The Ramgarh Literary Festival

by Vasudev Murthy

‘Nicholson handles bulk orders for phosphorescent underwear and finds us some non-Indians to make this international; anyone hanging about in the town square of a small town in Poland or Togo should do; we’ll call them celebrated international writers and give them some free underwear if they whine. Fernandes of Happy Homes handles fake smiles and general hospitality. Also, while marketing the event, we have to be careful that we don’t get Google to pick it up. So no website or social media page. He also handles bringing in other publishers – Hot Air Publishers and Pupa have already agreed. That woman Amita of MillingBoons India seems interested in joining the cartel. Work out an introductory deal; we don’t want her to get too greedy too soon. You know how these publishers are.’

  ‘Let’s go over the excel sheet, you clowns,’ I snapped.

  ‘I called everyone clowns so no one really minded. In any case, if there was money to be made there was no point being sensitive. Getting the idea, Murthy?’

  ‘Yes! Astonishing!’

  ‘I know. I’m a genius,’ said Tavleen, guzzling another peg.

  I said, ‘We expect 2187 writers and poets to show up. All are B and C grade as far as we are concerned. I can call Sheelaaa Dey to inaugurate. She is a full-time inaugurator now. Everyone loves her sleeveless blouses, off-white dresses, and the same speech she gives everywhere. She is sponsored by the Dentists Association of India, another cartel of crooks just like us. We’ll say she’s a famous writer. People will believe us.’

  ‘Anyway, let’s carry on. We expect anywhere between eight and 256,763 attendees. A wide range, but we need to show flexibility.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Deka, patting his paunch. ‘I can handle it.’ He had vast experience in security management, he was an infrastructure magnate and a mediocre poet.

  ‘Mr Gupta, if you fail to sell six million samosas at the festival, we shall not be able to make profits. You will not get another chance,’ I said.

  ‘Madam, as long as no other food is allowed to enter the festival lawns for four days, we shall be fine. I am counting on Mr Deka to keep away food vendors and prevent attendees from leaving the festival premises.’

  ‘Done,’ said Deka, licking his lips. He was a foodie. ‘Let us remember that if security is weak, my infrastructure projects elsewhere will suffer. The better the security we provide at literary festivals, the better the chances of getting lucrative road-building contacts in Nagaland and Bolivia.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I snarled. ‘Do you take us for fools?’

  ‘No, just stating the obvious. Mr Gupta is new here.’

  ‘Sharma, what about the tax implications of free samosas?’ inquired Wadhwa.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll merge a few PAN numbers and we can underreport sales. I pocket 20 per cent of the amount saved in taxes, as already agreed.’ Sharma was corrupt.

  ‘Fernandes, we need you to get thousands of volunteers. Walkie-talkies, T-shirts. Smiles. Earnest attitude.’

  ‘Certainly. This time, though, I don’t think the walkie-talkies need batteries. Waste of money. We’ll train the volunteers to pretend to talk into non-working walkie-talkies.’

  ‘I envy you,’ said Deka. ‘All those writers will head straight to Happy Homes in Goa right after the Festival, convinced they are fabulous writers. How much will you be charging them?’

  ‘None of your business really, Deka. But I can tell you that we’ll arrange for Bank Loans to these guys. I’m looking at $1000 a day per poet or writer to hang out in my minimalist beachside resort. They will stay for three months. 187 writers and poets. Do the maths.’ Fernandes looked smug. ‘Enslaved for life.’

  ‘Very good,’ nodded Mohanty. ‘Guys, my job will require your support. I need to pack my bookstore with the nonsense of these guys and make people buy things they will never read. I agree that the profits are in the samosas, but we need to sell books to give the appearance that this is an emotional event to support creativity or some nonsense.’

  ‘Parikh, please go over your role,’ I commanded.

  ‘Mandatory bullock cart rides for all between the Halls, which I understand are very far from each other, will help. I’ll ensure that that the planning of the schedule is really awful and keeps changing constantly. By doing so, people will rush back and forth between venues without a clue. The bulls will keep producing natural fertilizers. I collect the fertilizer and package it as organic stuff. Gullible farmers buy at high prices. They pass on high prices to end consumers, who are really happy to pay a lot of money. My calculations show that each trip will cost an attendee 500 rupees. Multiply by the number of fruitless trips and the thousands of attendees and we’re talking big money.’

