If you're unsure of how to navigate through the five days of Zee JLF, here's some tips to get you started.
First time at the Jaipur Literature Festival? A mecca for book lovers in India that draws a huge crowd every year, the festival can be overwhelming at first, given the wealth of literary giants on the menu. If you're unsure of how to navigate through the five days of Zee JLF, producer of the festival Sanjoy Roy has some advice for you. "It's quite a civilised and sensible crowd, so you just have to figure out how to manoeuvre into a chair! Look at the programme and look at the maximum number of sessions at the venue you want to attend and hang in there."
The sessions at the festival are being held across six venues inside the Diggi Palace in Jaipur- Charbagh, Rajnigandha Front Lawns, Google Mughal Tent, British Airways Baithak, Mahindra Humanities Durbar Hall and Ford Samvad.
Here's a map you can reference to pick your way around the Palace.
As always, the festival schedule is packed with the who's who of the literary world. A major draw at the festival is the presence of Nobel Prize winner, VS Naipaul, and his former associate, novelist Paul Theroux. The duo had a public falling out that famously escalated when Theroux published a scathing biography of Naipaul, Sir Vidia's Shadow. The two briefly buried the hatchet at the Hay Festival in 2011, but this will be the first time they will publicly share the same platform, at the same time. The festival organisers say they pursued Naipaul for five years before he agreed to attend the festival. So how difficult was it to get the Naipaul and Theroux on the same stage? "When Sir Vidya agreed to come, infact one of the first things he said was 'Please invite Paul." And Paul readily agreed to come, although he stays in Hawaii and is travelling a really, really long way to be here," says Roy.
This year, the festival puts a spotlight on poetry with Sahitya Akademi Award winner, Ashok Vajpeyi, the 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry Vijay Sheshadri, and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, a stalwart of Indian English poetry tradition, delivering the keynote of the festival.
Roy himself is looking forward to the sessions on poetry and economics and lists a few others. "Tarun Khanna will be very interesting to watch. Harvard has a case study on the Jaipur Literature Festival, and this is the first time that they will be coming on ground."
Films will also make their presence felt with Naseeruddin Shah discussing his memoir And then One Day and Waheeda Rehman talking about her book with her biographer Nasreen Munni Kabir. Film critic Anupama Chopra will be also be launching her new book The Front Row: Conversations on Cinema at the festival. Lyricist Javed Akhtar is scheduled to talk about the journey of film songs and their connection with Urdu, Hindi and Hindustani traditions.
The festival will also feature a series of sessions called 'Women Uninterrupted' to commemorate the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing that was a turning point for gender equality. Another series to look out for is the 'Seven Deadly Sins' series, presented by The Indian Quarterly Magazine, that will explore the emotions of Sloth, Pride, Wrath, Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Lust and discuss the varying perceptions of right and wrong.
The Rajasthan government was also keen to facilitate the music programs and cultural events at heritage sites like the Amer Fort and Hawa Mahal as part of the festival.
Full schedule of Zee Jaipur LIterature 2015
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