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If you see mountains closer to you than you have ever seen before, please don’t be alarmed.” That was our pilot as the Drukair flight from Calcutta cruised and cavorted its way into the tiny airport in Paro. The thrilling touchdown was a fitting preface to the next three days that left our minds soaring and our sides aching — from too much laughter. I was visiting Bhutan for Mountain Echoes, a festival of literature, art and culture, presented by Usha International and organised by the India Bhutan Foundation, in association with Siyahi, a literary consultancy in Jaipur.
The immigration queue — that bane of international travel — seemed far too short this time. For I had Amish for company. Not the author of the bestselling Shiva trilogy, but the banker that he was in a previous avatar. We spent some intense minutes discussing the virtues of largescale vegetable cultivation, not just grain, for the economy and the nation.
Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, is just over an hour’s drive from Paro and the views along Paro river are stunning.
Marriage for everyone
Her Majesty the Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck is the chief patron of the festival, which turned four this year, and in the evening, we all got dressed up to meet the royals.
The festival, co-directed by Namita Gokhale and Pramod Kumar KG, was inaugurated on August 8 at India House, the residence of the Indian Ambassador. The present incumbent is V.P. Haran, who was described by the Queen Mother as “a fine diplomat and a gem of a person.”
In her speech, the Queen Mother highlighted the importance of “creative cooperation between Bhutan and India and the world beyond”, while Namita Gokhale mentioned how literature was the “glue of humanity”.
A while later, it was a glue of a different kind that held the party firmly together — a cool mountain breeze, great conversation and an open bar! The present king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, came in later and how tongue-tied I was when introduced to him!
Aged just 33, the Oxford-educated king is as handsome as a movie star and as quick-witted as a poet. When the general manager of Taj Bengal, K. Mohanchandran, mentioned that he had last met him when the king was not yet married, His Majesty grinned, “Oh, I recommend marriage for everyone.”
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| Tiger’s Nest Monastery, clicked by Amish on his way up |
Tomboy Queen
In the first session of the festival on August 9, at the Tarayana Centre, the Queen Mother spoke about how she came to write Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan and a book on her father, Of Rainbows and Clouds. Though a royal today, she would graze cattle and collect firewood in her childhood.
“I particularly loved milking cows. I didn’t like the women’s kira, I liked the men’s goh (national dresses of Bhutan). I was a tomboy,” said the graceful lady. But what really struck me was her dedication to the craft of writing. Being a queen, she could have easily shot off manuscripts to publishers and have them published. “But I didn’t know how to write a book. So, I went to the UK and did a course in creative writing,” she said.
Dickens, the marketeer
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| His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck |
The biggest star of the festival was undoubtedly Amish. He couldn’t get a cup of coffee without being repeatedly requested by fans for autographs and photographs. And he did it all with a smile, even managing to slip away for half a day to visit the most stunning monastery in Bhutan, Tiger’s Nest (official name Taktsang Palphug Monastery). It’s a long, rocky climb, over two hours each way, and he came back looking flushed but very, very happy.
Speaking at a session titled Of Gods and Men, Amish was his usual frank and witty self, saying how he felt that the great idea (that of the Shiva trilogy) was actually thrust upon him. “When I am writing, it’s almost like I am visiting a parallel universe and just recording what I am seeing.” If only writing books that smash all Indian publishing records was all that simple. Sigh.
What is not simple is marketing, though. Amish said the Indian publishing industry was very “childish” when it came to marketing. Drawing inspiration from one of the greats, he said, “Charles Dickens was a fantastic marketeer. If he could go around promoting his books, I think all authors should.”
He explained how his wife Preeti’s ideas about distributing the first chapter of The Immortals of Meluha free at bookstore cash counters worked wonders. “Marketing is not about the money, it’s about great ideas,” Amish concluded.
The bottomline? Listen to your wife.
The role of She
One of the questions put to Amish was about the strong women characters in his books, be it Sati, the warrior princess, Ayurvati, the doctor, or Kanakhla, the prime minister of Meluha. “I have had very strong women around me, in my family. But putting in these characters was also a deliberate attempt on my part,” said the 38-year-old author. According to him, women’s empowerment was the single biggest challenge before India and other such societies. “We cannot become a great country without women’s empowerment.”
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| Amish explains his interpretation of the Indus Valley script in his books to a fan |
The question of women’s place in the world was a recurring theme throughout the festival. At a session titled Half the Sky: Women and the World, actor Rahul Bose rolled out a four-point road map on how to bring men into the gender movement.
“See, it is difficult to dissolve patriarchy in India. But we can combat it. The time has passed to preach to your children, now is the time to show them.” According to him, if a boy sees his father doing the dishes, if he and his sister are set the same curfew time, he will grow up believing girls and boys are equals.
Secondly, he said, we can try to subvert the concept of machismo — you don’t have to treat women as extra-special, “treat them like you would treat yourself”.
Third, “behind every molested, violated girl, there is a confused father, a hurt grandfather, a puzzled son. It is important to reach out to these men, to counsel them, to hold their hand in solidarity,” said Rahul.
Fourth, institutions. Making our law-enforcement institutions, be it the police or the judiciary, gender-sensitive is crucial. “Don’t give the excuse that these bodies are but a reflection of the wider society.”
