Zee JLF 2020: Inspiring personalities, present-day challenges, poetry and food dominate Day 1 conversations

There is something to be said for the slow and quiet days, days when the hours float by without much drama, or things falling apart. It’s seemingly difficult to come by many such days, but the opening of the 13th edition of the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), for the most part, was one. It was a day when extraordinary individuals, in all their brilliant shades of grey, were remembered alongside some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today, when the significance of poetry and cooking — beyond the obvious — found mention. Television journalist and writer Lindsey Hilsum talked about her friend — the ’larger than life’ figure who was war correspondent Marie Colvin — and discussed what compelled her to write the biography (In Extremis) of the journalist who was killed in an artillery attack in Homs, Syria in 2012; and the realisation that in the process, she knows a friend better now in death than she did in life. [caption id=“attachment_7951371” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Glimpses from Day 1 of the 2020 edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival. Twitter/@JaipurLitFest[/caption] Hilsum described Colvin’s conventional upbringing, an image far from the eye-patch wearing fearless icon she came to be known as later in her life. Inspired by the work of John Hersey, Colvin decided to be a journalist and was forever driven by the desire to ’tell the stories of ordinary people who found themselves in extraordinary situations’. Her personal life though, Hilsum recounted, wasn’t always in the best of shapes. She drank and smoked quite a bit and when it came to romantic relationships, they often ended badly. Monkey business at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival 2020: An exceptionally handy guide to the 13th edition But on the field, she embodied Robert Capa’s philosophy of, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”. For better or worse. Hilsum talked about Colvin’s incredible works from the frontlines in Beirut, Sri Lanka (where she lost an eye on being hit with shrapnel, and suffered from PTSD later on), Chechnya, Syria and more. But as much as her story might be exemplary, it is also cautionary, and Hilsum doesn’t want to make a myth out of her friend. She describes some of Colbin’s pursuits both the noble and the foolish, and how her belief that she made a difference bordered on hubris. In her own words, Colvin lived in extremes. According to Hilsum, she was easy to love and hard to help. But she also understood her drive to push herself to the limits: “Why live a boring life? Why not go where history is happening?” On a lighter note, ever wondered what a poetry and philosophy class would look like if it also included biology? Pulitzer Prize-winning Forrest Gander’s session, heavy on bromance with Chandrahas Choudhury, about his upcoming work Twice Alive, provided some answers. The American poet talked about his early years and how being diagnosed with cancer at the age of 21 changed the course of his life. He described his fascination with biology and especially lichen, and how it inspired his work latest work. In contemporary lifestyles constantly occupied with distractions of one sort or the other, he talked about how the space and silence in poetry had much to offer, and how writing poetry was an act of listening to the world. [Lunch break. Watched grown men fight over a place to stand.] A panel with more than three people is never a great idea and the one featuring Navdeep Suri, Fintan O’Toole, Omar Ghobash and Marcus Moench in conversation with Rajini Vaidyanathan, proved the point. The ‘manel’ was gathered to discuss the greatest challenges humanity faced at the present moment. With not enough time to discuss anything in depth at all, most of them agreed it was climate change, and how the younger generation needs to step up in policy-making positions to make a difference, and how the current governments need to read the writing on the wall. ‘It will be a World War III of not countries, but of tensions,’ Ghobash suggested. Vaidyanathan, an avid supporter of Greta Thunberg (at one point she even asked the panel if they see Thunberg becoming the prime minister of her country), touched on great number of topics — from the effectiveness of democratic governments vs authoritarianism, to the young demographic of developing countries — but none led to any satisfactory discussion. Taxation of wealthy individuals, recognition of the cost of climate change, population control, were among the solutions floated to some of the bigger problems faced by the world as a whole. “Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?” O’Toole said, quoting George Bernard Shaw to drive home his point of why the world needs to go through the same problems over and over again, every few generations, before realising it was too late. As if to counter the disappointment of the previous hour, American writer, editor and translator Benjamin Moser featured in one of the better sessions of the day (despite the interruptive moderation), discussing his biography of the ever-so-fascinating Susan Sontag. Moser talked about the unique position Sontag occupied in the New York (and American) culture scene, and her very public and often difficult life. According to Moser, Sontag, a true diva, stood for what culture could be and gave it glamour. He also describes how her writing ‘made people feel smarter than they were’, and her ability to explain the happenings of the world. But Sontag also had a darker side: She ‘could be a monster’ if she wanted to be, Moser explained, while talking about her particularly difficult relationship with her partners and her son. The author also talked at length about Sontag’s difficulty in accepting her homosexuality, and how at one point when no one would, she stood up Salman Rushdie. He reminded the audience, that although the ‘good Susan and the bad Susan’ makes for a compelling story, one should really engage with her work to fully understand and appreciate her as a person and icon of her generation. As the day closed, the final session featured Asma Khan (Asma’s Indian Kitchen) and Krishnendu Ray (The Ethnic Restaurateur), in conversation about food and relationships. The duo, both of whom migrated at a young age, talked about their respective journeys in the world of cooking and how food brought them closer to others and gave them a sense of purpose and connection. You can read more about Khan’s incredible work and journey here. For a day that started with a bit of uncertainty (‘Under the cloud of CAA protests,’ as one local newspaper put it), the first day checked more of the right boxes than the wrong ones. Fingers crossed for the next.