Jaipur Literary Festival Day 4

Michael Rezendes and Suki Kim 

Amber Fort reflected in its moat

Sarangi maestro Ustad Kamal Sabri

Listening to the music

The Amber Fort is beyond beautiful

Day 4 of the Jaipur Literary Festival was a Sunday. That meant schools are closed, and the festival is even more crowded with students who don’t have to been in class. We have been here many times and we know how to navigate the crowds. We saw all of the panels that we were interested in.

The first session we attended was entitled “Manhunt – the search for Osama Bin Laden”. It featured a great panel of reporters. Peter Bergen is a mainstay on CNN. He is famous for actually interviewing Osama pre-911. He is an authority on Al-Qaeda, there were several other writers who have all written about Al-Qaeda.

The big question is: Did Pakistan know that Bin Laden was hiding for 5 years in Abbottabad, Pakistan? It was the consensus of all of the panelists that the Pakistan Government did NOT know he was there. I was very surprised that all of these dogged reporters agreed. They say that a lot of documents were captured and have come out about OBL in Abbottabad, and there has been nothing to suggest the Pakistan government knew. They all say if any facts came out suggesting or proving Pakistan knew of his location, they would be happy to change their mind. There is just no evidence to support the theory Pakistan knew.

The next panel was entitled “Piercing the Veil of Secrecy”. It presented both interesting stories and a moral dilemma. Michael Rezendes and Suki Kim are both investigative reporters. Suki risked her life going undercover to report on North Korea. She lived there for 6 months. To do this she had to lie to everyone. No one knew she was a reporter, except for 3 people in South Korea. She knew if she was caught she would either be executed or sentenced to life imprisonment in a gulag. The courage she displayed is amazing. She is a dramatic speaker and has an amazing story to tell. The name of her book about North Korea (She is the ONLY person who has ever done this) is: Without You, There IsNo Us: UndercoverAmong the Sons of North Korea's Elite.

Michael Rezendes was one of the key reporters on The Post Globe’s Spotlight team, that uncovered the widespread child abuse by the Catholic Church in Boston. In the movie he was played by Mark Ruffalo. The movie, Spotlight, is true to what happened. Marty Baron (now the editor of The Washington Post) on the first day of work at The Boston Globe, did see an article in the paper that was about a trial of a priest. The article said the facts were sealed and the truth would never come out. He turned to the Spotlight team and told them to find the truth. Although not in personal danger like Suki, Michael and the team's dozens of articles about church abuse, proved that it not only wasn’t isolated but was in fact, widespread and known to the Bishop. It has had profound repercussions in the Catholic Church throughout the world. It also has resulted in thousands of victims getting both financial settlements. Even more touching many of the victims have been able to come to terms with what happened to them. Many of them felt guilty when in fact they were innocent victims. 

The next session was a great. It was entitled Vita and Virginia: the True Love Story behind Orlando. I have never read Virginia Wolf or Vita Sackville-West. I have a vague memory of the movie Orlando. Briefly, Vita came from an exceptionally wealthy family but being a woman, under British law, the family estate didn’t go to her. Virginia and Vita became lovers. They were both married. Vita had many female lovers. She married Harold Nicolson. They had an open marriage and Harold had many male lovers. Vita and Harold had two children: Juliet Nicolson and Adam Nicolson. Juliet and Adam were on the panel discussing their grandmother Vita. It was quite a story they had to tell about Grandma and Virginia. Apparently after some years Vita and Virginia stopped having sex but remained very close. Out of this tangle of emotions and sex was born the seminal book by Virginia: Orlando. From the passages they read, I doubt if I will read the book, but we will re-watch the movie.

We next went to a session entitled the “People Next Door”. It was about the neighboring countries bordering India: Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, etc. All of these countries have demographic issues, with a large portion of their population under the age of 25. They need to create jobs for their youths and have higher economic growth. All of them are basically ignored by India as it is chiefly concerned with Pakistan. The hope of the session panelists was that India would become more of a leader when it came to these countries. All saw the rise of China and its apparent successful economic model as a challenge to the entire region.

The last session we attended was about Cities past and future. Different authors from various cities spoke about their respective cities. We found the story about Calcutta very funny. The author Kushanava Choudhury was brought to the United States as a young boy. After getting his education in the US, he decided to return to India and live in Calcutta. Calcutta has for years been thought of as a dying city. Everywhere he goes in Calcutta, people ask him, what he did wrong in America that he had to come to Calcutta. No one could believe he voluntarily decided to leave America to live in Calcutta.

At the end of the day Vijay drove us up the magnificent Amber Fort. High above the city of Jaipur it is brilliantly illuminated at night. The fort is huge and is reflected in its surrounding moat. Inside the fort we climbed to the highest level where the structure was beautifully lit with colored lights. There were chairs, but also mattresses and pillows. The Jaipur Literary Festival had arranged all this to present an outdoor concert for its delegates. Sarangi maestro Ustad Kamal Sabri, performed for us, as we reclined on the matresses. It was sublime. I recorded a short video to give you a taste of the night. I want to hear more of Ustad Kamal Sabri! After the concert we returned to the hotel for dinner.

You can play the video here.