Rahul’s director of three films, Aparna Sen, gave a stark description of how unsafe Calcutta is today for women and blamed political interference and “lumpen elements among party cadres” for the breakdown in law and order in the streets of our city.
Lily Wangchuk, the first woman president of a Bhutanese political party, spoke about a woman’s perspective in politics. Compassion, she said, was something a woman leader can bring to politics, but rued that often women in political leadership positions fail to play a gender-sensitive role.
Indies and adaptations
An interesting question came up during a session titled Dance Like a Man at Taj Tashi with playwright-actor-director Mahesh Dattani and author-teacher Kalyan Ray: should plays be shown on television to reach out to a wider audience?
“Yes, there is the question of a wider outreach, but in theatre, the impact is all about the stage. So, showing plays on television is actually doing theatre a disservice,” said Dattani. The solution, according to him, was cinematic adaptations.
On the question of cinema, during a session titled, well, Cinema Cinema, Aparna Sen asked Rahul Bose, with whom she had shot 15 Park Avenue in Bhutan some years back, “What is indie cinema?”
Rahul, as always dressed in a crisp, smart suit, had a crisp, smart answer. “Indie cinema means independent cinema.” But that does not mean just independent funding. What it essentially means is independent thought. Arthouse cinema could well be predictable, and that rules out any pretence of being “indie”, said the man who will always be “Mr Iyer” for many women of my generation.
Young nation
The youth of Bhutan was the focus of a session titled Cusp of Change, with writer and former Indian ambassador to Bhutan Pavan K. Varma, young Indian writer Omair Ahmad, Bhutanese writer-diplomat Lyonpo Om Pradhan and journalist Barkha Dutt.
“The younger generation already does not understand not having roads, planes or television. They want all western things,” said Om Pradhan. But Varma said that the Bhutanese people, including its youth, were deeply culturally rooted. “Even when Bhutanese people go abroad to study, great numbers of them come back.”
Omair, whose political history of Bhutan titled The Kingdom at the Centre of the World came out earlier this year, pointed out that 70 per cent of the 700,000 population of Bhutan was below 30 years. According to him, the “best possible” way to manage this young country’s future was democracy, which the third and fourth kings realised and the democratic process was started in 2007, despite the people protesting the change.
And the effects are already being felt, with the just-concluded second parliamentary election sending many more young people to the Parliament. “Well, India could learn from that! We’ve been waiting for a young government for over 60 years,” quipped Barkha Dutt, whose name, said Bhutanese journalists, is not just a proper noun but an adjective in Bhutan, such is her fan base.
Jolly ol’ Jerry
One of the most touching sessions — and he himself would have made a nasty pun here — was when author Jerry Pinto sat in conversation with writer-journalist Sathya Saran.
While his observations on Bollywood — “most of Bollywood is not into thinking” — left us in splits, his description of growing up with a mother who was “not like other mothers,” was deeply moving. His mother suffered from bipolar disorder and this forms the backdrop of his fictionalised book Em and the big Hoom.
Speaking to all future authors, Jerry said the world does not need another book, it is you who needs to write it. “The book that you want to write will be a magnificent book but it will not get written unless you write it,” he said, adding that when he quit his journalism job, he made a pact with the universe that he would write 1,000 words a day, every day, before brushing his teeth.
There goes my Unisex
Now, a lit fest is all about books and ideas, but it’s also about fun and fashion. Author Sudha Shah, who enthralled the audience with a picture presentation based on her book The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma, wanted to get her hair done before one of the evening dos. Walking out of our Druk Hotel near the Clock Tower, the sweet lady ambled around till she spotted a parlour, called Unisex, and walked in.
The parlour girls immediately gathered around her and launched into excited chatter about their new and improved services. “How much for hair wash and blow-dry?” Sudha enquired. “Nu 1,700,” came the reply. That’s Rs 1,700, because the Bhutanese Ngultrum is equivalent to the Indian Rupee.
We don’t know exactly how the conversation proceeded but the author came away paying Rs 700 (based on her Mumbai parlour’s rates) and giving the girls a thorough tutorial on how to do a blow-dry!
That’s not all. While returning in our designated bus to Druk Hotel from the closing dinner on Sunday night, Sudha suddenly exclaimed, “There goes my Unisex!” After two seconds of silence, we all laughed till our sides ached.
“That has to be the concluding line of my Bhutan diary in t2,” I said. All the authors, Sudha included, and my fellow journalists agreed.
Mountain Echoes 2013 had a Calcutta connection too. The closing dinner at Taj Tashi was hosted by Calcutta-based Prabha Khaitan Foundation and Techno India. A crackling fire, sumptuous food, free-flowing drinks and lots of gupshup made for a fitting finale to the days and nights of literature, learning and laughter. Guests included members of the royal family of Bhutan, Bhutanese ministers and social personalities, besides the participants of the lit fest.
Speaking about his involvement with Mountain Echoes, Sundeep Bhutoria said: “Prabha Khaitan Foundation always associates with and supports activities in and around the country related to art, culture and literature and that is the reason we decided to host the closing dinner of the festival.”
“We are happy to be a part of Mountain Echoes,” said co-host Satyam Roychowdhury, the managing director of Techno India.
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Samhita Chakraborty
