New Delhi– The rich heritage of Rajasthan is set to come alive next week as the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival showcases the colour and culture of its home state to over 2 lakh expected visitors.
The annual event has been held at the historic Diggi Palace since it was founded in 2006, and will return next week for the 2015 edition, which runs from 21-25 January. The Festival is completely free and open to all, attracting visitors from all four corners of the globe.
The Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Smt. Vasundhara Raje will inaugurate the event on the 21st morning, whilst local Rajasthani musicians Nathoo Solanki, Chugge Khan and the Jaisalmer Boys will open the world’s largest free literary festival with the sounds of their traditional, infectious music which has become synonymous with the excitement of the first day of the Festival.
Also on the opening day, musicologist John Napier, together with Shanti Raman, will speak of the tradition and challenges of modernity in archiving the oral history of the Nath Jogis. They will be joined on stage by jogi performer Shri Kishori Nath who will recite and perform from an ancient bardic repertoire.
In a session titled, “Rajasthan: Out of Bimaru”, Jaipur born economist and Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya, and scholar, economist and writer Bibek Debroy will discuss Rajasthan’s road ahead as the state seeks local strategies for transparency, equity and growth. They will be joined by writer and columnist Malvika Singh as well as journalists Om Thanvi and Ashok Malik on the second day of the Festival.
The middle day of the Festival, Friday 23 January, wil see eminent writers and scholars Aidan Singh Bhati, Arjun Deo Charan and Ambika Dutt discuss the heritage and contemporary manifestation of Rajasthani literature, spanning a diversity of dialects and genres from ballads to heroic epics and a treasure trove of oral tradition.
The Festival will also look back at the distinctive literary and visual arts traditions of courtly Rajasthan with cultural historians Molly Emma Aitken, BN Goswamy, Kavita Singh and Rima Hooja. Aitken and Goswamy will also be in coversation earlier in the week on the intircate miniature paintings of Rajasthan which has revolutionised our understnading of the courtly world and family ateliers that produced them.
Kathputli, the single string puppet theatre native to Rajasthan, will be celebrated at the Festival. Experts Dadi Pudumjee, Puran Bhatt and Rajesh Bhat Nagori will discuss this integral part of the region’s bardic traditions, with a history stretching back to thousands of years.
Poetry and the poetic imagination has long been a hallmark of Rajasthani literature. ‘Dingal’ is a heroic form of poetry written in the nagri script and unique to Rajasthan, Gujarat and Sindh, Pakistan. Shaped by historical events, the acute martial rhythm of ‘dingal’ poetry is accentuated by a distinctive style of recitation, whilst pingal, a form of Prakrit, based on brajbhasha, evokes the sentiments of love and romance. On Saturday 24 January, Rajasthani writer and cultural historian C.P. Deval will speak of the history and charm of dingal and pingal, with recitations by Rajendra Singh Barhath, Shakti Daan Kavya and Gopal Prasad Mudgal.
On the final day of the Festival, three women writers; playwright, author and activist Mridula Behari, Rajasthani writer and critic Lata Sharma and poet and publisher of ‘Simply Jaipur’ Anshu Harsh, will read and speak of the Strishakti that inspires their work. Meanwhile, author, scriptwriter and satirist Ram Kumar Singh, of ‘Zed Plus’ fame will speak of his engagement with film and literature and read from his recent work, whilst poet, writer and translator Malchand Tiwari reads from his recent book “Borunda Diary” and pays tribute to the late Vijay Dandetha.
In addition to the sessions at the main Festival site, the city itself will become a participant in the Festival as Amer Fort and Hawa Mahal become venues for unique satellite events as the Festival expands beyond Diggi Palace. Naseeruddin Shah will recite the poetry of Manto on Wednesday 21 January at 7.30pm at Amer Fort. The acclaimed actor will be followed by a performance from Sonam Kalra and The Sufi Gospel Project supported by Rajasthan Tourism. Actress Shabani Azmi will also read poetry at the Hawa Mahal on Thursday 22 January at 6.30pm, followed by a fiery flamenco performance by Rasa Duendes.
Sanjoy Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, Producer of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival said, “The city of Jaipur has welcomed and supported the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival since it began. We are excited to take the Festival even further beyond the four walls of Diggi Palace to some of the city’s most iconic sites in assoiation with Rajasthan Tourism”.
Nand Bhardwaj, Regional Advisor to the Festival, said, “The ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival is an international literary event of its own kind with participants coming from all around the world. The variety in programme contents and formats are quite clear, even then the event is also known for its unique regional colour. Each year specific themes and aspects of Rajathani regional culture and life are celebrated at the Festival and that is the beauty of this event. In previous years various aspect of folk forms and representation of new creation in Rajasthani language and literature has been a major attraction for the regional audience.”