The last utopias, rants galore notwithstanding
British empire — while the audience wonders whether some free snacks and free books could be finagled at the end of it. Quite often, they fail.
Having attended three literature festivals this year back-to-back, I've concluded that it is possible to have a wonderful time once you've avoided crowds chasing unlikely heartthrob Sudha Murty and English thesaurus on the cheap Shashi Tharoor, the former actually requiring a bodyguard to protect her from demanding schoolchildren and college students (and one Narayana Murthy fan). This is the first time I've seen a children's book author requiring a bodyguard.
The first festival I went to this season was in Bangalore. And it was around a swimming pool. (Whyever not?). Apart from literature, there was a lot of startup wisdom, as expected in Nilekani City. What's very zeitgeist in India now is someone whose startup has made a few hundred crores, has a podcast, and is a mid-30s philosopher, holding forth on everything from the number of steps a day necessary to how FDs will ruin you, to the toxicity in tonic.
Also, being Bangalore, there was a customary keynote from the great Ramachandra Guha. And as is also zeitgeist now, during the Q&A, some uncle stole the mic to shout how great our PM is and how the keynote address was wrong and Left-leaning, pushing Guha to ask, 'Do you have an actual question?' Usually, at these literature festivals, there aren't.
The next one was in Kolkata, which prides itself in having India's largest reading public. Although, seeing the reading
