Of overcrowding and the Oprah moment

It is day three at the Jaipur Lit Fest and though the biggest thing about today is supposed to be talk show queen (‘the most loved and influential person on TV anywhere,’ as Barkha Dutt will later put it) Oprah Winfrey’s presence, it actually seems as if it is the overwhelming crowd that is waiting to see her — snaking in a line many metres outside the venue and making access to the front lawns where her session is due difficult if not impossible. Maybe she is irrelevant to most of India, as some opinions seem to suggest here, but looking at this turn out at present, it just doesn’t seem that way.

The crush inside is as bad — to contain it, the massive wooden gates of the front entrance are closed, causing the crowd to move to another, a near stampede ensuing. Every rampart, every balcony, every aisle in the imposing Diggi Palace is overflowing.
No wonder then, that when Oprah finally arrives, she tells the audience that India has ‘more people then she’s ever encountered in her life.’ And then straight out, she hastens to make a point:

“And yet there is no rage. There is a sense of calmness, even though there are so many people, there is a sense of karma.” She mentions how she encountered the family sleeping all together, “in a home of 6X6 feet - five people sleep in the same room — but there’s an altar in their home’, just as there is in ‘the home of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek’. She tells the crowd more of her Ash-Abhishek epiphanies: “I was asking the question as Americans do, when Aishwarya and Abhishek were on my show:

‘What is that all about, that you live with your parents?” And Abhishek said to me, “What is that all about, that you don’t?!” And now I understand…”  This of course has the crowd clapping loudly.

Oprah is working them, already looking the part in an ochre salwar: “A family of four generations in one house — I really get it now. This is a country that has no respect for nursing homes, because you take care of your families.” More claps follow.

Oprah asserts that she’s “taken it as my responsibility” to be a connector to the human heart space: “I want people to know that the heart space of people is same as yours, even if they come from different circumstances. People can live in poverty but still have hopes in their lives.” She says she wants to “illuminate the possibilities of the human spirit,” using TV as a platform. “Real freedom is deciding for yourself what you want to do, I’m not just an advocate, I’m a woman who does that.” She says she came to India with an open mind, and it’s one of the ‘greatest life experiences she’s ever had.’ “I feel enriched here,” she continues. “For me, all the experience is talking to the people.”

She talks about the school, Nelson Mandela, helping abused girls, her book club, marriage. And later about the perils of social networking sites. “Twitter has the same effect on the brain as alcohol and drugs,” she rues. “I spend an hour of my time talking about nothing when I could be doing something else!’

“Growing up, I believed God was my father, and you become what you believe,” Oprah is also emphatic on life lessons to a listening Jaipur. “You can either see yourself as a wave in the ocean or the ocean itself. I believe I belong to the sea of God.” Which sets the stage for the point to follow: “Your life on earth expands exponentially when you can find a way to give what you have to other people. Some have the ability to listen, others to do physical stuff - cook, bake etc, or utilise kindness, grace etc.” She is emphasising her theory, that ‘the energy of self goes out in the world, so when it comes back to you, it gives to you…” This draws furious claps, and Oprah says this is the reason she ‘feels so blessed, so energised.’ Her school for girls, she says operates on this: “‘I am’ because ‘we are’, without the ‘you’ this would not be possible.”

The session is almost at an end, and everybody waiting has more or less been let in, a far cry from the morning chaos. The next session is Deepak Chopra’s, but right now it seems Jaipur is already at peace.