1. 2. 3. 4. ‘As a 7-yr-old, I saw a citizen What’s the measure hanged … of India... ·...
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4 SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAI DECEMBER 17, 2017 TIMES CITY | Times Litfest 2017 Log on to www.timeslitfest.com Venue Mehboob Studios | Entry Free Festival Curators | Bachi Karkaria and Namita Devidayal To register for children’s workshops, write to [email protected] SUNDAY December 17 JSW HALL 10am-11am Despots Then and Now | From Stalin to Trump North Korean dissenter Hyeonseo Lee, Stephen Kotkin, Shashi Tharoor, Rajdeep Sardesai. Patrick French moderates 11.15pm-12.15pm The making of a Poet | How Gulzar inspired Vishal Bhardwaj 12.30pm-1.30pm Partition and Poetry in Golden Slippers | Gulzar speaks on being a novelist at 80 with Rakhshanda Jalil 1.45pm-2.45pm Life is Not a Silo | Why we need the humanities Princeton professor Stephen Kotkin, historian Patrick French, professor Supriya Chaudhuri. Sunil Khilnani moderates 3pm-4pm Hanuman Or Karna? | What kind of loyalty do netas want? Devdutt Pattanaik 4.15pm-5.15pm It’s Ok Not To Be Ok! | Mental illness has many forms, is everywhere Neerja Birla, Anupam Kher, Sudarshan Ramakrishna 5.30pm-6.30pm Seventy is the New Seventy | Who the hell wants to be thirty? Shobhaa De, Hema Malini, Ramkamal Mukherjee. Srijana Mitra Das moderates 6.45pm to 7.45pm Empirical Evidence? | Did we really need the Brits? Shashi Tharoor in conversation with historian Zareer Masani TIMES HALL 10am-11am The Wonder of Panini’s Sanskrit Grammar | Catching the ocean in a cow’s hoofprint Vikram Chandra 11.15am-12.15pm Capturing the Rainbow in Black & White | The world in a camera Bill Hayes on his forthcoming collection of street photos, How New York Breaks Your Heart, with Sooni Taraporevala whose latest book, Home in the City, is just out 12.30pm-1.30pm We are Not Twins! | Mythologists Devdutt Pattanaik and Ashwin Sanghi on the bane of their lives 1.45pm-2.45pm Around the Campfire | My best travel story With astrophysicist Jeff Koehler, Sam Miller, Robyn Davidson. Moderated by Shreevatsa Nevatia 3pm-4pm Technology, Language, and Identity | Aurélien Bellanger, Bhalchandra Nemade, Supriya Chaudhuri. Moderated by Ishaan Jhaveri 4.15pm-5.15pm Call Me Sherlock | The researcher as detective Sheela Reddy, Sumana Roy. Kushanava Choudhury moderates 5.30pm-6.30pm The Lives of Others | How to get under the skin and include the blister Patrick French, Robyn Davidson, Akhil Sharma. Moderated by New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman ADITYA BIRLA HALL 10am-11am Pixies and Pixels | How digital has changed the style and substance of storytelling Deborah Treisman enters the new zone with Pragya Tiwari. Moderated by Chiki Sarkar 11.15am-12.15pm The Cold Cruel World of Upper Class Crime – From Nanavati to Indrani? | What’s new, what’s not Bachi Karkaria and Supriya Nair follow the scented trail 12.30pm-1.30pm Finding Osama | Hot tips, cold trails: the torturous path to the World’s Most Wanted Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott Clark chat with Meenal Baghel 1.45pm-2.45pm The Writer and the Publisher | Do Saints Eat Chocolate? Jeet Thayil in conversation with David Davidar 3pm-4pm Our Gendered Brain? | Are men and women really wired differently? Science writer Angela Saini, techie Sujit Saraf, finance strategist Sandra Navidi. Moderated by Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar 4.15pm-5.15pm Miss Laila and Mister Manu | Manu Joseph disarms Namrata Zakaria 5.30pm-7.30pm MASTERCLASS | Are you novel-ready? Ten tips from publisher Chiki Sarkar TIM DELHI AIRPORT HALL 10am-11am Memories Are Made of This | Head of History Robert Seatter describes how the BBC creates moments of celebration, exploration and revelation 11.15am-12.15pm Dishing Up the Diaspora | How Jews, Indians, and other wanderers changed the way world eats Veteran food writer Claudia Roden breaks bread with Vikram Doctor 12.30pm-1.30pm Friend of My Youth | Amit Chaudhuri reads from and discusses his new book with Sumana Roy 1.45pm-2.45pm VR Film Screening: BBC film Crossing the Sky directed by Anna Bressanin who talks about the making 3pm-4pm The Single- Column Assassin? | How cartoonists kill it Cathy Wilcox, Sandeep Adhwaryu and Hemant Morparia sharpen their pencils 5.30pm-7.30pm Film Screening: The Secret in Their Eyes followed by Eduardo Sacheri talking about the book behind the film HDFC LAWNS 11am-noon PERFORMANCE Morning riffs with Bombay Bairag. A blend of contemporary, classical, and Sufi music 12.30pm-1.30pm Democracy’s XI | Is cricket the ultimate Indian dream? Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai on his new book 1.45pm-2.45pm Where Sparrows Fall | Bird- lover Bikram Grewal talks on the older kind of tweets 3pm-4pm Travelling Light | Navigating the bumpy bipolar terrain Shreevatsa Nevatia confides in Dr Shamsah Sonawalla 5pm to 6pm PERFORMANCE Readings by Vivek Oberoi and Richa Chadda 6pm-7pm Into the Heart of Language: Gopal Gandhi delivers the keynote to our Lifetime Achievement Awards. We honour Bhalchandra Nemade, Krishna Sobti, Perumal Murugan, Dhurbajyoti Borah 7.15pm-8.15pm PERFORMANCE Hungarian folk band Kalaka WORKSHOP HALL 10.15am-12-15pm MASTERCLASS | How to write a film script with Anjum Rajabali 12.45pm-1.30pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP | Totally Mumbai Bhelpuri: Bringing the city alive through its yummy food stories 1.45pm-3.15pm MASTERCLASS VR the World | Learning Virtual Reality With Memesys (for professionals) 3.45pm-4.45pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP | John Dougherty sings and reads for children 