Cats, Gossip, Poetry and Reportage From Day 2 at JLF 2016

All the action from day 2 of the Jaipur Literature Festival, 2016.

Artificial beings, talking dragons, and cats. That’s how day 2 commenced at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Let’s make things a little bit more understandable. We are talking about Margaret Atwood’s session, entitled The Heart Goes Last. One of the first sessions in the morning, it also turned out to be the most attended one. Atwood spoke at length about her upcoming project, a graphic novel series involving, wait for it, cats!

We were introduced to Catula, the half cat, half Dracula who will feature in Atwood’s graphic series. Talking about the idea of creating artificial beings, Atwood said that the history stretches way back, even to antiquity – the times of Homer, and ancient Mesopotamia.

Atwood signed off by answering questions from an enthralled audience, observing in passing – “Heaven forfeit, I will never re-write Shakespeare.” Yes, forfeit, not forbid.

Memory and Memoirs

In a session, rather unwittingly titled Selfie, panelists, including the mighty Stephen Fry, discussed the correlation between memory and the memoir. They also spoke of what memoirs meant personally to each of them.

Fry spoke of preserving the flawed individual, with all the human obscurities in the memoir. Acclaimed journalist Christina Lamb spoke of inserting oneself into the narrative of reportage – how the reporter features in the report he or she produces. Helen McDonald emphasised how a memoir is essentially a conversation, more often with the self.

The Long and Short of Longform

Raghu Karnad, Atul Gawande, Marie Brenner, and Alex Shoumatoff were in conversation with Jonathan Shainin. The topic of discussion – Longform.

Each of the panelists spoke of one longform story they pursued. Gawande spoke of his continuous engagement with healthcare in the United States of America (USA), and the longform articles he has done for The New Yorker. Shainin and Karnad discussed the Caravan Magazine’s tryst with the form and the fact that longform is essential in understanding social reality.

The Death of Poetry

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

An impassioned Jerry Pinto recited Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky from memory while speaking at a solo session entitled Some Ways Not to Write a Poem. “Rigid categorisation has resulted in the death of poetry,” he said.

Poetry is about silences, possibilities, elusiveness, half feelings and cold hard words that capture these.

Class Nine Gossip

“Bilingualism is a joy and privilege,” observed author Anuja Chauhan. Interestingly, through the session, Chauhan spoke on a host of ideas, ranging from language, rom-coms, love, and gossip.

“It’s embarrassing to admit that I find nothing more interesting than class nine gossip – first crushes, possibilities…” Her unabashed admittance made her rather endearing. The way in which she spoke of telling stories that do not involve any grave, sombre narrative, and yet can become joyous reading was quite a revelation.

In all, day 2 at the Jaipur Lit Fest was an eclectic and heady mix of experiences. While Atwood and Fry emerged as the clear stars of the show, commanding massive audiences, the other sessions pushed one to think out of the box and pointed towards the need of being critically aware of the world around us.