The Jaipur Literature Festival

 I’d read about it, and heard about it, but I wasn’t prepared for the dizzying line up of literary heavy-hitters we witnessed today on the opening day of the 5-day literary event know as the Jaipur Literature Festival.  It was, to borrow a term from our driver, mind blowing.  There are, I believe, around 182 authors from who knows how many continents represented.  The day started with a group of Buddhist monks chanting on center stage, and we were held raptly for the next 8 or 9 hours. It’s taking place in a gorgeous venue called Diggi Palace, with space for about 6 separate halls/auditoriums, so it’s very tense while we are making our daily dance card.  We had to divide and conquer today, and I imagine our individual interests will necessitate the same in the next 4 days, but it was an exhilarating and exhausting experience.  I was trying to think when modern people sit and consider some of the very diverse and stimulating topics that were raised today, but I couldn’t come up with anything.  It seems, to me, a great luxury to be part of the dialogue.  We missed our 4^th member of the tribe, who would have been in a dither trying to decide which discussion to attend and which to miss.  We were thinking we should make this a family reunion place every year, but that seems just greedy at this point.

Today’s highlights included hearing Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting For Stone, one of my favorite reads of the past couple of years, several authors of yoga tomes discussing the roots of yoga, The Flight of the Falcon author Jamil Ahmad, and, oh yes, Pico Iyer interviewing HHH Dalai Lama.  The HHHDL was delightful joyful, playful and insightful all at once.  I could have listened to him for hours more.  He shared some interesting similarities between the inquiry method of science and the tradition of Buddhism, which I found both compelling and fascinating.  I hope to have the energy to report more tomorrow; this life of the mind is exhausting business.