  ‘We know that already! Do you take us for fools, Parikh!’ I snarled. ‘And you, Madhavan, please stop munching on your idlis. You’ve been doing that nonstop. Stop!’

  ‘Madam, I am committed to this festival. Whenever we have literary festivals, sales of nuts go up very much, madam. Don’t worry about audio and video, madam. I will ensure they work only ten per cent of the times. We know that when audio does not work, sales of nuts go up, madam.’

  ‘Do you take us for fools, Madhavan?’ I snarled. Madhavan chomped on an idli, in defiance. Tamilians are a proud people.

  ‘You’ve done your homework, Tavleen,’ said Nicholson admiringly. ‘A single literary festival can create such a huge economic hurricane! Impressive!’

  ‘I blushed. Women like flattery. And I really loved Nic, you know, Murthy.’

  She guzzled another peg.

  ‘As for me, I do understand that we shall be emphasizing how the creative process is triggered and sustained by the use of phosphorescent underwear. Most of the third-rate writers who are coming wear my products anyway. If 200,000 people visit and we can convince half of them to buy a set of London brand phosphorescent underwear at Rs 15,000 per set, we’re set,’ He said.

  ‘Priced a bit high, Nicholson?’ I simpered lovingly.

  ‘What price can you put on creativity?’ proclaimed Nicholson dramatically. ‘Isn’t that what Shakespeare said in Hamlet?’

  ‘I think he did. How smart you are Nicholson! People will buy!’

  Gupta, who had a Masters in English Literature from Delhi University, looked puzzled. ‘Did Shakespeare really say that?’ he asked.

  ‘That. And many more things,’ I snapped. ‘Start cooking, Gupta, you only have eight months to finish making your samosas.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ said Gupta.

  ‘I’ll send out a consolidated file in a couple of days. I’m glad we’re in sync. I’m trying to get tax breaks for the festival via Sharma. That will make us even richer.’

  ‘What if someone finds out this is a racket, madam?’ asked Madhavan.

  ‘Everyone frowned. None appreciated this lack of confidence. I certainly did not. It was quite the wrong thing to say, don’t you agree, Murthy?’

  ‘Yes, Tavleen, how right you are!’

  ‘So I responded very coldly. “Well, we’ll just kill them, of course. Won’t we, Nic?’”

  ‘Yes, they must die,’ said Nicholson coldly.

  (Today, Madurai Nuts and Bolts is no longer in business, due to the unexpected death of Madhavan who was found wearing a yellow shirt and red turban, clutching a poetry book.)

  ‘Let’s celebrate!’ said Wadhwa in a business-like way, and broke into a corporate bhangra dance. The others joined him briefly. Nicholson handed over a pair of undergarments to everyone. Gupta threw samosas to all, thanking them for including him in the cartel.

  The Ramgarh Literary Festival’s birth was now guaranteed.

  Tavleen put her glass down. There was silence as she looked into the distance. I watched quietly, patting her hand.

  12

  The Book Release

  In which a major, incomprehensible book is released.

  Abhishek, Meeta and I staggered out of Hall C after a particularly bruising and gruesome panel discussion. For a change, I had not been a moderator, and so I sat quietly, in a state
of exhaustion, in a jam-packed auditorium. I shall talk about that later, as it is good to raise the expectations of the reader and dash them mercilessly as I have just done.

  Meeta munched on a samosa – non-stop consumption had resulted in her bulging in every direction. But who could tell her that? She munched and muttered, ‘A book release, hey? It seems it’s Tejfall Singh releasing his book Shocking Scandals.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘I could have sworn he’d already released this book 228 times over the past two years across small towns and large cities.’

  ‘Why are you jealous? Let him release it again and again,’ munch-muttered Meeta.

  We started jogging to Hall B, egged on by Abhishek.

  ‘He is a young guy with great talent,’ said Abhishek.

  ‘Who is launching?’

  ‘The great Tamil writer, Asokan Pillai.’

  ‘THE Asokan Pillai? Winner of every poetry award known to mankind?’

  ‘Yes. He writes poetry at night and short stories during the day time. They say his poetry is dark and his stories are sunny.’

  ‘Makes sense, if you think about it.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why Tejfall Singh is releasing his book again. Let’s find out why he’s so nervous.’

