| February 04, 2009 | Wednesday | Safar 08, 1430 |
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A mela for the mind
Irfan Husain
A literary festival is a mela for the mind, and Galle’s third annual event was no exception. With an impressive list of writers from several countries, and guests from around the world, there was a huge buzz as ideas drew sparks and applause. Located in the Sri Lankan city’s historic fort, the festival was held over five days, and included lunches and dinners where visitors could interact with well-known writers.
The star attraction this year was Germaine Greer, the feminist icon from the Seventies who was instrumental in changing the gender dialectic forever. We were privileged to listen to her speak in three different sessions, including a small dinner party. A polished (and practised) speaker, Greer remains as anarchic and outrageous as ever. At her first session, she shared the stage with Tarun Tejpal, the editor of Tehelka, the famous Indian weekly that almost toppled a government with its expose of corruption in military purchases. The two writers discussed taboos in writing, but while Greer focussed on sexual taboos, Tejpal was more focussed on political writing and the problems journalists had in telling truth to power. To a large extent, they were talking about different issues, and the organisers would have done better to have them speak from separate platforms.
In her closing session, Greer’s theme was ‘Who put the post in post-feminism?’ The thrust of her talk was that despite the advances made by women in the last four decades, there were built-in gender biases that kept women from playing their proper role in society. One sub-theme that emerged was her total opposition to all wars, and her dismay that women were now being inducted into armies. To her mind, this was not what the feminist movement should be about. As she remarked dryly, “All wars end with talks; so why shouldn’t we get directly to negotiations, and skip all the killing?” She certainly has my support for this position, as she does for most of the other things she has fought for in the past.
M.J. Akbar is a name people in the subcontinent have been long familiar with. His columns have appeared in this newspaper for many years, and he has several books to his credit, the latest being ‘Kashmir: behind the Vale’. While I have read him for years, his wonderful talents as a public speaker were a revelation. He was quick-witted, and was very good at coining aphorisms. As with most good aphorisms, there was a kernel of truth in this one: “The idea of India is better than the Indians, while the idea of Pakistan is worse than the Pakistanis.” I am just quoting M.J. Akbar; the reader can make of this what he will.
Over the years, Sri Lanka has produced a number of very fine writers, with many of them writing in English. Probably the best known of the current generation of novelists is Romesh Gunesekera. With his first novel ‘Reef’ short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1994, he arrived on the literary scene with a bang. I read his wonderfully evocative ‘The Match’ with enormous pleasure, enjoying the lyrical description of a Test match between Sri Lanka and England played in London. I have bought his latest book ‘Heaven’s Edge’, and look forward to reading it soon.
One of the major books to have appeared in English last year is the biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French. Having met him a few times in England while he was researching the book, I looked forward to hearing him talk about the time he had spent with the famous, but prickly, Nobel laureate. Articulately and concisely, French told the audience how the project had developed, and the conditions he had insisted on. Among these was access to Naipaul’s personal papers, as well as total control of the final draft. Readers have been surprised to the extent Naipaul, a very private man, opened up his past to his biographer. The result is a warts-and-all portrait that reveals his painful early days, as well as his troubled relationships.
Pico Iyer is the quintessential displaced person: born in England to Indian parents, he spent part of his youth in the U.S. Since then, he has travelled the world, writing several highly praised travel books. He has worked as a journalist for much of his life, and his latest book ‘The open road’ discusses the many years he has known the Dalai Lama. While listening to Iyer talk about his experiences, it was clear that he had been strongly influenced by the time he had spent with the Tibetan leader.
Another famous travel writer at the festival, though from an earlier generation, was Colin Thubron. His latest book is ‘Shadow of the Silk Road’ in which he describes his 7,000-kilometre journey from China to Turkey. With wit and eloquence, Thubron recounted his amazing adventure that took him across Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran by bus, train and once, on a rickety plane in Afghanistan where the other passengers eyed him suspiciously: here, he was the potential suicide bomber.
Conservation was the subject of a discussion led by David Robson, the author of three books on Geoffery Bawa, the Sri Lankan architect who has influenced design across Asia with his use of local materials, and the fusing of inner and outer spaces. The discussion focussed on the problems of maintaining the character of Galle Fort, a World Heritage site, without turning it into a museum.
Other, younger, writers spoke about their books at this remarkably well-organised festival. Each talk started and ended on the dot. Books were available in a room next door to the Hall de Galle where most of the sessions were held. And although the venue could seat around 300 people, most of the events were sold out. Many locals complained that they could not get tickets, but the fact is that most of them were sold online within hours of being offered.
Another complaint was that local writers in Sinhala and Tamil were not invited. But the reality is that had the organisers made the festival so inclusive, there would have been even less space. Clearly, there is room for other literary festivals in the local languages, but they would have to feature in a separate event.
In any case, this is only the third such festival, and it is remarkable that it is already attracting so many big names. Perhaps my biggest personal complaint is that even in the sessions devoted to the media, nobody really addressed the huge pressures journalists are working under in Sri Lanka. Clearly, the (mostly foreign) organisers of the event felt it was not their place to enter a political minefield in their host country. The problem is that it is difficult to discuss issues relating to taboos while exercising self-censorship.