5.15pm-6.30pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP | Creative Expression with MPower. Experimental drums and art circle 6.45pm-8.45pm MASTERCLASS A Taste for Stories | Learning how to tell them with Vayu Naidu T he repressive North Korean regime’s insistence that citizens report against each other in criticism sessions still haunts dissident Hyeonseo Lee. Years after she crossed over to China at the age of 17 and then to South Korea, she still cannot tell her mother she loves her. “I don’t know how to say it. We had grown up criticizing, we did not know how to compli- ment,” she said in a session titled ‘Escape from Kim’ on Saturday at the TOI Litfest. The state-controlled atmosphere was such that there were no friendships and no trust even between spouses. “Once a student told the teacher that his friend suddenly had ma- ny new things in his house. The school infor- med the state. They found a relative had escaped to China and was sending money. The entire family was punished,” said Lee. Her book, The Girl with Seven Names, chronicles her accidental escape from Nor- th Korea and her return to help her family escape. Lee said her crossing into China wh- ose border was located across a river facing her home was indeed an accident. “I thoug- ht I would be back in a week. I did not think it would be years till I saw my family again.” In North Korea at the time, state terror, incl- uding public executions, were common. “I saw a man being hanged when I was seven years old. I saw another man shot by police.” Citizens did not question such acts beca- use state propaganda ensured they were not exposed to another way of life. “We thought this was the way things were. We did not kn- ow democracy.” She crossed the border after seeing the impact of the famine in North Korea. She lived as an illegal immigrant for years before seeking asylum in South Kor- ea. “I was arrested once in China as an illeg- al immigrant but managed to get away beca- use I could read and write fluent Chinese. I changed my name with every city and scho- ol to escape recognition. In fact, Hyeonseo Lee is my seventh name. I hope it’s my last.” With her family in North Korea until she helped them escape, she lived with years of guilt. She, though, admitted that South Korea was also problematic for North Kore- an refugees. “South Korea is so developed and educated but they only respect people fr- om rich countries. Chinese and South Asi- ans are not treated kindly. North Koreans are treated worse than the Chinese.” Once again she found herself hiding her identity. Despite her new life in South Korea, Lee finds it difficult to shed the fear of the past. Writer Speaks Of Her Escape From N Korea ‘As a 7-yr-old, I saw a citizen hanged and another shot’ Pics: Uma Kadam There were no friendships in a state-controlled atmosphere, says Hyeonseo Lee TEAM TOI M en really need to find ways to deal with rejec- tion without going ba- nanas,” said English feminist author Laurie Penny, tickling both genders inside the cozy Tim Delhi Airport Hall at what turned out to be a juicy, hour- long dissection of the much-assailed topic feminism. Titled ‘Sex and White Lies’ and moderated by filmmak- er Paromita Vohra—k- nown for her works on gender and for her blood-red lipstick—the session lightly un- packed the various lay- ers, pretenses and stereotypes surrounding the weighty sub- ject including notions of union and privilege. Here, after deliberately stalling the “anxiety-inducing” opening question about her idea of feminism by saying a bunch of thank-yous, Pen- ny—the writer of ‘Bitch Doc- trine’—stated that feminism to her meant “questioning what aspect of economic and social structures are keeping inequal- ity between genders alive”. What followed were many quir- ky insights: the friend zone is not such a bad place (“you haven't been rejected as a lover but chosen as a friend,” said Vohra), men are “fragile” be- ings who should learn to eat ice-cream and move on after a rejection and that expression of fe- male desire is seen as a betrayal of gender. “When I've been intim- ate with men, some are surprised and say: ‘Wow, you’re really en- joying this’,” said Penny, eliciting guffaws. A key point arrived when a man asked if it was bold to say he is a feminist. “Saying you are feminist is different from being (one),” said Penny. “A measure of a man's feminism is how he behaves when there are no women around or when he thinks there are no women around.” What’s the measure of a man’s feminism? Laurie Penny TEAM TOI W riters tend to be intro- spective, lonely people. Movies oblige us to work in a way we are not used to,” said Argentine writer Eduar- do Sacheri, part of a panel that saw four people whose written works have been adapted into films and TV shows discuss the vagaries of adaptation. Titled ‘My Book Is An Open Film’, the panel, moder- ated by poet and dancer Tisha- ni Doshi, brought together Sacheri, Australian-Indian businessman Saroo Brierley (the inspiration for the film 'Lion'), Canadian-Irish author Emma Donoghue, and writer Vikram Chandra (whose 'Sa- cred Games' is now being adapted into India's first Net- flix series). Though all four harbour a secret affinity for the solitary creative process of literary fiction over the collaborative demands of filmmaking, they agreed that films must have enough wiggle room to make radical leaps from the book. The panelists also felt that though movies have their own strengths, they lack the densi- ty and philosophy of books. “Fiction doesn't need to move as quickly as movies,” said Donoghue, adding that if the thoughts of her protago- nist—a young boy in captivi- ty—were to be replicated in film as in the book, “it would look like something shot with a GoPro camera”. This is why Chandra, whose protagonist spends the first 200 pages wan- dering and thinking and who spent nine years writing the book, chose to stay away from the writing room of the TV show. “I know how annoying the writer can be when they try to control what the film should be like,” said Chandra, who felt neither film nor TV can transport you to another world like a book. Writers chart the course from paper to screen CREATIVE PROCESS TEAM TOI REALITY CHECK: OLD, NEW, OTHER WORLDS (Above) Poets Lisa Ray and Tishani Doshi discuss their old challenges and new freedoms at the session ‘Girls are coming out of the woods.’ (Right) The session ‘VR the World’, a masterclass to introduce first-timers to virtual reality. Audience got a sense of how VR films transport the viewer to the location of the story, recreate the atmosphere, and heighten empathy for subjects by creating a sense of immediacy and involvement in the stories. “The second you start working in VR, everything you know about making a film goes out of the window because you have to create a sphere of images,” said Zain Memon, co-founder of new media studio Memesys “What’s a bigger subject than [Joseph] Stalin?” asked Ameri- can historian, academic and author Stephen Kotkin during his session on the Soviet ty- rant. “A biography of Stalin is a history of the world. He line- edited novels, he pre-screened all the films, he decided all the foreign policy affecting Euro- pe, Asia, sometimes Africa, the US and Latin America. Moreo- ver, if you are interested in po- wer, this is the gold standard of dictatorship. No one has ever accumulated or exercised mo- re power than Stalin.” This explains why Kotkin has just completed his second of three planned volumes on the dictator. His first volume ‘Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928’, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and his latest, ‘Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929- 1941’, is a 906-page tome. Kotkin described Stalin in the early years as a diligent stu- dent with impeccable grades who was a devout Christian and sang in the church choir. He joined a spiritual seminary and almost became a priest but quit before giving his final ex- am to join the revolutionary underground. A month after Stalin became general secreta- ry of the Communist Party, Le- nin suffered a series of strokes and was incapacitated. “The reality was Stalin had his hands on all the levers of po- wer,” said Kotkin. “So there was no succession struggle.” The historian explained Stalin’s complicated ties with Hitler and recited his quirks. Stalin collected watches, play- ed skittles and doodled insults like ‘scumbag’ in the margins of key documents in different colours. He was full of contra- dictions – soft-spoken and foul- mouthed, a voracious reader who resented “fancy-pants” in- tellectuals, and a cynic who “li- ved and breathed” ideals. Can any topic get bigger than Stalin? Princeton professor and Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin TEAM TOI Mumbai: Subway conductor- turned-author Sujatha Gidla and fellow panellist, writer and photographer Bill Hayes discussed their love for their adopted city at The Times Lit- fest at Mehboob Studios on Saturday. For Hayes, the move to the Big Apple at the age of 48, ni- ne years ago, was a way to get over the loss of his long-time partner Oliver Sacks. “The people of New York draw me in with their stories, their li- ves,” he said. Gidla, a Dalit who grew up in Kakinada, Andhra Pra- desh, moved to NIT-Warangal and IIT-Madras to study and then on to New York to work at age 25. Calling New York “the most tolerant city”, Gidla who became the city’s only In- dian woman subway conduc- tor said it was one of the rea- sons she felt free enough to write her book, ‘Ants Among Elephants’. “If I had been in India, I wouldn’t be telling my story because I wouldn’t want to draw attention to my unto- uchability,” she said. New York freed Gidla from the particular constraints her family faced in India. “Hatred is not human nature. Discrimination of any kind is driven by economic factors. That’s why even Dalit stu- dents who make their way to elite educational institutions are still harassed,” she said. ‘Writing in NYC freed me of constraints’ TEAM TOI Mumbai: At a spirited discus- sion on whether ‘Saffron is the new blackened. Are the rights al- ways wrong are the liberals al- ways right?’ on Saturday, the pa- nelists were of the view that vo- ters will vie for what is best for them in a “pragmatic” way, irre- spective of the ideologies the candidates represent. Deftly setting a moderate to- ne for a potentially contentious debate on right versus left was moderator Manu Joseph. To Jo- seph’s question on resurgence of the right wing, senior journalist and panelist Pravin Kumar, aut- hor of a gripping book, Yogi Adi- tyanath: The Rise of a Saffron Socialist, published by Times Group Books, the Books division of the Times of India Group, sa- id, “It is more about people’s op- position to secular politics as we have been witnessing in the past 70 years.” Kumar said there is “nothing good or bad in a right or left view” and that when a view moves to either side from the centre, it assumes a similar edge. Mumbai Mirror editor Mee- nal Baghel, the other panelist, said, ‘Voters are pragmatic, smart and savvy they know what they doing.” ‘Pragmatic’ voters choose what works TEAM TOI T he session on crony capita- lism, moderated by noted columnist Swaminathan S Ai- yar, was a mix of money power and politics with business, with a fair dose of economic