A walk through FGLF-2019
Tera Jayewardene attends some of the sessions of the lit festival that concluded last Sunday
‘The Child in Us’:A Nobel Laureate’s daughter speaks
As a young child growing up in Kolkata, Nandana Sen, daughter of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen played with children on the streets. When it was time for her to go home to dinner, they would come with her and were given the same food. However when they had to leave, what perplexed Nandana was why they did not have a house like she did. One day she had stated that when she was older she would bring someone home and keep them forever.
Today, Nandana has done exactly that - she has a daughter whom she adopted. She spoke of this and other experiences during her Friday session at the Fairway Galle Literary Festival titled, ‘The Child in Us’, discussing too the different books she had written as well as what she hoped to accomplish by creating those works of fiction.
Sounds of ‘Choral’ in an old church
Ahighlight of Friday’s programme was ‘Choral’ when Ishan De Lanerolle and the Choir of the Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour presented the musical ‘Experiencing God’ at the All Saints’ Church at Galle Fort from 6.30 to 8 p.m. The De Lanerolle Brothers voices blended together harmoniously, backed beautifully by the choir giving the audience an uplifting experience in the atmospheric setting of the old church.
Memories are made of these: Sir David Hare
Aliterary discussion that had the audience engaged and thoroughly entertained was Sir David Hare, talking about his memoir, ‘The Blue Touch Paper’ on Saturday. Sir David spoke of how when walking in the city he lived in, he would see memories, many painful, attached to corners. Writing a memoir is the best therapy and he would recommend it over getting a therapist, “it’s a lot cheaper,” he quipped. The audience roared with laughter when he declared the hall (the Royal Court, Spa Ceylon), a Trump and Brexit free zone.
Reading from his book, he picked a scene set in his childhood. He spoke of his parents, a father, who would be away at sea for 11 months (they would have to ration their
money), but when he came back for that one month, they would suddenly be able to go out to restaurants and his mother from whom he inherited his love for the theatre, also paying rich tribute to his designer wife Nicole Farhi.
Behind the lens with Sir Don McCullin
One of Galle’s scenic hotels Le Grand was the perfect setting for the Literary Salon on Saturday evening with famed war photographer Sir Don McCullin who spoke of his work also as a landscape photographer. How he travelled for hours, and stood on Hadrian’s Wall after a blizzard had just passed, and took a picture of the breathtaking sight he saw - “I was the happiest man in England.”
Sir Don is not interested in taking pictures during the summer and waits for winter to take his camera out, as he doesn’t like the look of the summer light.
He also shoots in black and white because he feels that colours are not what are seen but created by the camera, but this may have something to do with his colour blindness as one of the audience members pointed out.
The talk he gave had the audience deeply engaged while the book showcasing his pictures was passed around so the audience could take a look for themselves at his work.
Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire
The story begins with Isma finally liberated from responsibility. After spending years raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she resumes her dream, long deferred, of studying in America. On the way to America she is taken into the airport interrogation room, and grilled by customs officers who go through every item of clothing in her luggage and question her on the Great British Bake Off and what she thinks of the Queen.
Kamila Shamsie’s experience of going through customs, an ordeal she faced for years when she would have to go into an interrogation room, meeting others who were waiting as well, the stories they shared with her became the inspiration for her book, ‘Home Fire’. Kamila spoke of this at her last session at the FGLF on January 20 as the Festival drew to a close.