The Bangalore (E)Lit(ist) Fest

I happened to visit the Bangalore Literature Festival, referred to more commonly as the Bangalore Lit Fest or simply BLF, on Sunday. The weather was lovely, the thing Bengaluru is famous for, apart from being the IT capital of India. But that aside, I found everything else rather misplaced for a literature festival. 

For starters, the venue was a wrong choice. Not that I have anything against a 5 star hotel providing some food for thought, for a change! But the location proved quite a hurdle in terms of parking space and traffic management. Of course, the same happens when such events are held at the Palace grounds, too, but for a minute I wondered if I had landed in some derby by mistake! I’m drifting from the point I am trying to make but I shall get back to that in a bit. 

My companion and I managed to enter the place only to be told that they’d ran out of parking space and that we would need to make an exit. The gentleman in charge suggested to my companion, who happened to be at the wheel, that he could “drop off madam and leave”! My companion politely responded that, in fact, he too had come to attend the festival. So we ignored the suggestion of the parking in charge (PiC) and made our way to the portico of the large building hoping to utilise the valet parking facility. There was none! Just as we were making our way out, as was suggested by the PiC, the hotel staff saw me and created space for our vehicle right opposite the entrance to the hotel. I really don’t know what they were thinking, but who cares! (I am sometimes mistaken for a celebrity and sometimes for a law-breaker!)

So, we made our way inside the grounds along the poolside that played host to the festival. I was just in time to hear Shri. Girish Karnad and counted myself lucky. And then we settled down for a discussion on ‘India and Pakistan at 70’. What started off well, seemed to veer off track with the panelists dwelling more on the partition than on where the two countries are today. None the less, it was an interesting discussion but had very little to do with literature! 

By then my watch indicated that it was time for lunch and we moved towards the food. It was crowded and the queues were long. That’s nothing unusual in our country. Now, I am a self-confessed snob - I hate long queues and/or jostling for my order. The one thing we all work hard for is that meal and I like that experience to be a dignified one. I insisted on walking into the hotel to enjoy their sumptuous Sunday brunch (this place is one of my favourite places for a Sunday). We had a choice of a good spread and comfortable seating, some quiet for a nice conversation and soon managed to be a part of the audience to the discussion on Aadhaar. This space happened to attract a large crowd, probably as proof of the citizen interest in the security and privacy of their data. Again though, this had nothing to do with literature! And then came in the lovely Twinkle Khanna. She won an award but also a bouquet of hearts from the Garden City! Though her humour seemed rehearsed and blasé at times, she did manage to hold her own with the crowding applauding and whistling intermittently. There was a lot of substance in what she said, sitting pretty on the dais, only proving that she is indeed a woman of great mettle and intellect. In many ways she has broken the mould of the ‘Bollywood actress/daughter/wife’ and kudos to her for that! 

Sadly, the display of books at the lit fest was relegated to a small space in a basement, clearly indicating that it wasn’t the centre of attention at the literature festival. 

I had to leave thereafter for another engagement and was lamenting having to give up on a strategic parking slot! But the short experience I had made me wonder if the festival had inadvertently turned out to be an elitist one. Though, according to some reports, it has attracted the maximum number of people thus far, one of the awardees had opined that it proved to be exclusive in some ways. Was the choice of venue to blame? Or was it the basis of the festival that had faced a tectonic shift over the years of its existence, becoming more political than literary (this is not to take away from some of the highly accomplished and intellectual speakers)? Was it a Bangalore Literature Festival - English Edition?

I left a bit disappointed, but not without Shri. Shiv Visvanathan’s Theatres of Democracy in hand.