The Lit for Life, My Way - Day 2

I caught a couple of buses and went over to the Lit fest on the morning of the second day.

I had planned to catch the talk that was a tribute to Kalaignar Karunanidhi, moderated by N
Ram, with Dr Ezhilan and Kanimozhi Karunanidhi as speakers. By the time I got on to the bus however, it was 9:15, and I figured I would give that a miss, as it was the opening talk that day, at 10. But being a Sunday, first the 99 to Adayar depot, then the 29C, that went the roundabout way through Mylapore, took me to Chetpet by 10. I reached the talk venue just five minutes late, (after having put my bag down at the MLS stall), and found that it hadn't started yet. It was at The Showplace, and  I settled down in a seat and waited.

The talk was focused on the Dravidian ideology, and was intended to be a homage to Kalaignar. Kanimozhi was extremely candid, talking about her personal experiences, and what he had meant to her, and about the Dravidian ideology. Dr Ezhilan was a close friend of Kalaignar, in the last few years, who had been known to have late-night conversations with him. Dr.Ezhilan very frequently ended up swerving into idealism, and instead of talking about Kalaignar would begin to promote the Dravidian movement. In fact at one point, when N Ram asked him what Kalaignars views, and not his, were, on a subject, he hesitated, before answering. The talk was extremely enlightening, overall, and I learnt about how he, Kalaignar, would sit up late every night, against medical advice, and be up by 5:30 every morning. How he would read even the most obscure newspapers, and how, apparently The Hindu was the first paper he read every morning. He was someone, they said, who was unable to hold a personal grudge, and if you came to meet him personally, he would engage in debate with you, but allow you to change his views.

From here it was back to the MLS stall.

Left column: Reciept book, collection box, and the book on the history of the MLS., with the 2019 calendar next to it.

Next column: A book that is the model for how the Madras Journal will look, (after reprinting), the box of MLS badges for volunteers, MLS bookmarks,and the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, 1880 edition. The printouts are of the library, and the letters in the library's collection; Annie Besant's and Bose's. The notebook on the right is for being added to the mailing list. 

I was at the MLS stall for a while, talking about it to visitors, wowing them with the letters, and the various items of interest. People were most interested in the letter from Bose. 

At 11:45am, the audio systems were turned on and so I walked over to the stage set up outside, and began recording it. I knew what was going to happen, as an announcement had been made at the talk. 

The singer/songwriter, Sofia Ashraf, was singing a song on saving trees, in Tamil, as part of a series for children, to make them environmentally conscious. The song was fun and had a good rhyme, and the audience was very interactive. Its a fun narration, where herr character walks around complaining how hot it is, and in this song, another person tells her of ways in which she can be cool, but she keeps linking it somehow to cutting trees, until the other character gets fed up and goes away. It seems that when the zero waste team, (that organised this), had gone to rural villages to perform, some child had actually sung this the next time someone in the area was chopping down a tree!

Just then people in the audience started throwing garbage onto the stage, and one piece knocked her ipad off its stand! However, I realised soon that these people were planted and that this was an introduction, for her to introduce a man who was key in bringing in the plastic ban and implementing it in Kanyakumari. He began answering questions anyone might have on plastics, and the recent ban. 

Sofia Ashraf at the outdoor stage

I decided to go back to the MLS stall at that point, and talked to quite a few people who came there, telling them about the library. 

At around this point my mother had also arrived, and she and I went for Rajmohan Gandhi's talk, Modern South India, based on his book. Sharp and poignant, it got everyone's attention when he began, more or less with the reason as to why he wrote the book "North India has needed to be educated about South India for a really long time". 

Over the course of the next 40 minutes, he outlined various aspects of what he covered in the book, how he covered them, and why he did. He explained that he had tried to stay as neutral as possible, gathering various sources from across the Southern states, talking about a few characters in it as well, like Yusuf Khan and Marthanda Varma, and how, when detailing the freedom struggle he wrote that segment as neutrally as he could, giving equal importance to all key players, like Periyar, Rajaji, Gandhi and the rest. 

After the talk, when I got my copy of the book signed, I got the impression that he seemed a little stressed.

From here, I rushed upstairs to listen to Ira Mukhoty and Audrey Trushke talk about "The Great Mughals", as the schedule called it, at the Hindu Showplace. It was meant to be moderated by Manu Pillai, author of 'The Ivory Throne', and 'Rebel Sultans', but surprisingly, he had been replaced. The room was packed, and there was no sitting place, so I stood by the side. I saw many familiar faces, but was not able to greet them as the talk was already underway/ I learnt many new things about the Mughals, and especially about their women, in this talk, Ira Mukhoty's area of specialisation. The chief woman of the harem was given the title Padsha Begum; the title was almost never the King's chief wife; the Zenana was orientalised by Europeans to be a site of sexual fantasy for the Emperor, when in reality it was just where the women lived. The number of women in the Zenana indicated the number of women the man could care for, the majority of whom were his blood relatives. 

