Jaipur Literary Festival Day 5

Chicken Butter Masala, Spinach and Corn, Rice 

Floral Arrangement on the Floor in our Suite

Today was the fifth and last day of the Jaipur Literary Festival. We are exhausted from all of panels we attended. We have a large stack of books we bought and are shipping home. These books aren’t available yet on Amazon. For those books available on Amazon we have ordered them and they will be awaiting us upon our arrival.

The first session that I attended was entitled: "Trumped How did this Happen?" The speaker was Matt Frei. I was not familiar with him, I am now. He is a BBC presenter and author of Only in America. He has interviewed Trump and has many stories to tell. There is way that the British can enthrall you as they tell a tale. He is a great speaker. Bottom line, he thinks that if the Democrats can’t figure out how to get a competitive candidate Trump could actually win re-election. He feels the ultimate question is: Will the Presidency change Trump, or will Trump change the Presidency? He says the first question is answered, the Presidency won’t change Trump. The second question will Trump change the Presidency is an open question.

The next session was called "Breaking Free The Novel and Gender". Two authors read and discussed their books. Anosh Irani discussed his book: The Parcel. Cathy and I both read it last year. It is a harrowing story about Hijras-- the name people call intersex and transgender people-- in South Asia. It follows one hijra who becomes involved in trafficking a very young girl being sold into sexual slavery. Sounds grim but is an excellent book. The other author’s book is about a gay Indian coming out. He had a great line -"when a gay Indian comes out to his parents it puts his whole family in the closet, because they discuss it with anyone outside of the family for fear of being shamed". Only after the session did I realize the author, Sandip Roy, is a person who voice I recognized because he is often featured on NPR's Morning Edition with reports from Calcutta, where he now lives.

The next session was on the tragedy of the Rohingya People. I knew almost nothing about this current tragedy but I was aware that it was happening. The Rohingya are Muslims that live in Myanmar, although the country does not recognize them as citizens. The Myanmar military has savagely raped, killed and brutalized these people forcing them to flee to Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a very poor country, but has accepted their Muslim brothers and sisters. The Rohingya live in squalid conditions in a giant camps. We are talking about maybe 1,000,000 people. They have nothing and are traumatized by the violence that was used against them. The UN is trying to feed them. Bangladesh wants them to return to Myanmar, but who would want to go back? The problem is apparently intractable. No one knows how this tragedy will end. All of the panelists were equally despondent.

The next session was about Islamic Enlightenment. The speaker was Christopher de Bellaigue author of: The Islamic Enlightenment: The Struggle Between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times. Besides having a fabulous name, Christopher is one of the Oxford educated scholars that just amazes one with the depth of his knowledge. Beyond English he is fluent in Hindi, Turkish and Farsi. His thesis is that many in the west believe that Islam needs an Enlightenment to become modern. He believes for the last several hundred years it has be going through an Enlightenment period that ended after World War 1. It was amazing to hear him rattle off names and dates. If this subject interests you, this is the book to read.

The last session of the day that we attended was by Maya Jassinoff on her book about Conrad. She is a professor at Harvard who has written many award-winning history books. She believes in seeing what she writes about. For this book on Conrad: The Dawn Watch, Maya actually spent time at sea on cargo ships to experience what Conrad experienced at sea before he switched to writing. She makes the case that he was the first author to really capture the essence of Colonialism and its effects upon the people that were subjugated. I am sure we won’t be reading her book (or Conrad) but the lecture was interesting.

The Jaipur Literary Festival 2018 is over. We returned to our hotel for a final dinner and to pack. Tomorrow we fly to Mumbai. It is exhilarating to be around so many scholars and readers and be exposed to so many ideas and viewpoints. We have been living in an anti-Donald Trump bubble in LA. I expected the same here. It wasn’t like that at all, he was barely mentioned, just a few toss away lines here and there. They were always negative. He is succeeding in withdrawing America from leadership in the world. People are much more interested in the rise of China. They feel American exceptionalism is over.