Bengaluru: The 13th edition of Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF) kicked off on Saturday, December 14. This year’s theme, ‘Between the Lines’, foregrounds how words help forge connections and build bridges. As always, the venue was the Lalit Ashok, whose extensive lawns and indoor venues accommodated several parallel programmes.
BLF 2024 featured the full spectrum of literature – from adult literature to children’s, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, multi-author anthologies and more. Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Venki Ramakrishnan were present, along with international writers including Catherine McNamara and Romesh Gunesekera, bestseller authors like Akshat Gupta and Vikas Swarup, and renowned activists such as R. Balasubramaniam and Annabel Mehta.
Proceedings took off with a recital of Carnatic vocal music by Sumitra Nitin and the Natyasutri Music Ensemble. Music was also a running theme throughout BLF, with, for instance, noted violinist L Subramaniam discussing how his father V Lakshminarayan Iyer, a musician, inspired him to help transform the violin from a supporting instrument to taking the main stage.
Romulus Whitaker and Janaki Lenin discussed their latest book, a memoir of Whitaker’s early years, titled Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll: My Early Years. Whitaker discussed the culture shock of being transplanted as a child from rural New York to Worli and then to boarding school in Kodai. He spoke about how snake charmers, hunters and a museum taxidermist provided him an early exposure to wildlife.
A session at the Bangalore Literature Festival 2024. Photo: Amita Basu
Lenin reminded us that until the mid-century, hunting and collecting were the commonest ways people became interested in wildlife. This situation has changed, with hunting, even for subsistence by tribals, being increasingly outlawed, and conservationists being perceived, and not always accurately, as opposed to all hunting.
On politics, crime and more
Author and BJP leader Ram Madhav discussed Hindutva, which, he believes, simply requires a facelift of political correctness and ticking all the ‘necessary’ inclusivity boxes to become widely acceptable. When questioned by young audience members, Madhav detoured into rants about ongoing global experiments with artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.
Chetan Bhagat’s session though not as crowded as anticipated, had an overwhelmingly young audience, as moderator Anuradha Sengupta pointed out. Sengupta asked Bhagat whether he had anything interesting to say to people his own age – a bit of ribbing the mega-successful author took in good humour. Bhagat lamented having abandoned the rat race and begun living by his own lights only around age 50.
Jayant Kaikini and Tejaswini Niranjana discussed their collection of short stories set in Mumbai. Kaikini discussed how he, as a Kannadiga migrant to Mumbai, was naturally interested in the numerous other migrants from Karnataka’s tiny coastal towns incoming via truck and bus.
He expressed admiration for Mumbai’s particular variety of Hindi, wherein a beggar can address a chief minister using the informal ‘tu’, and wherein someone’s death – eschewing numerous euphemisms – is described as ‘off ho gaya’ (he switched off). It is this refreshing irreverence, Kaikini remarked, that helps make Mumbai perhaps as close to a level playing-field as India has.
Gurcharan Das, discussing his new book The Dilemma of An Indian Liberal remarked how economic independence only arrived in 1991 with liberalisation. Das recalled how, as CEO of Procter & Gamble India, he was once about to be jailed because Vicks VapoRub had exceeded its annual production limit, even though this had been a corporate response to the flu epidemic.
Das finally convinced the judge that jailing the head of a major multinational corporation might not help the image of the young nation. He discussed how this experience, showing him the dark side of the ‘license Raj,’ helped transform him from a socialist to a Congress voter.
Ed Smith discussed what his background in cricket had taught him about decision-making. Most of us, he said, have trouble deciding what decisions to make when; we struggle to forecast our own lives and redo our priorities accordingly. He discussed how our tolerance and attitudes to ‘good risk’ and ‘bad risk’ distort our decision-making.
Harini Nagendra, Harish Vasudevan, and Unmana discussed their novels about crime in Bengaluru. Nagendra, author of a series of detective books set in 1920s Bengaluru, said she would have liked to have a woman from an unconventional background – like a cow herding family – as her ‘lady detective’ but the paucity of archival material related to marginalised women compelled her to choose a character inspired by women in her own family.
Speaking on his book Redemption, which follows Archana Gowda’s regimented life in Bangalore Jail, Vasudevan discoursed a basic truth about human nature that motivated his own novel. He quoted Malcolm Gladwell’s anecdote about his mother – an extremely mild woman who would, nonetheless, probably at least consider retaliation if a certain line had been crossed. Such lines, said Vasudevan, exist for us all; it’s at this boundary that the dark side of humanity emerges.
On the other hand, Unmana’s book, perhaps only the second ‘biblio-mystery’ published in India, is set in a bookstore in Bengaluru.