Towards the end of the talk, I got a call from a friend who was to be volunteering with me at the MLS stall that afternoon. Having finished the talk, I came downstairs and found him there. The three of us, (my mother, him and me), went for lunch. I had a slice of pizza this time, which was also pretty good. 

My friend, (Jhubal), and I, then went to the MLS stall, and reported for duty. I then found out, that a few speakers had visited our stall that day, and I'd missed them! The first had come the previous day, when I was there, but I'd missed those who'd come that day. 

Volunteers at the MLS stall, relaxing at a lean time

We spent some more of the afternoon at the stall, and at 3;15, went off for a talk called the Battleground of Indian History, with both Ira Mukhoty and Audrey Trushke (from my previous session), with Rajmohan Gandhi and John Keay, moderated by Professor Mukherjee, who began with an impassioned speech, picking apart the current education system on history that provides its own version of events and chooses who gets more importance. Ira then gave her views. There was only enough time for each person to give one speech, before question and answer session. 

Ira spoke about how there was almost no mention of women. She talked about how women constitute only 5% of history, and this is despite the tremendous role they've played, in all aspects. She highlighted how, in Mughal times, Sha Jahan allowed his daughter, whom he'd made Padsha Begum, to construct the central market, and caravanasarai, (lodgings for travellers), in Old Delhi, while he built only the fort structure. 

Audrey Trushke talked about how history has been politicised, and how it's being used by people to twist facts. She talked about how people like herself got trolled and attacked for writing factual versions of history that went against the popular narrative. 

Rajmohan Gandhi addressed the issue of fake news, and talked about the true story behind the 1946 Congress Presidential elections, the story that is being spread as the way Jawaharlal became Prime Minister! Rajmohan Gandhi told us how, when the Congress elections were to happen, some provinces nominated Patel, some Kriplani, and some more nominated Azad, who was the incumbent President of the Congress, offered to continue for another year. The policy was that if there were multiple nominations, Gandhi would choose. With the coming of the Cabinet mission, Gandhi felt that Nehru would be the best man for the job, and so the three were asked to step down, which they did. Nehru was, later, in his role as  Congress President, asked to be interim Prime Minister. 

Finally John Keay was given his turn. So far everyone had mentioned how Eurocentric history was, and he elaborated on that, talking about how that had been the norm, as Europeans were the ones writing history, but had now become the norm. He said there needed to be histories written in places that were centric to that place.                 

 .

From left to right: Audrey Trushke, Ira Mukhoty, John Keay, Rajmohan Gandhi and Professor Mukherjee

After the talk, I returned to the MLS stall. Jhubal had chosen to stay behind for the last talk,and now wanted to go for one on feminism. It was titled, "Why We Should All Be Feminists". He had gotten it into his head that there would be some excitement like what had happened the previous day at the Aurangazeb talk, and wanted to go for it. I accompanied him, but didn't intend to stay for long. On the way, I met another friend of mine. We went to The Showplace, and it was packed, so the three of us went and stood along the side, and I decided to stay on.

There was one woman who insisted she was not a feminist, and reiterated that one point, drawing harsh criticism. .She said she had once been a feminist, but now chose not to take sides.The others, rightly said, if women had chosen to remain neutral and passive, they would have never gotten themselves any rights. The other speakers said one or two substantial points in the beginning, but the talk began to stagnate after a while. 

Once downstairs, the other friend took off, and Jhubal and I went back to the MLS stall. My mother, who had gone to grab a coffee, came and joined us, and while talking about to the people there, mentioned that Rajmohan Gandhi would be coming to our stall. I had already invited him the previous day, but he had had no time at that point. He had promised my mother he would come once he had got his vadas, and his hunger was satiated. Jhubal and I rushed down there, and saw that he was indeed on his way, and so rushed back to the stall; but a friend stopped Jhubal and began talking to him at that moment. I firmly dragged him away, and we went back to the stall to wait for Rajmohan Gandhi, who slowly walked up to the stall. When he got there, there was a silence that fell over everyone. A couple of us told him about the MLS, showing him the letters, the calendars, and the Madras Journal of Literature and Science. Throughout it all, he was quite thrilled, and at the end, even remarked that he should have come here before writing his last book. Someone commented that he could still come before writing his next one. 

Rajmohan Gandhi and his wife at the MLS stall

(photo courtesy: Kaveri Bharath)

As Rajmohan Gandhi walked away, my mother walked up to him, and informed him that his daughter had been her junior, before they had moved to Delhi. He was intrigued, and took down my mother's name, promising that he would ask his daughter. 

Just before the day came to a close, I spotted Jonathan Gil Harris, walking around below our stall. I called him up, and he hesitated, before promising he'd come the following day. 

With an ending like that, the second day suddenly got exciting, and I was happy that I'd caught a speaker at our MLS stall. 

Day 3 would prove, for MLS, to be its biggest yet.