Why a Lit Fest in Jaipur, you ask?!

10

What's the point of a literary festival? Ostensibly it's a meeting ground for authors and publishing moguls and intellectuals, and let's not forget, their fans and...the media. Ah, the media. Nicely lambasted at this latest literary festival in Jaipur, slightly grilled by the wit that Salman Rushdie never leaves home without, and royally skewered by the organisers' perception that it's better not to tread on too many toes, or rather not to tread on the giant big toes (even at the expense of trampling underfoot the medium-size toes brought in from out of town). Let's proceed by checklist...Authors? Check. The inimitable Salman Rushdie, check, the adorable Booker-Prize winner Kiran Desai, check. The man behind Maximum City, that is, Suketu Mehta, check. Powerhouse Shashi Deshpande, Mumbai-based Kiran Nagarkar, the gorgeous Pakistani author Feryal Ali Gauhar, the intellectual Amit Chaudhari, the eternal adolescent Jerry Pinto, check check check all.....

What do you mean Happy New Year?

7

What a miserable year to wake up to. It's a year where we're all talking child abuse and perversity and serial killing. But it's miserable on so many levels, I can't begin to deal. Not least because of the travesty of justice that's passing for legal proceedings in Iraq. Hanging Saddam was murder, no less...and compounded by the murder of a principle, in fact many principles, but then again who's listening? In the name of freedom, under the benevolent torch of Lady Liberty, despot Saddam Hussein was hanged. Quickly. Too quickly, as it turns out. Why wasn't he made to answer for any of the other charges against him? Does the brutality of his rule mean he wasn't entitled to a fair trial? Then why did Pinochet get off scot-free? Did thousands of Chileans not have a voice that mattered? Or were they just not speaking in a....