Zee JLF: The Beatles' fan recount colourful stories of band's stay in India

The British-born American essayist and novelist Pico Iyer's keynote address, which opened this year's ZeeJLF, summed up the essence of the festival. Iyer's extempore speech traced his journey in literature from the seventies to the current times, "which marked the emergence of fresh voices who came out with new stories, new histories and newer ways of telling". Writers like Kazuo Ishiguro, JM Coetzee, Amitav Ghosh, Maya Angelou and Jhumpa Lahiri, coming from different geographies, have expanded the contours of literature through their personal histories and experiences, he said. The focus, he added, had shifted from London in the 19th century, New York in the 20th century to Mumbai in the 21st century.

The influence of the British Empire on India's popular culture was showcased in two sessions: Magical Mystery Tour: The Beatles in India and The Real Thing, a conversation between Tom Stoppard and theatre artiste Sanjna Kapoor.

The English rock band's tryst with spirituality in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram had created a mini storm in India in the 1960s, revealed senior journalist Ajoy Bose, a self-confessed Beatles fan. He was in conversation with Philip Norman, an English novelist and journalist, whose biography of the rock band titled Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles had received critical acclaim. The Left brigade in India had created a ruckus in Parliament alleging that the Liverpool boys were CIA spies. Rattled by the news, Russia sent a KGB spy to the ashram to monitor their movements, informed Kumar whose book on the Beatles' stay in India will hit the stores shortly. 
Legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar, who was George Harrison's musical guru, too drew flak as people had begun to believe that he had lost his music under the influence of the rock band. Norman's anecdotes were equally engaging. He explored the reasons behind the souring of the relationship between the Beatles and Maharishi. The restless John Lennon was disappointed with Maharishi as he had hoped that the spiritual guru would divulge the secrets of eternal happiness in a few days. Lennon, disappointed by news of the alleged sexual adventures of his spiritual guru, was pining for his love, Yoko Ono, said Norman. And just like that the band packed their bags and left for England.

Tom Stoppard's conversation with Kapoor was more inward-looking. Stoppard felt that for an artiste or a writer to be political, he/she would have to be a moralist first because people should live by a code of ethics. 
Stoppard's world view too is shaped by this philosophy. Much of their conversation revolved around Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, his most famous play.

Two afternoon sessions highlighted the difficulties that writers often face. In the first, on Dalit writing, Manoranjan Byapari, a leading writer in Bengali, spoke about how his writing was an expression of his "anger", his long struggle with hunger and poverty. Byapari, who learnt the alphabet while in jail scribbling the letters on the dirty floor, writes about his experience of discrimination. "In the land of Tagore and other heavyweights, my books are not read because of their literary qualities, but because of their truthfulness, my courage," he said.

In another session on "banned" books, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar spoke about the controversy that dogged him last year over his book of Adivasi stories that led, first, to a Facebook campaign alleging that his depiction of a young Santhal girl bordered on pornography and later to on ground protests when his effigy was burnt and the government confiscated copies of his book.

Popular children's writer too recounted the experience of her book, No Guns At My Son's Funeral, being banned by certain schools for its 'inappropriate' content. Author and former board member of English PEN, a global body that promotes freedom of expression, moderated the discussion and said that the problem in India was that there was no single authority that banned books.

Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain provided the celebrity quotient on day one of ZeeJLF. Speaking about his recent memoirs, he regaled the audience with an account of how his father put an end to a move to have him star as the young Salim in the film Mughal-e-Azam.