theory thrown in, starting with Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. Discussing abolition of net neutrality, author Sujit Saraf said, “Taking away net neutra- lity is crony capitalism. If this happens, it would be the death of the internet.” Abolishing net neutrality is a situation where powerful content produ- cers pay delivery platforms like telecom service providers to slow down delivery from less powerful competitors. On whether Prime Mini- ster Narendra Modi has been able to reduce crony capita- lism in the past three and half years that he has been in po- wer, it was a divided house. The panelists, though, were unani- mous in their view that at least Modi was able to stop corrup- tion of humongous propor- tions. Money power, politics & economic theory TEAM TOI A t five, little Saroo fell asleep on a train and went on a ride into the unknown. The boy, from Mad- hya Pradesh, ended up alone on the streets of Kolkata—lost and scared—before he was put in an orphanage and then adopted by an Aus- tralian couple in Ho- bart. That was in 1987. Twenty five years later, Saroo embarked on a Google Earth-aided journey to trace his birth mother. Now 36, Sa- roo continues to live in Ho- bart, but has been to India 17 times since he reunited with his biological family in 2012. “It’s been 25 years of sepa- ration. So, there’s 25 years of catching up to do,” smiled the author and businessman whose memoir, A Long Way Home, inspired the film Lion, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kid- man, that notched up six Oscar nominations this year. “I’m amazed at the colourful trajectory of my life and ev- erything else that’s happened from living as a destitute, catching that train, the trials along the way and then mov- ing to Australia... and then finding my family through digital interface, then the book and the movie… It’s all expe- dited so quickly,” said Saroo, who recently bought his birth mother a house and has been trying to help the Indian Socie- ty for Sponsorship and Adoption, the home in Kolkata where he was re- ceived in 1987. Lost boy found mother using Google Earth after 25 years Saroo Brierley TEAM TOI W riting comes from a place of different compulsions. Most writers are uneasy in their own skin. They are trying to work out a complex and unsolvable calculus between the world and their place in it,’’ said Indian-born author Neel Mukherjee, who resides in London, during his talk with Meru Gokhale, editor-in-chief, literary publishing, Penguin Random House India. But if one were to write a book, the most essential thing would be boredom. “I write 500 words every day. I read an article when I was small in a newspaper about Graham Greene. It said that he wrote 500 words before noon and then he hits whisky. So I write 500 words daily. On a very good day, I write 700; on a bad day 300 words.” The Greene formula for writing fiction A hall full of Litfest visitors heard Mishka Ben-David, Israeli author of best sellers such as Duet in Beirut and Forbidden love in St Petersburg, accompanied by Ashwin Sanghi, fiction-thriller writer of Chanakya's Chant and The Krishna Key, highlight their turns into writing. In conversation during the session, ‘The Thriller Weavers - How to prowl and poun- ce,’ Sanghi said, “Even if I write fic- tion, I do a lot research and use fa- cts in my stories. I provide a list of sources at the end of my book.” He typically spends a year researching a subject, three months on the plot and nine months to writing. “When you mix myth and history, you make mystery,” he said. Thriller mantra Canadian-Irish playwright and novelist Emma Donoghue (R) and British playwright, poet and novelist Deborah Levy discuss the portayal of darkness in human behaviour in writing. “Happiness is great to live but it doesn’t make for good fiction. Happy endings work only if you can get there through a long tense tunnel,” says Donoghue dj 1. India’s best-loved radio show host Ameen Sayani draws a full house as he relates fond memories of Roshan, S D Burman and Kishore Kumar, among other film personalities, while host Swanand Kirkire plays hits like ‘Mann re tu kaahe na dheer dhare’, ‘Piya tose naina laage re’ and ‘Jaanejaan’ to go with the anecdotes. 2. Actor Sonali Bendre enlivens a discussion on a book by author Ashwin Sanghi. 3. Indian-American best-selling writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni dwells on her art of storytelling during the session ‘All the World’s a Story’ with author Vinita Dawra Nangia. 4. Nandana Dev Sen and John Dougherty discuss subliminal messages in children’s books at the session ‘Catcher in the Young’, with readings by school students Rayan Mama, Ananya Mohan, Svara Kasliwal and Kabir Karkaria 1 LIT LIGHTS 3 4 Pics: Uma Kadam & Sandeep Takke 2 S uhel Seth holds forth at Mehboob Studios: ‘Bullshitting is one of the key pillars of storytelling. But it must have intelligence, an ethic if it is in the public domain.’ ‘Parenting has been outsourced to Google. In my time, needing private tuitions was a mark of shame. Today, the no of tuitions is a way of flaunting how much you can afford. My plea to children is, ‘Read, read, till you die.’ ‘Looking after parents is not a duty. It’s your main calling in life.’ ‘You’ll never have the time if you don’t want the time.’ ‘@chetan_bhagat is pani puri seller, Amitav dispenses wasabi. But both have their place.’ Suhel-isms * CCI NG 3.7 Product: TOIMumbaiBS PubDate: 17-12-2017 Zone: MumbaiCity Edition: 2 Page: TOIMMUM4 User: rohit.bundelkhandi Time: 12-17-2017 01:41 Color: C M Y K
Transcript of 1. 2. 3. 4. ‘As a 7-yr-old, I saw a citizen What’s the measure hanged … of India... ·...
