Report: The Kolkata Literary Meet 2022
With interesting sessions featuring a range of authors including Ghazala Wahab, Cyrus Broacha, Sandip Roy, Amish Tripathi and Javed Akhtar, and personalities like Simi Garewal, Jim Sarbh and Mallika Sarabhai, the Kolkata Literary Meet 2022 stood out especially for the rare intimacy it engendered between writers and readers
Being in Kolkata always makes my heart sing. Cities are like people in some ways. You can love them, and still not come up with a list of 10 reasons why they deserve that love. The Kolkata Literary Meet, which took place from March 22 to 27, made me fall for that city yet again. The festival was tiny in scale compared to the behemoths organised in other parts of India but that did not matter because it was all heart. There was an intimacy between writers and readers rarely seen in places where fanfare is the order of the day. Bigger is not always better.
KLM, or Kalam as the organisers prefer to call it, was inaugurated by poet-lyricist-screenwriter Javed Akhtar whose verse has been translated into Bangla by Srijato. Apart from holding forth on his own poetry, and the fate of Urdu in the current political scenario, Akhtar entertained the audience with stories about his deceased friend – poet Sahir Ludhianvi.
Akhtar sensed that listeners were eager to hear about the man’s relationships with novelist Amrita Pritam and playback singer Sudha Malhotra and promptly said, “There was only one woman in Sahir’s life. That was his mother. He was an atheist, but he worshipped his mother. It was a highly unusual relationship.” This mother-fixation is, by no means, a startling revelation; authors Surinder Deol and Khushwant Singh have mentioned it in the past.
Cyrus Broacha was another speaker who managed to elicit much laughter. While the comedian did not plug his books Karl Aaj Aur Kal (2010) and The Average Indian Male (2011), he took potshots at himself for having to go to the toilet every seven-eight minutes because he is now an old man. He also joked about being mistaken for Bollywood singer Shreya Ghoshal at an airport, and about a call from former Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. Apparently, Thackeray was a fan of Broacha’s show Bakra on MTV.
Journalist and author Hussain Zaidi made the audience laugh when he spoke about a phone call with gangster Dawood Ibrahim. Zaidi, who has written crime fiction as well as non-fiction books on crime, recalled how stunned he was to hear Dawood speak in polite, refined Urdu quite unlike the tapori-speak of gangsters in Hindi films. Apparently unafraid of gangsters, Zaidi believes they are scaredy-cats.
Remo Fernandes, whose autobiography was released recently, spoke about his meeting with Mother Teresa in Kolkata many years ago and how, three decades later, she inspired his opera, Teresa and the Slum Bum. Usha Uthup, who lives in Kolkata, was there too and spoke about her biography, written by Vikas Kumar Jha and translated into English as Queen of Pop: The Authorised Biography of Usha Uthup by Srishti Jha.
Other authors at Kalam included Ghazala Wahab, Manu Pillai, Mridula Ramesh, Sandip Roy, Arunava Sinha, Tony Joseph, Rahul Bhattacharya, Amish Tripathi, Anita Agnihotri, Jeet Thayil, Rakesh Khanna, and Bachi Karkaria. They covered a diverse range of subjects from ghosts and spirits to translation and minority rights. The water crisis in India, migration, cricket and the hospitality industry were part of the mix.
The festival venue was the fantastic Victoria Memorial, one of the most frequented monuments in Kolkata, known for its gardens and galleries, Indo-Saracenic architecture, and the spectacular collection of portraits, sculptures, and rare books. A free festival in a public space seems welcoming to people who cannot afford to shell out entry fees to listen to their beloved authors. I noticed that there were no expensive food stalls. At the entrance, one could buy from vendors selling jhalmuri, papri chaat, ice cream, and tea.
Nostalgia is part of Kolkata’s DNA, so it was hardly surprising that there were multiple sessions celebrating history and heritage. Journalist and author Raghu Karnad spoke about his playwright father Girish Karnad’s plays and politics. He was joined by actor Mohan Agashe and translator Arshia Sattar (on video).
Another memorable session featured dancer Mallika Sarabhai and actor Jim Sarbh in conversation with economist Shrayana Bhattacharya, author of Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh. Sarbh plays scientist Homi Bhabha in the web series Rocket Boys, which also deals with the life of scientist Vikram Sarabhai (Mallika’s father). There was no talk of books here, but the discussion revolved around characterization, plot, and the concept of fidelity when it comes to adapting real-life stories for the screen.
The conversation between graphic novelist Nicolas Wild, illustrator Cheyenne Olivier, and Pinaki De who has designed close to 500 book covers was excellent too. When the word is prioritized, the image often takes a back seat. But Kalam tried to expand the meaning of what constitutes the ‘literary’. In doing so, it gave a platform to forms of creative expression beyond books – illustration, stand-up comedy, music, and film.
The best part of Kalam really was Simi Garewal’s session on the final day. She had audiences hanging on to every word when she spoke about working with Satyajit Ray in Aranyer Din Ratri (1970), based on Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel of the same name. A huge fan, she recalls being unable to bring herself to say hello when she saw Ray at a party thrown by Raj Kapoor. Ray, however, was convinced that she would be perfect to play a tribal woman in his film. They later bonded over word games and wrote letters to each other. Garewal plans to donate these papers to an archive.
There were many sessions in Bangla and it was heart-warming to see it being given place of pride at the festival. So it was ironic that Ajoy Bose’s documentary film based on his book Across the Universe: The Beatles in India (2018) was screened at the Bengal Club. The entrance to this venue has a plaque stating “In the house which formerly stood on this site and was dismantled in 1908, resided Thomas Babington Macaulay, law member of the Supreme Council 1834-38.” Macaulay once famously said that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.” Thankfully, Indians are getting over their colonial hangover and now find that sort of statement more comic than true.
Chintan Girish Modi is an independent writer, journalist and book reviewer.