Curtains came down on the Jaipur Literature Festival today with "intolerance" becoming a hot topic of discussion at the event.
On the inaugural day filmmaker Karan Johar kicked up a storm with his remark that "freedom of expression is the biggest joke and democracy is the second biggest joke".
Actor Kajol dismissed any intolerance in Bollywood, actor- politician Shatrughan Sinha stated it was 'childish' to speak of it while Anupam Kher termed the intolerance debate as "a joke."
Writers Ashok Vajpeyi, Uday Prakash and K Satchidanandan hit out against a lack of freedom of expression.
Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, who gave the inaugural lecture, 2015 Booker Winner Marlon James, comedian Stephen Fry, sportspersons Anil Kumble and Baichung Bhutia, besides bestselling author Amish Tripathi, Ruskin Bond, photographer Steve McCurry, were among over 360 authors at the five-day literary event.
Even before it began, the event witnessed a hint of controversy with the Rajasthan High Court hearing a PIL that sought for a change in the venue and directing the state government to submit within a week a report on arrangements made for the festival.
According to the organisers, there was a "40 per cent increase in footfall, with average age of visitor being 15-25 years".
Sanjoy Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts and producer of the festival, said, "This year's festival has been a celebration of the freedom of creative expression. We have seen a record footfall across the five days."
The authors participated in 200 sessions across 10 venues, including the Diggi Palace, Amber For and the Albert Hall.
This year, the festival gave away three prizes -- the second edition of the Ojas Art Award which was presented to Santosh Kumar Das and Mahalaxmi and Shantanu Das, as well as the first editions of the Shri Dwarka Prasad Aharwal Award (to upcoming Hindi writer Prabhat Ranjan) and the Kanhaiya Lal Sethia Poetry Prize (which was won by Rituraj).
The second year of Jaipur BookMark, the festival's sister
publishing industry event, concluded with the award of the first-ever Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize, won by designer Bena Sareen for the book, 'Talking of Justice' by author Leila Seth, published by Aleph.
Organisers announced two further editions of JLF across the world at the Southbank Centre in London this May, and the second edition of the JLF festival in Boulder, Colorado, US in the autumn.
The dates for the JLF 2017 have been announced from January 19-January 23.
"This year has been a phenomenal year: our best ever at Jaipur. Next year we already have Marina Warner, Alain de Bottom, Ha-Joon Chang, Stacy Schiff, Rodaan al-Galidi and Helen Oyeyemi confirmed for next year," William Dalrymple, author and co-director of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, said.
A total of 18 new titles were launched during the festival such as Kanishk Tharoor's 'Swimmer among the Stars', 'The Ballad of Bant Singh' and 'The Tears of the Rajah' by Ferdinant Mount.
