Big ticket event starts amid extra armour to prevent violence

The 11th edition of JLF began in the usual high spirit amid tight security following the threat perceptions. However, soon the crowd grooved to the JLF tune as Meeta Pandit mesmerised the audience at Front Lawn. The wait for the inauguration was hardly felt as the musicians enthralled one and all. The ambience was perfect. The weather was fine. In short everything fell in place.

Shreyasi Goenka, content advisor for DNA, expressed her delight over the support ZEE received from the government for organising an event at such a scale, the authors who share their ideas, and the generosity of the sponsors.

As chief minister Vasundhara Raje was unable to attend the event, Goenka mentioned that her presence was missed.

She was delighted to know that the number of young children attending the event has been growing steadily each year.

“This is the fifth year of Zee’s association with Jaipur Literature Festival, and with each year, our commitment to what it stands for, has strengthened,” Goenka said.

She felt proud of the fact that Zee JLF made its mark in the USA and the UK in 2017.

“We, however, realised Zee’s responsibility extends beyond promoting literature,” she said.

While talking about other initiatives by ZEE, Goenka informed that it had unvieled a unique initiative in December 2017 - the Sculpture Park located within Nahargarh Fort. She urged the audience to visit it to get an experience like no other.

“At Zee, we believe that social responsibility means leading by example, through our initiative ‘Zee is Green’, we aim to be India’s first media company to be carbon neutral by 2019,” Goenka said.

She also informed that Zee will soon launch H2O together, a campaign aimed to generate nation wide awareness about water conservation.

Focus on threat perception

The chilly Thursday morning was sizzling at the Front Lawns as Sanjoy K Roy, director, Teamwork Arts, took centre stage. Steeped with anecdotes, Roy went on a flashback mode to remember the first JLF. A long journey that seemed to have reached this stage in a jiffy.

Expressing concerns over growing threat to creative licence and the consequent fallouts, Roy said authors have to be allowed to have a platform to speak their mind.

“Dissent is powerful tool, but also dangerous. As long as dissent is expressed within the confines of, and the constitution of the land, it is safe. Writers write to make sense of our complex world. We must ensure that they have the freedom to do so.

Freedom to do so, inspite of the fact that fringe groups may not agree with every word that they write, or every film that they make, or every painting that they paint,” Roy said.

Connecting through times

William Dalrymple, director, ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, was such a delight. A speaker par excellence, he took nano seconds to connect.

He expressed the pleasure of JLF being formally the largest literature festival of the world, with 3.5 lakh footfalls in 2017.

“It is an evidence of extraordinary appetite people still have for serious writing and real literature,” he said.

He then proudly went on explaining the idea behind the festival while stating that JLF is the only literature festival which is free for all! He asserted that there are no ‘VIPs’ when it comes to exchange of knowledge, and whoever comes first gets the seat.

“For these five days, we set up a little mini university, where the great minds of Harvard and Oxbridge mix with the Rajasthani poets, particle physicists, biographers, and writers on nature and travel, to name a few,” Dalrymple expressed.

Lit re-connect

Namita Gokhale, co-director, ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, expressed her contentment over the success of re-introducing the dying culture of literature in the land of heritage.

“I am highly satisfied that we have managed to re-connect people with the dying Rajasthani literature, and have made it a point of discussion, in last 10 years. The environment of literature, which was slowly fading away in the country, has been able to regenerate itself though festivals like these,” Gokhale said.

She further stated that several parts of the country are following the steps of Jaipur Literature Festival, and are organising literary events. This has enhanced the interests of reading and writing among the youth.

Explaining the specialities of the 11th edition of JLF, Gokhale informed that the event will involve writers from 15 Indian languages, along with 20 international language writers.

“The literature festival, like the country, is connected with the young generation. Last year, 60 per cent of our listerners were below the age of 25,” Gokhale informed.

Mumbai the capital of modern literature

Addressing the keynote speech - Charting a world without borders, Pico Iyer, travel writer, asserted that Mumbai is, so far, the capital of this century’s english writing.

“A new kind of writing is coming to speak for and to a new kind of reader. If London was the capial of 19th Century writing in English, and New York of 20th, I think there can be no doubt the capital of 21st Century writing in english, so far, is Mumbai,” he said.