At JLF stories spilled beyond the page

Though the five-day 19th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival ended on January 19, its aftertaste lingers — like a half-remembered line of poetry that refuses to leave the mind. At Hotel Clarks Amer, where lawns and halls turned into arenas of ideas, the festival unfolded with the dreamlike intensity of an Alice-in-Wonderland passage: heady, overwhelming and oddly clarifying. Words ruled the landscape. Spoken, sung, recited, debated and livestreamed, they flowed across genres and generations. Authors and audiences — constantly in motion, flowing in and out of sessions — were bound together by a shared faith in language as the fulcrum of culture. Politics, history, science, faith, food, technology, humour, grief, love and memory all rode on its back, proving again that literature is not a quiet corner of life but its most crowded crossroads.

The diversity of formats was as striking as the range of subjects. Poetry readings gave way to rapid-fire Q&As; songs slipped into philosophical conversations; humour softened hard truths; and debates crackled with contemporary urgency. Children sprawled on the grass clutching books, young adults darted between tents with festival schedules and silver-haired veterans listened with the patience of those who know that wisdom rarely arrives shouting.

Everything was lapped up. After sessions, queues for book signings snaked around corners, while bookstalls did brisk business. Even the logistics matched the festival’s forward gaze: tech-enabled face recognition ensured seamless entry, giving visitors more time to engage with ideas.

There was, quite literally, something for everyone. Sports rubbed shoulders with law and geopolitics; artificial intelligence debated the future of writing; humour shared space with crime and the supernatural. Economists dissected the North-South divide in outcomes and fund allocation; writers explored displacement, desire and memory; and children’s literature drew some of the most enthusiastic crowds.

Equally animated were the conversations around the business of books. With over 300 million self-published titles sold globally each year, the Jaipur BookMark segment’s session on The Shadecard of Self-publishing turned the spotlight on a rapidly expanding universe. Bringing together Chandigarh-based Navsangeet Kaur of White Falcon Publishing Solutions, Notion Press co-founder Naveen Valsakumar and Penguin India’s Sameer Mahale, the panel offered a 360-degree view of the subject. While Navsangeet and Naveen highlighted the nearly 20 per cent year-on-year growth in self-publishing, Sameer underlined the enduring relevance of traditional publishing, editorial rigour and physical bookstores. The exchange captured a key takeaway: independent and legacy publishing are parallel ecosystems, even as concerns over plagiarism and quality control demand greater vigilance.

The stars, of course, shone bright. In one packed tent, actor Zeenat Aman recited poems by Aman Nath — “from one Aman to another”, as Nath quipped — and, responding to a nodding audience, agreed that the time had come to write her memoirs. Nearby, American writer Stephen Alter, whose grandfather arrived in India in 1916, spoke to Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee about birds and their soulful songs, sending listeners out as newly minted birdwatchers.

Children, accompanied by proud parents, beamed as Sudha Murty — declaring herself the “national Ajji” — spoke of resilience, lost homes and found histories. Discussing ‘The Magic of the Lost Earrings’ with Mandira Nayar, Murty traced stories of Partition, Punjab and Sindh, reminding her audience that language is inseparable from culture. Writing, she said, begins in memory and research — in her case, two years of it, including journeys to Amritsar. This, her 50th book, returned to the pain of uprooting and the quiet strength of everyday lives.

Across the festival, Booker Prize winners anchored the gravitas. Kiran Desai returned with ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’, a sweeping tale of distance and belonging. Banu Mushtaq, the International Booker Prize winner for ‘Heart Lamp’, opened the festival with a keynote that cut to the bone. “Writing does not begin on the page,” she said. “It begins in the body — in life experience, in memory, in pain, in hope.” Her words resonated in a festival that consistently foregrounded voices from the margins.

Politics, inevitably, intruded. As in earlier editions, conversations on books competed with the decibel levels of contemporary political temperature. An unexpected political ripple ran through the festival when AR Rahman’s remark that the ebbing of his work might have a “communal” subtext drew sharp reactions. Javed Akhtar and Shobhaa De’s forthright rebuttals quickly stole the spotlight, momentarily pushing books and literary debate into the background.

Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, Radosław Sikorski, drawing on his experience as a journalist and European statesman, reflected on the evolving Russia-Ukraine war and Poland’s response to it. In conversation with Navtej Sarna, the session unpacked Europe’s political, historical and human challenges in a rapidly changing world.

Panels on democracy — featuring Ashwani Kumar, Manu Joseph, Badri Narayan and Ruhi Tewari — reflected the anxieties of the moment, reminding listeners that literature and politics are uneasy but inseparable companions.

Humour provided relief. Gaur Gopal Das, mixing song, jokes and kitchen metaphors, compared relationships to cooking upma — salt invisible but essential, sugar disruptive if overused, chillies potent, mustard seeds sputtering. “Humour is anaesthesia,” he said, “storytelling is the surgery.” There were moments of near-chaos too, as popular speakers were mobbed, testing the organisers’ reflexes. Yet the festival absorbed it all — amplified further by live streams and social media, ensuring that ideas escaped the venue and entered the larger public domain almost instantly.

By the final evening, what remained was enrichment. Tens of thousands — authors, readers, journalists, artistes, moderators and visitors from across India and beyond — left carrying more than tote bags and signed books. They carried arguments to ponder, stories to retell and the renewed conviction that words, carefully chosen and beautifully strung together, still have the power to illuminate the world. Asia’s biggest literary event once again proved that while the festival ends, the conversation does not. The noise fades; the words stay.