Jaipur Lit Fest visits London

A large number of people converged on the British Library over the weekend for conversation, music and dance – on subjects ranging from Beatles’ India links to partition to the Constitution – in the Jaipur Literature Festival as part of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017.

Philip Norman, biographer of The Beatles, and journalist Ajoy Bose got together for an engaging session, to discuss the magic and mystery of the band’s experience in India. Bose pointed out the irony that the younger generation of Indians embrace The Beatles as symbols of modern western culture, while rejecting their own traditional values, whereas The Beatles repudiated their own culture to embrace the ancient values of India.

Philip Norman suggested that George Harrison was perhaps the most inherently spiritual of the four, and because they were all very close, when he started meditation, all of them started meditation. Whilst most of the songs were written by the creative relationship between Paul McCartney and John Lennon, the Indian connection gave Harrison a power point in his relationship with the band, he said.

Indian high commissioner YK Sinha recalled the visit by his father (Gen S K Sinha) to the British Library for research, and reiterated that the tradition of Indian culture transcending borders was being kept alive by the festival in the library.

Speakers included Shashi Tharoor, Swapan Dasgupta, William Dalrymple, Patrick French, and Karan Johar.