Literary carnival over, wait for next year begins (Letter from Jaipur lit fest)

JAIPUR - Five days of fan frenzy, intellectually stimulating sessions, free flowing wine, paparazzi, electric evenings, marathon book signing sessions, cerebral discussions, all came to an end with the closing of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

With over 200 authors and innumerable budding writers, the festival at Diggy Palace that ended Tuesday was like a big fat Punjabi wedding where everyone - right from the hotels to the auto-rickshaws - made a killing.

The city of forts and palaces with a rich Rajputana history and an overwhelming hospitality certainly lived up to the celebrated literary romantic notions.

Add to that a golden Mughal touch in the form of royal hall settings and you had an enviable combination.

While murmurs of how the festival was better and less commercial last year were rife amongst the literati, the presence of the likes of J.M. Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk and girlfriend Kiran Desai - the festival’s own Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie - certainly made headlines.

The festival has, over the last few years, given Jaipur a generous piece of the rich literary pie. It is an event the whole city knows about and takes pride in hosting.

The locals, dressed in their best, come in droves. They rub shoulders with the best in the literary world, match steps with foreigners at concerts, buy books with genuine intellectual curiosity and actively take part in the discussions.

The popularity of the festival can only be gauged from the fact that people from as far as Jodhpur and the Pakistan-bordering district of Barmer turned up at the event.

In these five days, life moved very fast for the city, new sights were seen, new thoughts were heard, new aspirations arose, new potential was realised, and probably a few authors were made.

It’s a festival that will remain in the collective memory of Jaipur and will be cherished for long.

But with the tents down, the chairs taken away, the music system dismantled and the lights off, Diggy Palace, which had been buzzing with relentless energy all this while, will have to deal with some immediate withdrawal