Books: The Hindu`s Lit for Life Fest, 2014: Sidelights
The Hindu’s three-day Lit for Life Fest, 11-13 January 2014.
I will confess: I went for Colin Thubron.
The takeaways from Day One of the Lit for Life fest for me was Pablo Bartholomew’s deeply disturbing Bhopal Disaster slideshow offset by his ponderous, dispassionate commentary.
Barkha Dutt talked of women in India getting pawed every day and claps echoed around the hall, making Naomi Wolf`s jaw drop. `What was that about, `she asks, mystified. `People agreeing with the statement,` replies Barkha, deadpan.
Ashwin Sanghi and Ravi Subramanian making a strong pitch for self-marketing your `products` aka books (still not convinced, though). Radha Thomas and UNK rocking the after-session. And oh, that litfest staple: interminably meandering comments posing as questions during the open sessions.
Lit for Life Fest, Day Two. Colin Thubron delivered an absolutely spiffing talk and made mention of the `spartan comfort of travel.` Talked about his latest book `To a Mountain in Tibet.` Ooer, lovely. Went to gush in a slightly restrained (!) manner about his latest book to him but ended up discussing how many Indians had Western monikers like Sheila.
W. Dalrymple gave us yet another splendid history lesson, this time of British perfidies in/on Afghanistan, wrt Return of a King. The slides were as engrossing as his narrative.
The rest were also-rans. I also discovered that the venue was rather like the trick mirrors room. You met friends once and never saw them again. Others, you looked out for but nary a sight of them. Wherefore art thou, Sonora Jha, Manjul Bajaj and Zara Khan?
The third and last day of the Lit for Life fest.
Rujuta Diwekar took a class (well, she kept asking us questions!) on fitness. Excellent class, though, and as always, her fitness tips are extremely followable.
Four authors on the shortlist read from their books and whaddya know, the fifth and absent one, Anees Salim, took the Lit for Life Prize for Vanity Bagh.
However, the day belonged to our de facto Tiger Man and national treasure, Valmik Thapar, who had us at the first jaw-dropping slide of that magnificent beast. His bookTiger Fire promises to be a treat.
All in all, a good time.