4 SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAIDECEMBER 17, 2017TIMES CITY | Times Litfest 2017
Log on to www.timeslitfest.com
Venue Mehboob Studios | Entry Free
Festival Curators | Bachi Karkaria and Namita DevidayalTo register for children’s workshops, write to [email protected]
SUNDAY December 17JSW HALL10am-11am
Despots Then and Now |From Stalin to Trump North Korean dissenter Hyeonseo Lee, Stephen Kotkin, Shashi Tharoor, Rajdeep Sardesai. Patrick French moderates
11.15pm-12.15pmThe making of a Poet | How
Gulzar inspired Vishal Bhardwaj
12.30pm-1.30pmPartition and Poetry in
Golden Slippers | Gulzar speaks on being a novelist at 80 with Rakhshanda Jalil
1.45pm-2.45pmLife is Not a Silo | Why we
need the humanities Princeton professor Stephen Kotkin, historian Patrick French, professor Supriya Chaudhuri. Sunil Khilnani moderates
3pm-4pmHanuman Or Karna? | What
kind of loyalty do netas want?Devdutt Pattanaik
4.15pm-5.15pmIt’s Ok Not To Be Ok! | Mental
illness has many forms, is everywhere Neerja Birla, Anupam Kher, Sudarshan Ramakrishna
5.30pm-6.30pmSeventy is the New Seventy
| Who the hell wants to be thirty? Shobhaa De, Hema Malini, Ramkamal Mukherjee. Srijana Mitra Das moderates
6.45pm to 7.45pm
Empirical Evidence? |Did we really need the Brits? Shashi Tharoor in conversation with historian Zareer Masani
TIMES HALL10am-11am
The Wonder of Panini’s Sanskrit Grammar | Catching the ocean in a cow’s hoofprint Vikram Chandra
11.15am-12.15pmCapturing the Rainbow in
Black & White | The world in a camera Bill Hayes on his forthcoming collection of street photos, How New York Breaks Your Heart, with Sooni Taraporevala whose latest book, Home in the City, is just out
12.30pm-1.30pmWe are Not Twins! |
Mythologists Devdutt Pattanaik and Ashwin Sanghi on the bane of their lives
1.45pm-2.45pmAround the Campfire |
My best travel story With astrophysicist Jeff Koehler, Sam Miller, Robyn Davidson. Moderated by Shreevatsa Nevatia
3pm-4pmTechnology, Language, and
Identity | Aurélien Bellanger, Bhalchandra Nemade, Supriya Chaudhuri. Moderated by Ishaan Jhaveri
4.15pm-5.15pmCall Me Sherlock | The
researcher as detective Sheela Reddy, Sumana Roy. Kushanava Choudhury moderates
5.30pm-6.30pmThe Lives of Others | How to
get under the skin and include the blister Patrick French, Robyn Davidson, Akhil Sharma.Moderated by New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman
ADITYA BIRLAHALL10am-11am
Pixies and Pixels | How digital has changed the style and substance of storytellingDeborah Treisman enters the new zone with Pragya Tiwari. Moderated by Chiki Sarkar
11.15am-12.15pmThe Cold Cruel World of
Upper Class Crime – From Nanavati to Indrani? | What’snew, what’s not BachiKarkaria and Supriya Nairfollow the scented trail
12.30pm-1.30pm Finding Osama | Hot tips,
cold trails: the torturous path to the World’s Most Wanted Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott Clark chat with Meenal Baghel
1.45pm-2.45pmThe Writer and the Publisher
| Do Saints Eat Chocolate? Jeet Thayil in conversation with David Davidar
3pm-4pmOur Gendered Brain? | Are
men and women really wired differently? Science writer Angela Saini, techie Sujit Saraf,finance strategist Sandra Navidi. Moderated by Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar
4.15pm-5.15pm Miss Laila and Mister Manu |
Manu Joseph disarms Namrata Zakaria
5.30pm-7.30pmMASTERCLASS | Are you
novel-ready? Ten tips from publisher Chiki Sarkar
TIM DELHI AIRPORT HALL10am-11am
Memories Are Made of This |Head of History Robert Seatter describes how the BBC creates moments of celebration, exploration and revelation
11.15am-12.15pm Dishing Up the Diaspora |
How Jews, Indians, and other wanderers changed the way world eats Veteran food writer Claudia Roden breaks bread with Vikram Doctor
12.30pm-1.30pm Friend of My Youth | Amit
Chaudhuri reads from and discusses his new book with Sumana Roy
1.45pm-2.45pm VR Film Screening: BBC film
Crossing the Sky directed by Anna Bressanin who talks about the making
3pm-4pm The Single-
Column Assassin? | How cartoonists kill it Cathy Wilcox, Sandeep Adhwaryu and Hemant
Morparia sharpen their pencils
5.30pm-7.30pm Film Screening: The Secret in
Their Eyes followed by Eduardo Sacheri talking about the book behind the film
HDFC LAWNS11am-noon
PERFORMANCEMorning riffs with Bombay Bairag. A blend of contemporary, classical, and Sufi music
12.30pm-1.30pm Democracy’s XI | Is cricket
the ultimate Indian dream? Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai on his new book
1.45pm-2.45pm Where Sparrows Fall | Bird-
lover Bikram Grewal talks on the older kind of tweets
3pm-4pm Travelling Light | Navigating
the bumpy bipolar terrain Shreevatsa Nevatia confides in Dr Shamsah Sonawalla
5pm to 6pmPERFORMANCE
Readings by Vivek Oberoiand Richa Chadda
6pm-7pm
Into the Heart of Language: Gopal Gandhi delivers the keynote to our Lifetime Achievement Awards. We honour Bhalchandra Nemade, Krishna Sobti, Perumal Murugan, Dhurbajyoti Borah
7.15pm-8.15pm PERFORMANCE
Hungarian folk band Kalaka
WORKSHOP HALL 10.15am-12-15pm
MASTERCLASS | How to write a film script with Anjum Rajabali
12.45pm-1.30pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP
| Totally Mumbai Bhelpuri: Bringing the city alive through its yummy food stories
1.45pm-3.15pm MASTERCLASS VR the World
| Learning Virtual Reality With Memesys (for professionals)
3.45pm-4.45pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP
| John Dougherty sings and reads for children
5.15pm-6.30pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP |
Creative Expression with MPower. Experimental drums and art circle
6.45pm-8.45pm MASTERCLASS A Taste for
Stories | Learning how to tell them with Vayu Naidu
The repressive North Korean regime’sinsistence that citizens report againsteach other in criticism sessions still
haunts dissident Hyeonseo Lee.Years after she crossed over to China at
the age of 17 and then to South Korea, shestill cannot tell her mother she loves her. “Idon’t know how to say it. We had grown upcriticizing, we did not know how to compli-ment,” she said in a session titled ‘Escapefrom Kim’ on Saturday at the TOI Litfest.The state-controlled atmosphere was suchthat there were no friendships and no trusteven between spouses. “Once a student toldthe teacher that his friend suddenly had ma-ny new things in his house. The school infor-med the state. They found a relative hadescaped to China and was sending money.The entire family was punished,” said Lee.
