I Went to the Dehradun Literature Festival
Our first day at the Dehradune Literature festival had ended, and I was left marvelling at how fast humankind adapted to new surroundings. With my face to an open window & my schoolmates scattered in the bus seats behind, I looked out into the mountainside. It felt like this new place had blinked into existence moment I stepped into it. Fresh winds blazed in through the windows and raindrops hit my face in beat with the music thrumming through my earbuds.
The bus sped away on the sloping hillside as I saw peaks draped with cloud vapour, and warm city orbs glowing in the darkness. The wonder of the wind & the music swept me away. As did life’s just consistent ability to recreate itself into a new world from the one we were in, hours ago.
I’m writing these words today to bring you the words of even greater people. There may already be enough posts on my blog concerning happy flouncing about in a literature festival. Nevertheless, here’s one more cookie for you.
The Dehradun Lit Fest, from 9th to 11th August, was held in an enormous & warmly hosted all girls boarding school (so you can imagine how that was for the poor lone boy on our Kimberley team) — the Unison World School. I filled up my diary with thoughts from Sadguru, Ruskin Bond and Sudhir Chaudhary; from a seventeen year old boy poet to a Padma Shree musician.
I’ll share these people’s wisdom & worlds with you.
The first session held in our frosty auditorium brought together Sadhguru and Ruskin Bond in ‘Mystic Meets The Legend’. A beloved storyteller of my mother & mine, Mr. Ruskin chose to stay pleasant but quieter throughout — so it was Sadhguru doing most of the talking. With his trademark white beard and shawls. And a face was alit with a sort of wizened joy. His warm accented voice carried through the crowds, full of depth, pragmatic comparisons and witty anecdotes.
‘You’re part of a much bigger reality,’ he said. ‘If all of the bacteria in the world vanished today, everything on this planet be dead within a week. But no one would miss humans if we died. Everything would actually start improving! Take notice of the lives you share your existence with — a beetle has as much right to life as you.’ He also reminsed a scene from a motorcycling escapade. ‘I snapped my hands & saw an entire flock of fireflies rise & settle down on a dark tree. All night I was mesmerised looking at it.’
So thus I ended up observing more of how Sadhguru spoke than what. He was answering people’s qualms from anger to forgiveness and finding yourself.
A final transcendent thought deepned into focus for me when Sadhguru was recounting planting lakhs of saplings across homes in India, and being honoured by Prime Minister Modi. That no matter how big or grand something feels now, there’s a bigger truth: Everything we do will eventually become a story we tell one evening to someone who’s never heard it before.
On day three came a person whom no one knew, but by the time 17 year old Apoorv Shah left the stage, he’d received the fest’s loudest cheers and was being requested for pictures with gaggles of teenage girls. A patriotic poet self identifying as ‘munch ki sabse choti kalam’ (youngest quill on the stage) — he went off like ball of fire. Booming and electricty crackling passion, in the manner of old street poets. Apoorv wore a kurta-pyjama and spoke Hindi verses that ignited. He bore traditional Hindu values and bowed to the goddess of knowledge Ma Saraswati before beginning.
‘Singh sawari karti naari jahan asuron ka singhar ha
Bahu ko shauchalya naseeb nahi aise Hindustan mein’
‘The land where the tiger riding goddess kills her enemies, cannot yet bestow a daughter-in-law with a toilet...’
In an Anglophelic student culture, he wore where he came from and his identity with unaplogetic pride. And he made it cool.
He sent shivers & revebrations into spines witth the sheer strength of his voice, and became worth videotaping. Apoorv shone as an example to be fiercely yourself. To have enough courage to breathe in, and let everything out. The world will truly understand and resonate with your enthusiasm.
Finally came an eminent Indian journalist, with salt sprinkled hair and a voice whose intonations you’ve about memorized. National Hindi news’ front runner and the host of DNA, Sudhir Chaudhary. I was sitting in my same grey plastic chair, but the auditorium transformed into a different place once more with a new session. It became the worldly, exciting and pressure centric ecosystem of journalism.
‘Nowadays there are two camps you’re separated into, as a person or a news channel,’ said Mr. Sudhir. ‘National or anti-national.’ He spoke of his dismay that not a sole movement for positive change, rising above every caste & interest, had taken place since independence.
‘There is a group of powerful sellouts in central Delhi — the Lutyens. These club going, imported car driving people are what I like to call ‘Designer Journalists.’ This was getting together and deciding what news headlines would be about.
‘Imagine there’s a drunk man driving on Dehradun roads & he crashes to his death. I promise you within the week, you’ll discover in paper that he’s ‘shaheed’ (martyred).
In his mind, journalism without integrity or experience was immoral. Sudhir Chaudhary was a journalist who’d interviewed the most respected soldier of the Kargil War hours before his untimely death. He had gotten the first interview from Nirbhaya’s witness friend ten days after the tragedy, counselling the broken young man with trembling hands into midnight before they could begin. And Sudhir Chaudhary was an abashed patriot.
‘When I was in Syria, in the most dangerous of times, on every doorstep & every building I saw a small national flag. And imagine walking through a city painted full of them. On their borders, even when a soldier lacked a gun, he would pick up his chappal and stand fiercely.’
In the end, a lady rose to a round of applause in the auditorium when she annouched she was an Army wife. ‘We’re here safe because of your husband.’ There was a glow amongst the crowds. Sitting in the front row, I wish I had stood up to say ‘And I’m an Army daughter.’ And so it went — these three days of mic’d chatter. When one of our friends got bored, we woke each other up.
A moment I’ll never forget is when we stood in the food court with our new friends — braided girls in pleated skirts. Bright and animated, they acted out their stern warden and teachers. They fake clanged on the rickety dorm floor. And we all burst out laughing in these shared moments of childhood warmth.