Sumana Roy discussed her book How I Became a Tree with Jeet Thayyil. The book, a mix of memoir, meditation, and ‘the plant humanities’, invites readers to reimagine their relationship to nature. Among other things, Roy and Thayyil discussed how, in India, incorrect grammar and pronunciation are like “bad breath” instantly betraying marginal socioeconomic status. Thayyil praised Roy’s unusually empathetic depiction of Indians who speak English in typical Indian accents. Roy affirmed her belief that cosmopolitanism and provincialism, far from being dichotomous, often happily coexist.
A session at the Bangalore Literature Festival 2024. Photo: Amita Basu
Karthik Muralidharan discussed the ethics of taxation. As long as the government continues to misuse taxpayers’ money, he said, raising tax rates would be unethical. He proposed the Scandinavian model as a possible pathway for tax reform in India – including, crucially, reform of GST.
While the characterising misspending as “immoral” may feel too strong, I believe, when applied to the government’s misuse of public funds, and its catastrophic misinvestment in projects that have endangered ecosystems and vulnerable communities, it appears apt.
Inclusivity and diversity
Ashok Gopal won the New India Foundation’s annual book award with his A Part Apart: the Life and Thought of B. R. Ambedkar. Gopal discussed the complicated relationship between Ambedkar and Gandhi; how both men recognised the deep problems caused by the caste system but proposed contrasting solutions.
Personally, these two giants of Indian history had great respect for each other – as did Nehru, though, because of Ambedkar’s conflicts with Gandhi, it was only after the former’s death that Nehru affirmed the full extent of the lawyer-statesman’s role in drafting the Indian Constitution.
Also read: Voices, Dialogue and Diversity: A Literature Festival in Mizoram
Gopal reminded the audience of Ambedkar’s view that diversifying one’s social circle, moral imperative notwithstanding, enriches one’s own human growth, and should thus be prioritised in simple self-interest.
Kadir Ozemdir, R. Raja Rao, Ranbir Sidhu, Saikat Majumdar, and Unmana discussed the spectrum of queer literature. Raja Rao, whose novels of homosexual relationships have moved away from explicit sex – “after 50,” he said, “sex becomes less important” – talked about the need for a new aesthetics of queer literature. Specifically, in mainstream literature, explicit sex often pushes a book from serious literature into erotica, costing it its “respectability”.
Queer literature, he said, demands an aesthetic that challenges puritanical notions about what topics are fit for the page. Ranbir Singh talked about the indigent young South Asian sex workers living around Athens, Greece (Singh’s home), who often inform his fiction.
Awards
BLF 2024 included the announcement and felicitation of several prestigious nationwide awards. The Deodar Prize, which recognises emerging voices in short fiction in English, was awarded to Ateendriya Gupta for her short story The Pilgrim, which follows a young child’s discovery of mysterious insects in his bedroom.
Bangalore Literature Festival 2024. Photo: Amita Basu
Runners-up were Ritika Bali, whose story Anu’s Beauty Parlour examines class tensions unleashed when one female flat-complex resident opens a saloon; and Bashari Chakraborti, whose “Mel’s Wallet” features a wallet that replenishes itself cornucopia-like. Bali and Chakraborti belong a nationwide community of writers, the Ink and Quill Collective, of which I am also a proud member.
Bangalore Writers Workshop awarded its annual short story prize, in honour of R. K. Anand, to Vrinda Baliga, author of the short story collections Mixtape and Arrivals and Departures.
Bengaluru’s leading independent bookstore and BLF partner Atta Galatta announced winners of its annual book awards in nine categories, which included Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari’s Chronicle of an Hour and a Half (adult fiction), Venki Ramakrishnan’s How We Live and Why We Die (nonfiction), and Rithvik Singh’s I Don’t Love You Anymore (by popular choice).
Day 1 of BLF began on a chilly morning, but the sun soon emerged to silver the swimming pool and dry the dew. Children, divided into three age groups, had their own day-long sessions with writers and illustrators, on topics including designing comic strips, navigating school elections, and rehabilitating urban wildlife.
This year’s BLF schedule also featured a special New Book section that included the launch of recently released books like Mahendra Sabharwal’s Kashmir Under 370: A Personal History and Rakshanda Jalil’s Love in the Time of Hate. All the authors were, as usual, signing books in the big ad hoc bookstore organised by Atta Galatta, and catching up with agents, publishers, and legions of fans.
Amita Basu is a Pushcart-nominated writer whose fiction appears in over 75 venues including The Penn Review, Bamboo Ridge, Jelly Bucket, Phoebe, and The Bombay Literary Magazine.
Watch this space for our report on Day 2 of the Bangalore Literature Festival, 2024.
