Your literary festival is elitist! I have often been confronted by such angst ridden literary types who believe that literature belongs to the streets. At this year’s Kovalam literary festival too, the second edition of the boutique festival, a wounded looking person who described herself as a scientist, buttonholed me and posed the question at the lobby of Taj Kovalam. “What is wrong with elitism?” I asked. She walked away mumbling something. The concept that writers should remain cheapskates, huddled up in stinky lodge rooms with a rum bottle, finishing off the short story for the Manorama Onam special is a particularly Malayali concept. A well-paid, well-heeled writer who can have a drink at Taj Kovalam is an unimaginable thought in Kerala. Richness of thought is somehow linked to poverty of lifestyle. The reason is that the large multitude of Malayalam readers do not put their money where their mouth is. Instead they put their mouth where the brandy is. Some of Kerala’s perpetually exploited writers who churn out serials and stories by the kilo should be taken on a tour of William Dalrymple’s Mehrauli farm house in Delhi to see how writers should live and write.
Om missed the party
It was delight to spend precious time with Om Puri, number one actor in my book along with Nana Patekar, and his wife Nandita Puri in Kovalam. Om is not a new comer to Kerala and knows all the Kerala curries by name, his favourite being kadala and avial. Humble to the extent of being invisible, Om talked from his heart about his cinematic life and his days of struggle in Delhi and the National School of Drama. Early morning on October 9 he sat with students of the DC school of Management (DC books was the main sponsor of the festival) and answered their questions on his life and times. After midnight one day, after we consumed copious quantities of wine, Nandita insisted that we go back to their suite with a lap pool and have a party there. We all lurched into the room where Om was snoring. We finally decided not to wake him up. Next day Om told me we should have woken him up and he would have joined us for a poolside party in his suite overlooking the beach. His biography written by Nandita, a journalist and columnist, and published by Roli, will be released next month in Delhi.
Smell of jasmine
Chick lit writers are big achievers as well. To spend time with some of them in Kovalam, was, well, time well spent (The spirits helped). Anuja Chauhan, who wrote the Zoya Factor, is a well-known creative director having coined some well-known catch lines including ‘Dil Maange More’. She came with her husband Niret Alva, son of Margaret Alva, who is one of India’s best-known TV producers. But the Thiruvanathapuram press was after Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, because of her dad Madhavan’s cult status in Malayalam writing. Thanks to her widely read blog, the Kovalam fest has become famous in the blogosphere. Meenakshi came as reporter, writing for The National of Qatar. Chick lit writers are also stunningly beautiful and my vote this time went to Ira Trivedi who claims she was a Miss India finalist. Now imagine this: Four chick lit writers around you, bottles of wine sponsored by Grover Vineyards, the gently lapping beach reminding you of the larger cosmos, the liner in the distance making its way to the Gulf from Colombo, some Mangalore fish curry with squid rustled up by the Taj Kovalam executive chef Sonu Koithara, that’s why it is all worth it. In the post midnight calmness of the beach Ira could have been some forgotten ghost with her long hair, white (short!) dress and jasmine flowers and all doe-eyed spiel. Ira did her MBA from the US. She read from her second novel in Kovalam. This newspaper panned her book and all that Ira had to say was ‘Ugh!’
Existential problems
Mathew Menacherry who became the latest Keralite to debut in the ethereal world of English publishing has a wry sense of humour and held a great session full of self-deprecatory wit. His anonymity at the festival lasted only as long as a Malayalam newspaper discovered that he was the grandson of M P Paul who led the progressive writers movement. Mathew lives in Mumbai and his Arrack in the afternoon is a delightful skit about the underlife in Mumbai and parts of Kerala. Like other famous Malayalam protagonists, his anti-hero Verghese is constantly jousting with existential problems.
Porn on the street
Two of the most well-known social anthropologists working on India, Christopher Pinney (University of London) and Sanjay Srivastava (Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi and Deakin University) presented the most riveting papers at the festival. Pinney of course talked about the history of Indian photography the subject of his book published by OUP. Srivastava talked on the growth of street pornography in India. Large multitude of people in the Hindi heartland, get all their misinformation about sex from these books. According to Srivastava, most women in street pornography are white (slightly westernised) and voluptuous and have a Helenesque personality about them and men are those brown Indians trying to satiate her seemingly unending appetite for sex. I must try my hand at writing one of those and sell them myself at the Daryaganj Sunday book market.
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