The Jaipur Literary Festival
I am a very un-intrepid traveller. I put it down to my childhood, journeying to Morocco in a van, with nowhere to live when we got there - and no money. Now I only want to go to places I have already been, which makes broadening the horizon a bit of a conundrum. I managed to get to India for the first time thanks to my favourite travel companion proposing we celebrate her birthday with a visit to the Jaipur Literary Festival. I do love a writer, and the idea of a festival full of them was very appealing. The Jaipur Literary Festival is co-founded by the writer and historian William Dalrymple @williamdalrymple. It is now the biggest Literary Festival in the world. Dalrymple is also the co-author of ‘Empire’ an extremely successful podcast. He is great fun to be with and the whole festival reverberated with his twinkling intelligence and wit - despite the serious nature of the some of the subject matter under discussion. The festival opening party took place in the gardens of the Rambagh Palace, with beautiful lighting, and lavish buffets of unimaginable delicacies, and cocktails. The intel had been to dress up to the nines. My friend and I had so many outfits which was ludicrous as we both ended up wearing what could have fitted in hand luggage. We bonded with Amia Srinivasan, the young philosopher and author of the hit book ‘The Right to Sex.’ She had heard of my brand which made me very happy - for me there is nothing more pleasing than a glamorous intellectual. My favourite talk was with Antony Loewenstein on his book ‘The Palestine Laboratory’, with a panel of 4 speakers composed of Loewenstein; author and journalist Charles Glass; columnist and Diplomat Navtej Sarna; and Oppenheimer author Kai Bird. The talk was heavily adjudicated by journalist Suhasini Haidar but the brilliance of this book could not be obfuscated. The audience regularly burst into spontaneous applause. We finished off our trip by indulging in a strange activity called Laughing Yoga. A confident, cheerful man appeared and commanded us to sit cross legged. In between Sun Salutes, he showed us how to laugh like lunatics, sometimes with extras thrown in like imitating cats miaowing, or mournfully howling like the peacocks wandering around the grounds. It was crazy and totally exhilarating.
