<b>Kishore Singh:</b> Schizophrenia at the ideas fest

Tarun Tejpal is sunk deep in a chair by the bar. "Meet Robert," he says, dutifully ordering us to shake paws with De Niro. "The Robert de Niro," colleagues who'd walked into the hotel ahead of us had exulted, having run into him by the reception but finding themselves tongue-tied and unable to muster the courage to make introductions. "Even though," giggled one, "I was tempted to throw myself on the floor to be tread upon like a carpet." But hero worship at Think, the annual "ideas" fest in Goa, is wearying. Here's Shekhar Kapur nodding in greeting; there's Tina Brown giving an interview; and might not Amitabh Bachchan pop out from behind a pillar, he's billed as a speaker later in the day? Has Garry Kasparov checked in? In Bambolim, the "egalitarian platform" for the event, such questions are best mused over a martini by the pool. We might gawk at Farhan Akhtar but there'll be more hobnobbing, less mobbing - bring on Mary Kom and Priyanka Chopra.

Tempting though the line-up of speakers and the content might be, it's Goa that's the star of the show. Delegates - billed as "thinkers" - have bought up all the rooms in the vicinity, but we're staying - gratefully - with friends. At the villa in Pirazona, overlooking a mangrove-lined river, the bandobast is breathtaking. Totems from the South Pacific and granite goddesses from Bali nestle in the lush vegetation. At night, the only sound is the chirping of cicadas. Dawn is a streak of light that breaks across the sky to an orchestra of birdsong. A crested eagle goes hunting over the waters where, our host informs us mirthfully, crocodiles lurk. Darn, there goes the swimming in the stream, but the villa has a pool for us, and several ponds, besides. Breakfast on the deck is an indulgence.

An impatient queue snakes outside the ballroom at the conference venue where the seating is on a first-come basis, strictly no reserving of adjoining seats for friends and spouses. The day is a mwah-fest: if I'd a rupee for every time my cheek was pecked, I'd be a rich man. The speakers are an interesting lot, the audience every bit as eclectic as it is impressive. My wife has pinned her hopes on stand-up comedian Vir Das but the loudspeakers next to the beer bar in the garden recount the experience of a few braveheart rape survivors, reliving their trauma before a live audience, and she's off to find her own island among the intellectualati. No more is the occasion about celebrity spotting or the arrogance of academia; inside the hall, voices are echoing with pain, hope, change; about sporting and medical triumphs but also about the marvels of science, technology, the arts. Bianca Jagger and Medha Patkar aren't just marquee names but the stuff of everyday activism.

Behind the casual attire the "thinkers" have opted for in deference to Goa's laid-back lifestyle is a planet of brainpower. And however serious - or seriously irreverent - the sessions might be, the gravitas finds relief in the equally hard partying that's billed as part of the attractions - gala performances, dinners, a sea of cocktails, and at least a few "thinkers" who though they're unlikely to be found near the sessions but have decided to extract their money's worth of booze, seafood and snogging with the glitterati. Torn between waking up at our idyllic villa and winding down at the hotel, we've turned schizophrenic - which, I'm informed by Think veterans, is what the whole festival is about anyway.