Her book, The Girl with Seven Names,chronicles her accidental escape from Nor-th Korea and her return to help her familyescape. Lee said her crossing into China wh-
ose border was located across a river facingher home was indeed an accident. “I thoug-ht I would be back in a week. I did not think itwould be years till I saw my family again.”
In North Korea at the time, state terror, incl-uding public executions, were common. “Isaw a man being hanged when I was sevenyears old. I saw another man shot by police.”
Citizens did not question such acts beca-use state propaganda ensured they were notexposed to another way of life. “We thoughtthis was the way things were. We did not kn-ow democracy.” She crossed the border afterseeing the impact of the famine in NorthKorea. She lived as an illegal immigrant foryears before seeking asylum in South Kor-ea. “I was arrested once in China as an illeg-al immigrant but managed to get away beca-use I could read and write fluent Chinese. Ichanged my name with every city and scho-ol to escape recognition. In fact, HyeonseoLee is my seventh name. I hope it’s my last.”
With her family in North Korea untilshe helped them escape, she lived with yearsof guilt. She, though, admitted that SouthKorea was also problematic for North Kore-an refugees. “South Korea is so developedand educated but they only respect people fr-om rich countries. Chinese and South Asi-ans are not treated kindly. North Koreansare treated worse than the Chinese.” Onceagain she found herself hiding her identity.Despite her new life in South Korea, Leefinds it difficult to shed the fear of the past.
Writer Speaks Of HerEscape From N Korea
‘As a 7-yr-old, I saw a citizenhanged and another shot’
Pics: Uma Kadam
There were no friendships in a state-controlledatmosphere, says Hyeonseo Lee
TEAM TOI
Men really need to findways to deal with rejec-tion without going ba-
nanas,” said English feministauthor Laurie Penny, ticklingboth genders inside the cozyTim Delhi Airport Hall at whatturned out to be a juicy, hour-long dissection of themuch-assailed topicfeminism. Titled ‘Sexand White Lies’ andmoderated by filmmak-er Paromita Vohra—k-nown for her works ongender and for herblood-red lipstick—thesession lightly un-packed the various lay-ers, pretenses and stereotypessurrounding the weighty sub-ject including notions of unionand privilege.
Here, after deliberatelystalling the “anxiety-inducing”opening question about heridea of feminism by saying abunch of thank-yous, Pen-ny—the writer of ‘Bitch Doc-trine’—stated that feminism to
her meant “questioning whataspect of economic and socialstructures are keeping inequal-ity between genders alive”.What followed were many quir-ky insights: the friend zone isnot such a bad place (“youhaven't been rejected as a loverbut chosen as a friend,” saidVohra), men are “fragile” be-
ings who should learn toeat ice-cream and moveon after a rejection andthat expression of fe-male desire is seen as abetrayal of gender.“When I've been intim-ate with men, some aresurprised and say:‘Wow, you’re really en-joying this’,” said Penny,
eliciting guffaws.A key point arrived when a
man asked if it was bold to sayhe is a feminist. “Saying youare feminist is different frombeing (one),” said Penny. “Ameasure of a man's feminism ishow he behaves when there areno women around or when hethinks there are no womenaround.”
What’s the measureof a man’s feminism?
Laurie Penny
TEAM TOI
Writers tend to be intro-spective, lonely people.
Movies oblige us to work in away we are not used to,”said Argentine writer Eduar-do Sacheri, part of a panelthat saw four people whosewritten works have beenadapted into films and TVshows discuss the vagaries ofadaptation.
Titled ‘My Book Is AnOpen Film’, the panel, moder-ated by poet and dancer Tisha-ni Doshi, brought togetherSacheri, Australian-Indianbusinessman Saroo Brierley(the inspiration for the film'Lion'), Canadian-Irish author
Emma Donoghue, and writerVikram Chandra (whose 'Sa-cred Games' is now beingadapted into India's first Net-flix series).
Though all four harbour asecret affinity for the solitarycreative process of literaryfiction over the collaborative
demands of filmmaking, theyagreed that films must haveenough wiggle room to makeradical leaps from the book.The panelists also felt thatthough movies have their ownstrengths, they lack the densi-ty and philosophy of books.