  We reached the venue, sweating and panting hard. Abhishek’s exercise mania was telling on us, though it probably wasn’t enough to reduce Meeta’s calorie accumulation.

  We sat in Row 3, and if you were to examine the video footage, you would find we were in seats 7, 8 and 9.

  Tejfall was sitting quietly on a chair on the dais, waiting for Pillai. He had a pony tail, his hair was graying and unkempt (though lustrous – perhaps he used shikakai, I don’t know) and he was biting his right middle finger ferociously. From time to time, he would glance at the audience; his eyes were haunted. It looked like he was extremely nervous about the book release. His eyes displayed anger, nervousness, pathos, happiness, joy, deep sadness and corruption in random sequence. It was very puzzling.

  On a table nearby, his books had been shaped up tastefully to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was a fat and pregnant book – I refer to ‘Shocking Scandals’ – with an orange and blood red cover. It seemed a thick book; perhaps there were many scandals he wished to draw our attention to.

  ‘You said he was young?’ I inquired.

  ‘So I thought. But with hundreds of book releases, one practically every day, you are bound to age. I read somewhere that he visited Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Asansol, Pathankot, Kochi, Shimoga, Nizamabad, Kendrapara, Imphal, Bikaner, Rajkot, Chennai, Port Blair, Leh, Trivandrum, Trichy, Udaipur, Sangli, Ballia, Ghaziabad and Jhansi before coming here. All within twenty-three days.’

  ‘Some serious frequent flier miles! What airline does he fly? Does he prefer aisle or window seating, would you know?’

  ‘I could find out. I really wonder if he knows where he is on any given day.’

  ‘Why would he release his book in Sangli?’

  ‘Perhaps he has a loyal readership there, who can say?’

  ‘True.’

  At this point, our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Asokan Pillai, the great writer and poet. The audience gave him a standing ovation (some continued sitting but they gave him an ovation too, as video footage would certainly confirm, should you be interested in confirming, which, if you are, shows that you have plenty of time on your hands and have nothing better to do.)

  The stout and balding Asokan adjusted his bright red lungi and acknowledged the warmth of the crowd. Tejfall looked at him morosely and nodded briefly. Asokan too returned the favour; I felt a dart of utter hatred from his eyes.

  A young earnest girl came up with a nicely wrapped book. A disembodied voice boomed out from the speakers.

  ‘We shall now ask Mr Asokan Pillai, eminent poet, writer, botanist, anarchist, communist, archeologist, philatelist, paleontologist, teacher, Member of Parliament, thinker, revolutionary – to cut the ribbon and release the book.’

  Tejfall and Asokan got up and eyed each other with contempt and general dislike. The smiling girl came in the middle, bringing forward a nice silver tray on which the book had been tastefully placed. By its side was a pair of scissors.

  Tejfall lifted the book. Asokan tugged at it. Tejfall was bigger and stronger and he held on to it with one hand while he lifted the pair of scissors with the other. Asokan followed his train of reasoning and released his grip. Tejfall then handed over the scissors to Asokan who then waved at the audience and approached the ribbon with a savage gleam in his eyes.

  He tried to cut the ribbon.

  He failed.

  He tried again.

  He failed again.

  He tried yet again.

  He failed yet again.

  Tejfall looked bewildered. The audience was bewildered too.

  The grim and bitter Asokan burst out laughing.

  In Tamil, he spoke loudly, brandishing the scissors in the air. I understood immediately as I am myself a Tamil scholar of some eminence.

  ‘This, you foolish man, is the result of constantly releasing your stupid book day after day in one city after the other! The scissors have gone blunt! They are tired! They want to rest! They have had it with endless ribbon cutting! Cut, cut, cut, cut! Vain Monkey!’

  Oddly, enough, everyone understood every word of Tamil for those few seconds and the entire hall burst out laughing.

  Tejfall Singh was not amused and his face turned a striking crimson. In one swift move, he moved his right hand and pulled off Asokan Pillai’s lungi. In a second, the great poet was seen standing in his non-phosphorescent underwear, one hand raised, brandishing the scissors, still in the throes of contemptuous amusement.

  Never in the history of any literary festival had the chief guest at a book launch been seen with his pants or lungi down. It was a very awkward moment and one that had no specified solution. No literary festival could have factored in such a possibility.

