Jaipur Literature Festival (Day Five)

Continued from Day 4.

Day 5: 25th January 2011

So I got ready and went to attend the last day of the festival. I was already very

upset about the fact that I had missed on the first two days, and then on 25th I was standing at the venue for what seemed to me like the last day of fun!

10a.m. -11a.m. - The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid in conversation with Chandrahas Choudhury

Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani author who is known to have created characters in his novels which very shrewdly oppose the reader's stereotypes about a Pakistani national.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is his second novel with one such protagonist. Mohsin shared his difficulty of getting the approval of his editor on the first draft of this novel. His editor thought that the reader won't buy a story of a successful Muslim guy, feeling a strange tension in his life in America.

A couple of months later after September 11 he said, "By the way, Mohsin, this book you are writing...." :)

The moderator then discussed the use of punctuation marks in writing and especially comma.

Mohsin then illustrated how punctuation can be used as a musical notation and as a grammatical one.

Chandrahas then went on to discuss his method of writing, specifically as to how he divides time between writing and his job. As some may know, he holds a dual citizenship of Pakistan and UK. He frequents Lahore specifically to write.

So to this question, author answered that for him writing comes out of tension and living in Pakistan brings a lot of tension!

11a.m. -12p.m. - Writing in the 1980's - Martin Amis and Jay McInerney in conversation with Nilanjana Roy

A very interesting session with two authors of quick wit! The session was concentrated on how was the experience of writing for both the authors in the decade of 80's which was quite a happening one as it witnessed a lot of change.

On the whole decade thing Martin Amis said, "When you’re 40, the feeling that you have had so long, which is knowing intellectually that you’re going to die but somehow convinced that you will be the one single exception to the rule, disappears. When you turn 50, something happens to you that has never happened to you before: the past. Once you turn 60, there’s another feeling that happens to you: ‘This isn’t going so well.’ So you live your own decades, not the ones announced by the calendar."

For budding writers both the authors said that the first book of any writer is and should be about his own experience. The time to break the rule comes later. Adding to it Martin Amis said, "When a writer is born in a family, that is the end of that family!"

12p.m. -1p.m. - Descent Into Chaos - Ahmed Rashid in conversation with William Dalrymple

William introduced Ahmed as the man who probably has the most fatwas sent against him by extremist groups all around the world. And so his first question to Ahmed was, "How have you made till here??"

Ahmed Rashid has been among Foreign Policy Magazine's top 100 thinkers for two years in a row. He is a journalist by profession who has spent a major time in Afghanistan at least before 9/11; as he was banned by Taliban post the release of his much-acclaimed book 'Taliban'.

Ahmed took the audience through the years in which the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, and its aftermath.

But someone in the audience was not as impressed as all the others.

After William was done asking his final question (‘Why don’t the ISI recognize that they’re screwing over their own country?’), he welcomed the Pakistani Ambassador to India, Shahid Malik, to express his opinion and so the Ambassador said acidly. “Thanks for the opportunity to speak, William; I respect Mr Rashid’s work tremendously, but perhaps you had better stick to writing about Sufis and Mughals.”

2:30p.m. - 3:30p.m. - The Alchemy of Writing and the Challenge of India - Tarun Tejpal in conversation with Manu Joseph

Ohk so from where should I start telling you!

Tarun Tejpal might not be the best of the orators but he sure does has unique experience to share.

Here are the links to the complete discussion:

- Part 1

- Part 2

3:30p.m. -4:30p.m. - Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh in conversation with Jeet Thayill

When Irvine Welsh read from “Skagboys” the prequel to his cult hit “Trainspotting” in his harsh melodic Scottish brogue, latecomers to the session thought they’d walked into a poetry slam.

Each of his sentences was end-stopped verse, and paragraphs were measured by caesuras.

An unsettling narrative surfaced about a young man settling into a weekly routine for jacking off his disabled brother to a twee television show personality.

In that emotionally and politically loaded sexual sequence, Welsh still got to the dark heart of humor, using expansive gestures to animate his reading.

And thus ended the Jaipur Literature Festival 2011!

Hope I will make it to next year too and for all the five days! :)