This,That and the Author

People talk to people like each other at Jaipur,the way that critics claim they write. Requests to speak and moderating gigs seem to be handed out the way book contracts are,casually,to friends. But anyone can walk up to an author and start chatting,the way that,apparently,anyone can get published these days. So definitely schizophrenic. And in Jaipur,as two worldviews collide,even more so. The hail-fellow-well-met,world-traveller Friends of Willie meet the rooted,earnest,inclusive agenda of Namita Gokhale and somehow everyone gets along.

But the randomness of the sessions like random publishing decisions means choosing what to pay attention to is an art. You have to intuit whether particular authors will be comfortable on stage,whether a panel will spark off each other. The choice of moderators rarely went down well. On one occasion a stellar panel had to sit glumly and listen while the moderator,the editor of a crusading weekly newsmagazine,chatted at length about its familiar troubles and what they meant,sociologically speaking.

Then there was the Great Chetan Bhagat Fiasco. Bhagat moderated a panel titled Teen Devian. One of the three female writers on it asked confusedly why people thought she wrote for teenagers. Bhagat,who now takes his role as Indias representative socially inept engineer very seriously,came perilously close to self-parody in some of his questions: So, he asked the chick-lit writers,you like words instead of lipstick and things? When in school did you realise you were different from all the other girls? Such self-parody must be infectious. One of the teen devian,former Miss India finalist Ira Trivedi,said solemnly she had expected to win the Booker and added,Well,perhaps after this.

On the other hand,sometimes the moderator backgrounded himself perfectly,or became a welcome part of the conversation. William Dalrymple talking to Tony Wheeler of Lonely Planet was a chat between two happy travellers,a treat. Jai Arjun Singh let Roddy Doyle take off in any direction,as long as it was funny. I wear an earring because I hope my kids will rebel by not getting a piercing. Perhaps I should get a tattoo too?

Normally,writers and the public really only confront each other at the question-and-answer session. And there were certainly some memorable Qamp;A moments: like Javed Akhtar vs Steve Coll and and the Did Your Circumcision Hurt,Mr. Kureishi? question. But here you could always buttonhole them afterwards,as they sipped masala chai by the pool. The space the festival created was both constricted and democratic. Nobody could hide; there were few places where everybody was; and you could approach anybody. Not always a virtue,as Wole Soyinka discovered when he had to endure a conversation with someone who thought he was Henry Louis Gates Jr.

And it is fun to watch writers-as-audience react to other writers. During the Four Scotsmen session a bravura dissection by Dalrymple,Niall Ferguson,Alexander McCall Smith and Andrew OHagan of the Ferguson Theory that Scots invented capitalism,intelligence and Scotch,but havent done anything interesting since 1868 the real pleasure was being with Doyle in the audience,as he laughed loudly,and muttered,when the Scots momentarily paused their self-hatred to roundly anathematise the Irish: True. All true.

This might be the last year of these pleasures. The venue was stretched. The festival,just like the Indian publishing industry,should put away childish things. More professionalism,a more diverse audience and authors,perhaps. But there will be less serendipity,like discovering Amit Chaudhuri can sing pretty well. Less enforced intimacy,like hearing Ferguson swear long and loud after he finally got a sip of the free whisky. Growing up is never easy.