  But Asokan was smarter. Before the shocked audience could react, Asokan slammed the book on Tejfall’s head and removed the rubber band that had his hair in a ponytail. Suddenly Tejfall very closely resembled an ageing bearded woman.

  And not allowing the moment to pass, Asokan brought the ribbon to his teeth and cut it in one quick fluid movement of both teeth and tongue, making a very important point, that he had a very sharp tongue and his teeth were far sharper than the blunt ageing, rusty scissors that Tejfall used for his endless book releases.

  Then he waved the book in the air and said, ‘I hereby launch this ridiculous book Shocking Scandals. This is the ninety-seventh time I have released the book and I am absolutely fed up! Here, take the book and go die!’

  He hurled the book into the audience before Tejfall was able to do anything. It fell on the head of a young lady in Row 19 with a loud bonk. Equally feisty, the furious young lady grabbed the book and threw it back at Asokan, who ducked cleverly. The book hit Tejfall who fell back into his seat, his unruly hair all over the place. Asokan carefully donned his lungi in full view of almost 600 people and sat down unperturbed in his chair. The audience was able to gather the specifics of how one wears a lungi from the great master himself. It was a learning experience.

  The interview was to now take place. The book release had happened, after all.

  ‘Now you will read from the book, Mr Tejfall. Meanwhile, let me put on my headset and listen to my iPod. I have some Tamil heavy metal that is far more soothing than your miserable prose.’ And with that, he put on his headset and closed his eyes while Tejfall opened his book.

  ‘I shall now read from my book, Shocking Scandals. I want this to be an interactive session, so please do interact,’ said Tejfall in a cultured voice, reeking of that fake Delhi intellectualism everyone hates.

  A dozen men and women took the cue and jumped on to the stage and sat around him. They did not have adoring looks; rather, I sensed menace. But Tejfall was lost in himself and couldn’t care
less. And Asokan was adrift in his Tamil heavy metal, despite being the chief guest.

  ‘Pyramids. Her life was suffocating her and she felt pyramids closing in around her. Where were the forests of desire? The poetry of her every existence was bizarrely medieval and could not account for the esoteric fulminations of her wild-eyed neighbour and religious bigot, Sundar Lal. Love-making seemed an exercise in slow motion and so futile, so full of pathos. Granted, she had plenty of money, but when neither cooking, nor reading the Times of India Editorials nor Sherlock Holmes mysteries offered solace, what was the lacerating value of adamantine populism and sexual complexity? And so she sought the safety of pyramids. Such is the making of a scandal.’

  There was a hiss of outrage from the assembly as they failed to make sense of this alleged writing.

  As the great writer Tejfall peered up from his book to assess the impact of his words, (which he already knew would otherwise get him rave reviews and literary awards from a chummy high-brow club of which he was a member) the entire assembly stood up. In a second, tomatoes, eggs and two-day old brinjals were dispatched towards him. With unerring accuracy, they hit Tejfall, soiling his head, beard and lustrous tresses. All missed Asokan completely. Except for one egg, which collided with another in mid-flight and landed in Asokan’s lap.

  The great poet was shaken from his Tamil heavy-metal stupor and looked up, shaken. He saw Tejfall under a mountain of unmentionables, still holding on to his book of scandals.

  ‘Stop!’ he yelled at the mob. ‘This is a book launch! Not a public stoning!’

  The mob retreated, sullen and angry.

  ‘How dare he write such nonsense?’ screamed a young lady from Osmania University, pursuing a degree in English Literature.

  ‘Does he think we’re half-wits and we don’t understand how to read?’ shouted an angry young man from Varanasi. Some say he was working on a PhD in Anthropology, but we shall never know.

  Asokan had charisma. He stood up and commanded the crowd to control themselves.

  ‘Yes, I agree that this man, Tejfall, is a terrible writer. Yes, I agree he thinks that by using words cleverly, he can fool people into believing that he’s great. His basic flaw is the same – the arrogant assumption that if you push out incomprehensible stuff, you must be a great writer. Look at this pathetic wreck releasing his book again and again and again. I am forced to be the chief guest everywhere because I signed a contract by mistake and I have to honour it. But does this mean you should throw eggs at him? No! Let us handle this rubbish with dignity.’