Failure is full of possibilities, says Anupam Kher

As it is clear by now, you’d find more than just authors at the Jaipur Literary Fest. People from not just different countries, but varied professions are showing their literary side here. How could the entertainment world (both fashion and film) and high society not attend? So apart from the usual-suspect society frontrunners that have descended from Delhi and Mumbai, the fest also boasts a fair sprinkling of designers from across the country — Kolkata’s Sabyasaachi was here for a day, Mumbai’s Narendra ‘Nari’ Ahmed was spotted on Sunday, as was Delhi’s model-turned-designer Simar Duggal, and then Goa’s Wendell Rodricks, who’s launching a book at the fest. B-Town, in its merry inclusive diversity, ranging from Gulzar and Javed Akhtar to Vishal Bhardwaj and Yana Gupta has also been represented at the fest. But some denizens, unlike those who are eager to show off their ‘literary chops’, are reluctant patrons.

“I feel amused when I am introduced as an author,” B- Town’s Anupam Kher told the audience at his book launch on the front lawns on Day Three. “Authors are supposed to be scholarly, I’m a BA in Economics, third class, trying my level best to sound intelligent!”

But he is very much an author now, and his non-fiction self help manual, called The best thing about you is…YOU, is hence fittingly about celebrating self and the triumph of the human spirit over everyday challenges. Launched by Shashi Tharoor, (who waxed eloquent about Kher in Jaipur), Anupam showed his relaxed, humourous side to onlookers.

“It’s very difficult to speak after Shashi has spoken,” he told laughing listeners in Jaipur (after Tharoor’s long and lofty introduction), “Even if it is about my own book!”

“When you come from a small town to a big city, everything dwarfs you,” he confessed, then narrating how his dad, though, had taken away his fear of failure at a young age. His school in Shimla had a way of promoting students from class 10 to class 11 before their final tests were declared (Later, if they had not passed, they would be demoted). One day his father came to school, and took him to the expensive Alpha cafe for a meal, and Anupam was wondering what they were celebrating. His dad then told him he had failed class 10, but he wanted him not to fear failure, it was ‘nothing to worry about’, hence the costly meal. And so, he said, “My father took away my fear of failure at the age of 16.”

He sounded chuffed at Oprah Winfrey endorsing the ‘most powerful’ title of his novel, and went on to talk of life’s happy complexities: “I’m a BA pass, 30 percenter, and now I’m being invited to universities, giving lectures at Oxford and Kellogs universities on … the power of failure!” The audience was most amused, but Kher wasn’t done. “I find success boring, one dimensional,” he threw the Googly to listeners, after Tharoor announced that he hoped his book would be successful. “Failure on the other hand, is full of possibilities…!”