way of making writers feel important and noticed - and that this is particularly helpful, given that most authors' sense of unimportance is so deep that the opportunity to participate in a lit fest provides an important morale booster! William Dalrymple took this argument even further, helpfully pointing out that authors are also cheap, relative to say rock stars, since they will come to a lit fest just for the opportunity of being heard, and without expectations of significant remuneration
One of the nicest things in Bangalore was meeting old friends, making an unexpected number of new friends, and crossing paths with Facebook friends, family friends, friends of friends and *relatives* of friends! This might go down as the friendliest festival yet
Add to that opportunities such as the meeting with Lavanya Sankaran, whose book "The Red Carpet" I read and loved years ago, and hitting it off with her unexpectedly well - or realising that Jahnavi Barua whose novel I just bought on a whim, is in fact the author of an excellent collection of short stories "Next Door" I read and loved a couple of years ago - and the serendipity factor at BLF will become apparent.
My one objection is that we were lured here with promises of 'salubrious' weather, and it has been insalubriously warm, not least today! But to complain about that would be utterly graceless, so I must let it pass. Besides, the heat gave me some of the most memorable mental 'snapshots' of the day: the little girl sitting spellbound under one of the canopies with her parents, while her father read to her from a new book (presumably part of her festival haul); the people sitting happily with their delicious snacks under a tree with heavy foliage and dense lower branches hanging some three feet above the ground, thereby ensuring coolness for those who sought shelter underneath it; and a young mother with a lovely three year old boy, sitting on the grass with their paper plates of chhola batura and dosas, and conversing animatedly with each other about the activities at the festival Thank you, BLF, for all of this!
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