While most of London was rolling around in a park on Sunday, we were at the terrific Jaipur Literature Festival day at the Southbank Centre’s Alchemy Festival. Aiming to give Londoners a taster of its now famed Indian original, the day brought together writers, poets and thinkers, and proved a heady and at times combustible mix of art, politics, Bollywood, debate and ideas.
Pakistani singer (and writer) Ali Sethi stirred souls with his flawless renditions of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s well-known poems, including the much-loved ‘Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat’ and ‘Hum Dekhenge’. William Dalrymple, with vocal accompaniment from the wonderful Vidya Shah, enthralled with stories from the bygone era of the last Mughals. A session on Bollywood confirmed that Shahrukh Khan does indeed rule the world, and sparks flew in a session on regional language literature, and whether ‘Hinglish’ will ever be an acceptable form of literary expression. Vikram Seth brought a certain rockstar prickliness to his session, and then reminded us why we loved ‘A Suitable Boy’, and remember tearing through its 1,400 pages as if it were yesterday. And then William Dalrymple hauled us all up to crazy-dance to the magnificent music of Rajasthan’s Manganiyar family of musicians into the not so wee hours. All interspersed with shameless nips out on to the Southbank Centre’s sun-drenched terrace for Vitamin D and fountain fun. Great, great day.
There’s much more to come as the Alchemy Festival carries on until May 26th, including loads of free events. Check here for more details.