“Fiction doesn't need to
move as quickly as movies,”said Donoghue, adding that ifthe thoughts of her protago-nist—a young boy in captivi-ty—were to be replicated infilm as in the book, “it wouldlook like something shot witha GoPro camera”. This is whyChandra, whose protagonistspends the first 200 pages wan-dering and thinking and whospent nine years writing thebook, chose to stay away fromthe writing room of the TVshow. “I know how annoyingthe writer can be when theytry to control what the filmshould be like,” said Chandra,who felt neither film nor TVcan transport you to anotherworld like a book.
Writers chart the coursefrom paper to screen
CREATIVE PROCESS
TEAM TOI
REALITY CHECK: OLD, NEW, OTHER WORLDS
(Above) Poets Lisa Ray and Tishani Doshi discuss their old challenges and new freedoms at the session ‘Girls are coming out of the woods.’ (Right) The session ‘VR the World’, a masterclass to introduce first-timers tovirtual reality. Audience got a sense of how VR films transport the viewer to the location of the story, recreate theatmosphere, and heighten empathy for subjects by creating a sense of immediacy and involvement in the stories.“The second you start working in VR, everything you know about making a film goes out of the window becauseyou have to create a sphere of images,” said Zain Memon, co-founder of new media studio Memesys
“What’s a bigger subject than[Joseph] Stalin?” asked Ameri-can historian, academic andauthor Stephen Kotkin duringhis session on the Soviet ty-rant. “A biography of Stalin isa history of the world. He line-edited novels, he pre-screenedall the films, he decided all theforeign policy affecting Euro-pe, Asia, sometimes Africa, theUS and Latin America. Moreo-ver, if you are interested in po-wer, this is the gold standard ofdictatorship. No one has everaccumulated or exercised mo-re power than Stalin.”
This explains why Kotkinhas just completed his secondof three planned volumes onthe dictator. His first volume‘Stalin: Paradoxes of Power,1878-1928’, was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize and his latest,‘Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941’, is a 906-page tome.
Kotkin described Stalin inthe early years as a diligent stu-dent with impeccable gradeswho was a devout Christianand sang in the church choir.He joined a spiritual seminaryand almost became a priest butquit before giving his final ex-
am to join the revolutionaryunderground. A month afterStalin became general secreta-ry of the Communist Party, Le-nin suffered a series of strokesand was incapacitated. “Thereality was Stalin had hishands on all the levers of po-wer,” said Kotkin. “So therewas no succession struggle.”
The historian explainedStalin’s complicated ties withHitler and recited his quirks.Stalin collected watches, play-ed skittles and doodled insultslike ‘scumbag’ in the marginsof key documents in differentcolours. He was full of contra-dictions – soft-spoken and foul-mouthed, a voracious readerwho resented “fancy-pants” in-tellectuals, and a cynic who “li-ved and breathed” ideals.
Can any topic getbigger than Stalin?
Princeton professor and Stalinbiographer Stephen Kotkin
TEAM TOI Mumbai:Subway conductor-turned-author Sujatha Gidlaand fellow panellist, writerand photographer Bill Hayesdiscussed their love for theiradopted city at The Times Lit-fest at Mehboob Studios onSaturday.
For Hayes, the move to theBig Apple at the age of 48, ni-ne years ago, was a way to getover the loss of his long-timepartner Oliver Sacks. “Thepeople of New York draw mein with their stories, their li-ves,” he said.
Gidla, a Dalit who grew upin Kakinada, Andhra Pra-desh, moved to NIT-Warangaland IIT-Madras to study andthen on to New York to work at
age 25.Calling New York “the
most tolerant city”, Gidlawho became the city’s only In-dian woman subway conduc-tor said it was one of the rea-sons she felt free enough towrite her book, ‘Ants AmongElephants’. “If I had been inIndia, I wouldn’t be telling mystory because I wouldn’t wantto draw attention to my unto-uchability,” she said.
New York freed Gidla fromthe particular constraintsher family faced in India.“Hatred is not human nature.Discrimination of any kind isdriven by economic factors.That’s why even Dalit stu-dents who make their way toelite educational institutionsare still harassed,” she said.
‘Writing in NYC freedme of constraints’
TEAM TOI
Mumbai: At a spirited discus-sion on whether ‘Saffron is thenew blackened. Are the rights al-ways wrong are the liberals al-ways right?’ on Saturday, the pa-nelists were of the view that vo-ters will vie for what is best forthem in a “pragmatic” way, irre-spective of the ideologies thecandidates represent.
Deftly setting a moderate to-ne for a potentially contentiousdebate on right versus left wasmoderator Manu Joseph. To Jo-seph’s question on resurgence ofthe right wing, senior journalistand panelist Pravin Kumar, aut-hor of a gripping book, Yogi Adi-tyanath: The Rise of a SaffronSocialist, published by TimesGroup Books, the Books divisionof the Times of India Group, sa-id, “It is more about people’s op-position to secular politics as wehave been witnessing in the past70 years.” Kumar said there is“nothing good or bad in a right orleft view” and that when a viewmoves to either side from thecentre, it assumes a similar edge.
Mumbai Mirror editor Mee-nal Baghel, the other panelist,said, ‘Voters are pragmatic,smart and savvy they knowwhat they doing.”
‘Pragmatic’voters choosewhat works
TEAM TOI
The session on crony capita-lism, moderated by noted
columnist Swaminathan S Ai-yar, was a mix of money powerand politics with business,with a fair dose of economictheory thrown in, startingwith Adam Smith, the father ofmodern economics.
