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Sexy is not quite the adjective I would have tagged writers with. However, after five days and stretchable evenings in the ample lawns of the 19th century Diggi Palace during the Jaipur Literature Festival that just ended, the two words — sexy and writers — didn’t seem oxymoronic when uttered in the same breath.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not showing off my ability to bestow epithets. It was the passing remark of a literary reviewer — a lioness of sorts amongst the reviewing tribe much feared by writers, especially debuting ones — that sent me down that path. “Oh,” she gasped, coming out of the session in which Daniyal Mueenuddin read from his new book In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, “Now, that’s one sexy writer…the Pakistani writers are really something…”

Just a few hours earlier another prolific reviewer had muttered something about Mueenuddin’s book (linked short stories) being the best thing he’d read in decades. Well, just last year he had waxed eloquent about Mohammed Hanif’s, A Case of Exploding Mangoes. The debut novel by the Karachi-based BBC journalist that had a funny take on General Zia’s assassination was the best thing he had read in a “long, long time”.

Perhaps, he hadn’t yet read the latest novel of the third Pakistani writer at the Jaipur festival. Otherwise, Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil would undoubtedly have been the best thing he had come across in aeons. Obviously, the writers across the border were New Next Best Things.

The sexiness quotient of writers is clearly on an upswing. Delhi’s glitterati descended on the Pink City en masse to get a darshan of the galaxy of stars from the writers’ universe. The biggies were certainly sparkling — Patrick French, Thomas Keneally, Vikram Seth, mamma Leila Seth, Pico Iyer, Hari Kunzru, Shashi Tharoor, not to forget the energetic William Dalrymple (the last white pasha in India).

Diplomat Vikas Swarup was certainly dining out on the success of Slumdog Millionaire: the film was based on his book Q&A. Mr Swarup was not happy about the fact that the name of his protagonist (it was originally in the Amar-Akbar-Antony mould to signify the true orphan state of a street child) had been changed. But he was not complaining. His novel has been resurrected as a movie tie-in and rechristened Slumdog Millionaire.

Meanwhile, back at the talkfest, at times it even appeared as if some of Beautiful People had stepped out their habitual Page 3 abode to get a glimpse of, amongst others, Tina Brown, that queen bee of social registers in London and New York and erstwhile editor of Vanity Fair, New Yorker, author of The Diana Chronicles and great buddy of new US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, what would the likes of Feroze Gujral, Bina Ramani, a few socialites from Mumbai and tons of PYTs and not so PYTs be doing there?

Writer as rock star, Chetan Bhagat, had a fan following. Uniformed boys and girls from Mayo College and schools in Jaipur and grown-up Delhiwalas stalked the best-selling young author. Fortunately, a few writers were weary of the pop star treatment. The ever-eloquent and ever-so-subtle Pico Iyer was worried about that people were more interested in writers’ lives than in what they wrote.“Writers are judged by their personalities and not by their books,” he said.

Fortunately, Iyer was optimistic about the “future of reading and writing” — it wasn’t “so dodgy”. In a departure lounge in India he saw a 60 per cent “engagement with reading”. In California, he joked, it would be with mirrors and in Japan with handheld video games.

Just three years old, the Jaipur Literature Festival has grown enormously, including in its embrace debates and performances. There is certainly a buzz about it. I only wish that the accent had not been quite so British: most of the overseas literati and critics were either from Great Britain, the English speaking world or diasporic South Asians. I thought the Brits had left.

Jai Ho, Jaipur.