Poet Gulzar at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Saturday. (AFP)

Jaipur, Jan. 22: Noise, noise and more noise — that was the overwhelming feature today of the biggest literary jamboree India has ever held.

As crowds thronged the 280-year-old Diggi Palace to listen to authors who had come together from across the world, the pitch reached a crescendo, throwing up voices of different kinds.

When Penguin Group chairman and CEO John Makinson said he was interested in the noise that a book created, there were enough sounds in the background — both of applause and dissent — to suit his words.

People who could be seated and those who struggled to get a glimpse of the panellists all contributed to rising decibel levels, making it the loudest gathering ever in the Pink City.

The second day of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival started on a chaotic note with the crowd growing bigger with each passing hour. If 15,000 people had attended the opening session yesterday, the organisers estimated that 25,000 were present today.

One of the highlights of the day was author and television presenter Sunil Sethi’s morning session that saw a packed venue of 1,500 people on the front lawns of the palace. The panellists of the session — ‘Why Books Matter’ — included authors Patrick French and Kiran Desai, alongside Makinson and Sethi.

“At one point of time, I thought I had made 270 enemies,” said Sethi on his latest book The Big Bookshelf, published by Penguin India. The book carries 30 interviews, including conversations with four Nobel laureates, from the over 300 that he has conducted in his journalistic career.

“No, I don’t intend to go for a sequel to please anyone,” he added with a chuckle.

Man Booker Prize winner Desai was worried about the growing trend of authors getting bigger than their books. “There’s no solitude in writing anymore,” said Desai. “Some publishers even ask their authors to undergo media training on how to conduct themselves. Thankfully, I have been spared,” she said.

But the session that gathered the most eyeballs was the one that featured Desai with Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. The session, titled Out of West, also featured writers Leila Aboulela from Sudan, Chimamanda Adichie from Nigeria and Nam Le from Vietnam and dealt with the situation of writers from outside the West.

They weren’t the only ones to draw a large audience. Enthusiastic schoolchildren, men and women lined up to hear Bollywood heavyweights Javed Akhtar, Prasoon Joshi and Gulzar recite songs that had touched their lives. The session was so popular that they had a repeat sitting for all those who’d missed out hearing the poets talk about nationality, films, books and more.

School students seem to be having the best time at the festival. Many are volunteers. Over 200-odd students from Rajasthan University, Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia and private institutions are working as coordinators.

Roads remained blocked till midnight as writers mingled with the crowd.

Books, clearly, were creating the right kind of noise.