At one of the writing courses I took at Stanford some years ago, I found myself sandwiched between a white-haired Holocaust survivor, whose short story glowed with a gentle luminescence and whose breadth of experience I could never hope to replicate, and a heavily made-up young girl in full Goth regalia who wrote with a brittle, glittering cynicism that belied her youth. Workshopping the stories of that writing group was an unexpected exercise in literary gluttony, as we sifted through fictional gems, mined from such an eclectic spectrum of experience.
In addition to the creative stimulation these classes provided me with, just the proximity to San Francisco and Stanford University ensured I had a high-quality cultural buffet on tap to choose from, between theatre, classical music, opera, talks and jazz performances — imagine hearing Dave Brubeck playing just an arms length away — but most events were expensive, especially if you included the high cost of baby-sitting in the Bay Area. What I found even more impressive were the quality of the free events open to the public — and those were the ones I tried to take full advantage of, en famille, if appropriate.
I remember quite vividly the open-air, live video simulcast of Verdi’s Rigoletto under the stars at the Frost Amphitheatre, the children and I warm in our sleeping bags as the October chill crept around us. Then there was the magical night in the intimacy of a student dorm with the talented Esperanza Spalding with her mischievous smile and frizzy halo of black curls, who’d just performed at the White House at the invitation of the then newly-elected Barack Obama. I also clearly recall a spring evening’s public conversation between Robert Thurman and Pico Iyer “On the Pursuit of Happiness”, about life on the road, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, education and things that contribute to happiness and well-being. And readings by authors like Yiyun Li, George Saunders and Tobias Wolfe lit up otherwise dreary days, speckled with iterative domestic chores.
One of my biggest worries on moving back to India was the potential lack of cerebral and cultural stimulation that I might have to live with. How wrong I was! There are hundreds of live, year-long events dotting the cultural horizon, all open to the public and mostly free, culminating (for me) in January, when, between the Jaipur Literature Festival and the India Art Fair, the month becomes a feast for the senses, intellectual, visual and creative.
But what is even more amazing is the sheer numbers of people increasingly willing to take time out to attend these events — a commitment absent in the past. Ten years ago, these sort of events would probably have been spectacular failures, tapering off as exclusive, niche happenings.
It’s the inclusion factor of any high-quality event that makes it an enduring success — and it’s the egalitarian nature of the litfest that has contributed to its popularity.
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For those who feel that being inclusive would dilute the quality of engagement of people attending — did you hear the questions the audience asked of the speakers at the JLF? Outstanding. Every question I heard asked was intelligent, well-thought out and crisp, arising out of a real curiosity rather than a desire to display existing knowledge. And these were mostly asked by the young (the older demographic still has a tendency to pontificate and comment.) Please note, these weren’t just writers and literary folk — they were mostly local and outstation students and young professionals, mostly from India’s growing middle class, and the changing demographic was good to see.
Even at the art fair, which is technically a trade fair rather than a festival (and thus, ticketed, though very reasonably), it wasn’t just artists, curators, collectors, gallerists and other art professionals attending, but India’s middle-class. And they weren’t philistines. Art fair founder Neha Kirpal told me that 40 per cent of all sales last year, were made to first time buyers and early figures from this year show that 80 per cent of galleries reported sales — and the majority of buyers were Indian.
Contemporary urban India’s vocabulary is changing as improved technology and communication help transcend geographical boundaries even as the country’s brightest young minds catalyse the process — inclusively.
Jyoti Pande Lavakare is a Delhi-based writer