Delhi 2006: William Dalrymple, Goldie Hawn, Clare Short, Nadeem Aslam, Shashi Tharoor, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Rana Dasgupta, Muneeza Shamsie, Amit Chaudhuri, Geordie Greig, Alexandra Pringle and Manju Kapur. Sighted.

Mumbai 2007: Alexandra Pringle, Shekhar Kapur, Kamila Shamsie, Ian Jack, Susheila Nasta, Jackie Kay, Geordie Greig, Fatima Bhutto, Deborah Moggach, Shobhaa Dé, Farrukh Dhondy, Arvind Mehrotra, Amit Chaudhuri, Jaishree Misra. Sighted.

Mumbai 2008: Co-sponsor The Times, London, pulls out. Panelists Mahesh Bhatt and Shobhaa Dé pull out. Poets Sampurna Chattarji, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Jane Bhandari, Marilyn Noronha and Menka Shivdasani withdraw. Amit Chaudhuri, Geoff Dyer and 10 others urge a boycott. Party sponsors Vogue, Elle and Pernod Ricard cancel their events. Writers Meher Pestonji, Niall Griffiths, Sudeep Chakravarti and Robert Irwin hold ground.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that literary festivals in possession of ample ambition must be in want of the big guns. For Kitab 2008, the international (but mainly Indo-British) literary festival in its third year, big guns of all shapes and sizes were rapidly dissociating themselves from the event being held for a second successive year in Mumbai.

It all started with a public appeal last week by three former employees from last year’s Kitab to boycott this year’s event. The trio — Shazia Nizam, Kavita Bhanot and Ayesha Siddiqi — allege that not only have they not been paid for over a year by the organiser but the organiser — Edinburgh-based Pablo Ganguli (picture centre) and his company, Liberatum — dealt uneven-handedly with British and Indian invitees in 2007. The appeal had an unexpected domino effect, as participants, sponsors and visitors backed off for reasons of solidarity with those not paid their dues, bad press or disdain for such a slanging match.

Finally, Kitab 2008 opened nearly a day late on Friday — with a depleted line-up but a full house for its curtain-raiser, the performance of Meher Pestonji’s play Feeding Crows.

At the heart of this unravelling is the creator of the Kitab Fest, Pablo Ganguli, all of 24. Yasmin Alibhai, The Independent columnist who attended the Delhi event, saw Ganguli as Ariel from The Tempest, and gushed about his green-lensed eyes and chutzpah. That was in 2006.

Today, British poet Jackie Kay calls him the Great Ganguli, as in the Great Pretender, and is embarrassed about the way he discriminates against Indian writers. Completely upfront, says this year’s participant, Pestonji, who met Ganguli for the first time three days ago after a sustained e-mail interaction. “We have no money for the play, he said frankly. Instead it was organised with the help of Max Mueller Bhawan, where Feeding Crows was staged,” says Pestonji.

Ganguli has been accused of favouring British guests over Indians which makes it “difficult to hold an inclusive and relevant festival”, hold Delhi-based Bhanot, an editor at Osian, and UK-based Nizam and Siddiqi. They wish for no “public slaying” of Pablo’s character — but want their money (£7,700).

Ganguli’s detractors have other complaints as well. According to an author who declines to be named, he continued to use the names of authors like Germaine Greer and Hanif Kureishi on the festival website although they had cancelled their participation in Kitab 2007, to draw in other names for future events.

Susheila Nasta, editor of Wasafiri: The Magazine of International Contemporary Writing, who participated in the first Kitab on her own and even found a publisher at that event — says she warily accepted an invitation for the next event as a platform to launch the magazine in South Asia. “The event was a bit of a farce. The launch venue was beautiful, with silk sofas, much champagne and a dinner being prepared,” says Nasta. Wasafiri ended up hosting a very expensive party for fashionable guests who were not interested in literature but consumed all the food — leaving nothing for those who attended the Wasafiri reading.

“When I asked Pablo angrily why none of his team had been present at the readings, or controlled the food and the noise, he told me I should be happy as the room was so beautiful. He had spent much of his time, he said, lighting the candles,” Nasta recounts.

Award-winning poet Jackie Kay is equally scathing. “My experience of Kitab last year was such that I decided never again to do anything for Pablo Ganguli. I felt constantly misled. Much worse than that, I was very embarrassed to see the different ways we were treated from our Indian colleagues. It was shaming,” e-mails Kay. “Of course there is a pecking order,” counters Pestonji. “A Booker winner will be given better accommodation than one who is not. If dues have not been paid, there is a better way to protest than a boycott.”

For Allahabad-based writer Arvind Mehrotra, discrimination is not an issue. “But it was galling that those who worked with him for weeks had not been paid their dues. Kavita Bhanot kept Kitab’s promise to pay my train fare to Allahabad but I did not know at that time that it had come out of her own pocket,” he says.

Author Amit Chaudhuri, who was honorary president of Kitab last year, says he resigned before the event itself. “We gave Pablo the benefit of the doubt after the first festival as we put it down to inexperience and his being so young. But he can’t keep repeating the same mistakes,” Chaudhuri asserts.

At last year’s event an editor was overheard remarking, “What can you say of a literary festival which is known more for its organiser than its participants?” Ganguli’s company Liberatum holds festivals across the world. He describes himself as a cultural impresario and organised his first literary hoopla at the age of 17.

“It’s all very bitchy, the way everyone is reacting,” says Ganguli. The cherubic-faced cultural organiser, whose voice can cut a din, says instead that “the girls should be paying me — I don’t owe them any money.” What about all those who signed in support of “the girls”?

“What about them,” he counters. “I feel sick in my stomach about what’s happening.” It’s all because of his “slightly larger than life, flamboyance and colourful past” that such “pure venom” is being thrown at him, he argues. Look at those who have not signed, he says, listing people such as Bloomsbury editor Alexandra Pringle.

“What do you think of it? Don’t you think all these attacks are very venomous,” he suddenly asks. Sidestepping the question, one wonders aloud if it’s true he will be taking Kitab to Calcutta next year as reported in a section of the press. “I am going through a very difficult time right now. I can’t say what will happen next year,” he retorts.

In the meantime Ganguli on one side, and Bhanot, Siddiqi and Nizam, on the other, are consulting lawyers.

Till then Kitab soldiers on. But towards a somewhat uncertain future.