Writers and audiences at the Kovalam Literary Festival traded words, not all of which, says Kishore Singh, were suited to the occasion.
The paparazzi were like bees as they buzzed around her in Trivandrum’s humid, bedraggled limpness, their popping flashbulbs lending her an incandescence that made her more diva-like, this princess of Bhutto-bad with its capital at 70, Clifton, where the hope of democracy, or curse of power, has been extinguished to such chilling words as “executed”, or “murdered”, or “assassinated”.
This Bhutto came to talk of peace, her arguments were lucid, her phrases emotional, her diction perfect. But she came not to read from her book — or at least, not enough — but to take questions.
Was writing her father’s memoir cathartic?
(Hmm, haw.) No.
What was her next project?
A book on Karachi.
These were the only two questions Fatima fielded on her writing. The Bhutto before her who had written a book — her aunt Benazir — had gone on to become prime minister.
What did Fatima think of Indo-Pak relations?
Terror?
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What was her solution for Kashmir?
In the evening, by the private beach where the organisers of the Kerala Literary Festival had considerately invited the literati for dinner inconsiderately on two consecutive dry days, no one deserved the bootlegged vodka more than she did, though we all lined up for our tots away from the waiters’ suspicious eyes.
The dirty secrets that spilled out were enough to drive the sanest to drink.
Meena Kandasamy’s readings from her book of poetry sizzled and scalded like hot oil in a pan.
Why are you so angry, sportswriter, Kovalam lit fest-regular and Bishan Singh Bedi biographer Suresh Menon asked her.
Suresh Menon and Anuradha Roy, incidentally, brought an old-fashioned gentility and discussion to the event with old-fashioned readings and absolutely no controversies.
Because I am dalit, Meena spat back at Suresh, and because I am a woman.
She wasn’t the only one forced to defend her existence. Dissident Jewish playwright Metti Lerner and short-story writer Savyon Liebrecht found themselves ironically having to defend Israel through anti-Semitic remarks as well. Savyon’s parents were among the few, random survivors of the Holocaust in Poland, but she confessed that she regretted that neither her sister, nor she herself, had ever been able to speak to her parents about it. Her short stories are taught in high school, and she read out a particularly poignant one to the audience.
| FOLIOS AT THE LIT FEST |
| The fourth avatar of the Kerala Literary Festival was, for the first time, split between New Delhi (September 29) and Kovalam/Trivandrum (October 1 and 2). The following books were launched, announced, read or discussed: |
| Fatima Bhutto, Songs of Blood and Sword, Penguin |
| David Davidar, Ithaca, HarperCollins |
| Anuradha Roy, The Folded Earth, Hachette |
| Arvind Mehrotra, Songs of Kabir, Hachette |
| Jug Suraiya, JS and the Times of My Life, Tranquebar |
| Anita Nair, Malabar Mind, HarperCollins |
| Suresh Menon, Bishan, Penguin |
| Ashwin Sanghi, Chanakya’s Chant, Westland |
| Binoo K John, The Last Song of Savio D’Souza, HarperCollins |
| Shehan Karunatilaka, Chinaman, Random House |
| Kanika Dhillon, Bombay Duck Is a Fish, Westland |
| Meena Kandasamy, Ms Militancy, Navayana |
| Palash Mehrotra, Butterfly Generation, Rupa |
But the Jews deserved what they got, pointed out a particularly odious gentlemen from the audience. Despite being booed by those present, he stuck to his guns — and his seat.
There was plenty more, and some of it was meant to titillate. Kanika Dhillon, mentored by Shah Rukh Khan, about whom she couldn’t stop gushing, said to get real about Bollywood’s casting couch — and what was the morality issue, anyway?
Ashwin Sanghi may have been lampooned as the festival’s unhonoured (but acknowledged) king of the cliché (and clinical researcher into the puberty development of mythical vish-kanyas), but dazzled the audience with numbers: you don’t argue when your book is heading for sales of a hundred-thousand copies, and Ashutosh Gowarikar has just been signed on to direct the film.
Singapore-based Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka claimed to have drunk a lot while researching his fictional missing cricketer, Philip Mathew, for his cricket thriller Chinaman.
Palash Mehrotra topped it with lots of substance (drugs, duh) and lots of sex — his research, he said, for Butterfly Generation. He couldn’t stop smiling.
There were the usual unpleasantnesses. Rooms — or roommates — got switched. There was a lack of beer, thanks to the enforced prohibition on October 1 and 2. Writers dropped out, or opted for the New Delhi leg of the festival instead. Mohammad Hanif’s passport didn’t have any more pages for an Indian visa. Basharat Peer couldn’t make it either; amusingly, some papers reported him reading from Curfewed Night.
Following the pattern of Hay-on-Wye, a musical underbelly was added to the festival, and the audiences — one thousand? two thousand? three thousand? — made the writers salivate, even while they went about asking for laptops, mobile phone chargers, masseuses, pens and fried fish. Except for the journalists, no one did any writing.
By the time the curtains rang down on the fourth edition of the Kovalam Literary Festival, it was clear that it had the makings of a bestseller: emotion, drama, violence, brotherhood, confessions, kisses (no, I’m not telling) and an audience ready to lap it up.
Perhaps Fatima Bhutto will be back as second-time author with her book on Karachi. If she won’t, it may be because politics has claimed her, or because she’s made it as prime minister — her current aversion to politics aside.
Either way, it began (he said) in Kovalam…
