I could no better than to direct you here.
Incidentally, the Lit Fest is only one part of the larger Jaipur fest, which has some very interesting performances, workshops and so on.
Yeasterday's reading of Ranjit Hoskote's poetry at the Kalakriti festival was preceded, much to my dismay (and eventual enjoyment) by an inauguration, complete with speech and symbolic desecration of pristine canvas by participating artists.
The first artist, from Pakistan, did some flag type thing which he took ages over, with no corresponding increase in the worth of art. Another artist, also Pakistani, drew a black outline of a square at the base of the flagpole and signed in the empty space it held. One bird and one craggy mountainous structure completed the non-human representations on canvas. Everyone else drew faces, or eyes, or caricatures of faces, or tortured faces carved out of mountain-sides, or suggestions of nose, eyebrow and lip. It was all rather overwhelming.
So we went and recruited our strength with samosas shaped like pouches, canapes with corn, and chocolate-filled thingys. And tea-coffee.
Ranjit's reading was short and sweet. 'Fugue', a tribute to Nissim Ezekiel, went down rather well with those present. WIsh he's read more, though.
Vidya Shah was sublime.
I feel I am suffering from intellectual indigestion.
Monday, January 08, 2007
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2 comments:
> It was all rather overwhelming.
Phew. Thank heavens. It wasn't just me, then. The freaky bird and the flag and all were a bit too much, and at one point I thought ball-of-thumb-hand-printing guy and craggy-mountain gentleman were going to start a scuffle on stage.
But I thought the black outline with signature thing was rather clever. I may have been distracted somewhat by the artist, though. Hmm... Ooh, I took a gander at the canvas from point blank range, and the flagpole actually was an inadvertent dripping from flag, I think.
In contrast, the young/upcoming artist candidates were quite nice, no? Jeans and T-shirts and all made them look somewhat laidback.
> Ranjit's reading was short
> and sweet
The frigate leaving the harbour without siren thingy was very evocative, personally...
Bummed I missed Vidya Shah. Is she from Tamil Nadu? When I was gandering at the canvas, I noticed that she signed her name in Tam. The 'Vidya' was in Mallu almost...
ah, yes--the young artists. but i kind of faded out by then, so i didn't really look carefully at the stuff they were doing.
vidya shah. no idea. thought she was DU educated type. not that that's a bar from being tamilian.
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