LITFESTING IN THE LAND OF THE THUNDER DRAGON
Unlike most cultural jamborees, the Mountain Echoes literary festival seems to be getting better with each passing year
Most of the time, literary festivals are tedious. They are full of very important people saying very important things to audiences desperate to come across as more-intellectual-than-thou. The Mountain Echoes Literary Festival held from August 24 to 27 in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, was different. It was genteel and the audience seemed to be genuinely interested in reading, in culture. This was my second time at Mountain Echoes – yes, the life of a books page editor is incredibly hard – but “no disease is like a surfeit of luxurious ease” etcetera so I expected to feel jaded, to want to cower, away from the action, in the pretty wooden library at the Royal University of Bhutan, the venue for most of the festival events.
The programme was stuffed with ridiculously eminent intellectuals, Indian authors, Bhutanese authors, international authors, a hip fashion contingent, and a famous filmi type to hold aloft the fluttering flag of Follywood. And then there were Shashi Tharoor and Padma Lakshmi, denizens of the celebrity stratosphere who blind everyone with their divine effulgence (insert sly emoji just about here). So yes, I’ll admit I was assailed by the feeling that I should be home working on the novel that’s still stuck at useless un-impregnating-mental-spermatozoa stage after all these years. So weary was I that by the time the welcoming dance of the drums was done, I was ready to run off to the borderlands of Doklam to fight the Chinese army single-handed. Thankfully, just about then, the Royal Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, the festival’s chief patron, launched into a talk on Zhabdrung, the ruler who united Bhutan back in the 17th century. It was also the first time I heard of the Divine Madman, a fascinating personality in Bhutanese myth and religion, who ridiculed hypocrisy and social convention. I was hooked. The Divine Madman pops up so often in my conversations with Bhutanese people that, a day later, I hopped on a motorbike and rode through the mountains to Chimmi Lakhang, the lovely temple to him in Punakha. But that’s the subject of another piece entirely. Back at the litfest, fetching young magician Neel Madhav did his thing; Barkha Dutt got into debates on feminism with clearly empowered women averse to the word; and Jerry Pinto literally swept me off my feet. “I do this with everyone who asks for a picture with me,” he said. Imtiaz Ali glowered sexily at everyone; Devdutt Pattanaik looked suitably impressed on hearing that the Bhutanese hang tiny wooden phalluses outside homes to ward off the evil eye just like “Indians hang lemons and chillies” (Oh, the heavy symbolism that’s escaped us all thus far!); Ruskin Bond exuded good cheer as he does at all times except when pesky tourists ring his doorbell in Landour in the middle of the afternoon – “Off, you buggers, Mr Bond is not at home!”; and Ashwin Sanghi held forth about his passion for Scotch. Incidentally, K5, a whisky named after current monarch, Jigme Wangchuck, the fifth king of Bhutan, is excellent. Sometime in between all this, Padma Lakshmi wrung her hands about her reputation, and her endometriosis, and rather gracefully, dodged questions about Salman Rushdie. In an interview that appeared a week later, her former husband made snarky comments about her intellectual abilities. Ah, some men never get over their breakups. Yup, most of the time, literature festivals are tedious. Surprisingly, Mountain Echoes, like the best Bhutanese spirits, only gets better. That is high praise indeed from a blase litfest veteran.