Venue: India Habitat Centre
Date: 26-27 November 2016

Books have been a boon or a bane depending on which side of the fence one was. If you liked reading as a child, books were a great friend. On the contrary, if books bored you, you would have faced condemnation from parents, teachers and others who wouldn’t even matter. May be, as an adult, you are carrying this trauma and books still put you to sleep.

Jaipur Literature Festival changed the face of books in India . It converted books to a glamorous event. Not only authors but famous faces from the media, music, arts, and last but not least, politics would participate in panel discussions during this festival. Literature would be one of the topics but under this umbrella, a host of other issues would be discussed. Throw in great décor, art exhibitions, fancy food stalls, craft stored and cultural performances in the evening, Jaipur Literature Festival made books appeal to a world way beyond the book worms. They have set a trend indeed.

Times Group has been organizing a two day literature festival at India Habitat Centre. The festival featured panel discussions by authors and celebrities from other areas of trade. The star studded speakers included Ruskin Bond, Shashi Tharoor, Sharmila Tagore, Barkha Dutt to name a few. The focus this year was India’s 70^th year of independence.

Several halls were used for various sessions. The place was buzzing with activity. We attended a talk session “Women in politics” by the ex MP and Congress party leader Margaret Alva. The session was supposed to have more speakers like Meenakshi Lekhi from BJP but they couldn’t make it. The show was moderated by the media person Malvika Singh. She quizzed Alva about the content of her autobiography “Courage & Commitment”. How it was for her in the times of Emergency, working with Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and the struggles of being a women in politics. Alva answered the questions in her simple but confident style and let the audience have a peek at the bygone era as well. Though a lot of current generation may not be able to relate to whatever Alva said, given the trend of seeing women in power all around us from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu, it was an interesting and insightful conversation.

The other session that we attended featured our ex finance minister P Chidambaram and MP Pavan Verma from JDU. The discussion was based on opposition’s role in the Modi government. Chidambaram spoke vociferously against the current demonetization drive by the government. The discussion was moderated by senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai.

There was another conversation happening out in the open facing a makeshift book stall. The book stall was full of buyers and we saw many leaving the venue with carry bags containing books. We would like the trend of reading books to flourish even more and spill over to the Book Fairs. That said, conversations around literature at Times Literature Festival 2016 or for that matter any other LitFest are always welcome with some selfies and glamour and celebrities thrown in for effects.