Discussing abolition of netneutrality, author Sujit Sarafsaid, “Taking away net neutra-lity is crony capitalism. If thishappens, it would be the deathof the internet.” Abolishing
net neutrality is a situationwhere powerful content produ-cers pay delivery platformslike telecom service providersto slow down delivery from lesspowerful competitors.
On whether Prime Mini-ster Narendra Modi has beenable to reduce crony capita-lism in the past three and halfyears that he has been in po-wer, it was a divided house. Thepanelists, though, were unani-mous in their view that at leastModi was able to stop corrup-tion of humongous propor-tions.
Money power, politics& economic theory
TEAM TOI
At five, little Saroo fellasleep on a train andwent on a ride into the
unknown. The boy, from Mad-hya Pradesh, ended upalone on the streets ofKolkata—lost andscared—before he wasput in an orphanage andthen adopted by an Aus-tralian couple in Ho-bart. That was in 1987.Twenty five years later,Saroo embarked on a GoogleEarth-aided journey to trace
his birth mother. Now 36, Sa-roo continues to live in Ho-bart, but has been to India 17times since he reunited withhis biological family in 2012.
“It’s been 25 years of sepa-ration. So, there’s 25years of catching up todo,” smiled the authorand businessmanwhose memoir, A LongWay Home, inspired thefilm Lion, starring DevPatel and Nicole Kid-man, that notched up six
Oscar nominations this year.“I’m amazed at the colourful
trajectory of my life and ev-erything else that’s happenedfrom living as a destitute,catching that train, the trialsalong the way and then mov-ing to Australia... and thenfinding my family throughdigital interface, then the bookand the movie… It’s all expe-dited so quickly,” said Saroo,who recently bought his birthmother a house and has beentrying to help the Indian Socie-ty for Sponsorship and Adoption, the home inKolkata where he was re-ceived in 1987.
Lost boy found mother usingGoogle Earth after 25 years
Saroo Brierley
TEAM TOI
Writing comes from a place ofdifferent compulsions. Most
writers are uneasy in their ownskin. They are trying to work out acomplex and unsolvable calculusbetween the world and their placein it,’’ said Indian-born author NeelMukherjee, who resides in London,during his talk with Meru Gokhale,editor-in-chief, literary publishing,Penguin Random House India. Butif one were to write a book, themost essential thing would beboredom. “I write 500 words everyday. I read an article when I wassmall in a newspaper aboutGraham Greene. It said that hewrote 500 words before noon andthen he hits whisky. So I write 500words daily. On a very good day, Iwrite 700; on a bad day 300 words.”
The Greene formulafor writing fiction
Ahall full of Litfest visitorsheard Mishka Ben-David,
Israeli author of best sellers suchas Duet in Beirut and Forbiddenlove in St Petersburg, accompaniedby Ashwin Sanghi, fiction-thrillerwriter of Chanakya's Chant andThe Krishna Key, highlight theirturns into writing. In conversationduring the session, ‘The ThrillerWeavers - How to prowl and poun-ce,’ Sanghi said, “Even if I write fic-tion, I do a lot research and use fa-cts in my stories. I provide a list ofsources at the end of my book.” Hetypically spends a year researchinga subject, three months on the plotand nine months to writing. “Whenyou mix myth and history, youmake mystery,” he said.
Thriller mantra
Canadian-Irish playwright and novelist Emma Donoghue (R) and Britishplaywright, poet and novelist Deborah Levy discuss the portayal ofdarkness in human behaviour in writing. “Happiness is great to live butit doesn’t make for good fiction. Happy endings work only if you can getthere through a long tense tunnel,” says Donoghue
dj
1. India’s best-loved radio show host Ameen Sayani draws a full house as he relates fond memories of Roshan, S D Burman and Kishore Kumar, among other film personalities, while host Swanand Kirkire plays hits like‘Mann re tu kaahe na dheer dhare’, ‘Piya tose naina laage re’ and ‘Jaanejaan’ to go with the anecdotes. 2. Actor Sonali Bendre enlivens a discussion on a book by author Ashwin Sanghi. 3. Indian-American best-sellingwriter Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni dwells on her art of storytelling during the session ‘All the World’s a Story’ with author Vinita Dawra Nangia. 4. Nandana Dev Sen and John Dougherty discuss subliminal messages inchildren’s books at the session ‘Catcher in the Young’, with readings by school students Rayan Mama, Ananya Mohan, Svara Kasliwal and Kabir Karkaria
1
LIT LIGHTS
3 4Pics: Uma Kadam & Sandeep Takke
2
Suhel Seth holds forth atMehboob Studios:
� ‘Bullshitting is one of the keypillars of storytelling. But it musthave intelligence, an ethic if it is inthe public domain.’� ‘Parenting has been outsourcedto Google. In my time, needingprivate tuitions was a mark ofshame. Today, the no of tuitions isa way of flaunting how much youcan afford. My plea to children is,‘Read, read, till you die.’�‘Looking after parents is not aduty. It’s your main calling in life.’�‘You’ll never have the time if youdon’t want the time.’�‘@chetan_bhagat is pani puriseller, Amitav dispenses wasabi.But both have their place.’
Suhel-isms
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CCI NG 3.7 Product: TOIMumbaiBS PubDate: 17-12-2017 Zone: MumbaiCity Edition: 2 Page: TOIMMUM4 User: rohit.bundelkhandi Time: 12-17-2017 01:41 Color: CMYK
