AudioCompass goes to Zee Jaipur Literature Festival!
According to the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival website, as I write, there are 2days, 21hours, 10 minutes to go till the festival catapults itself into its 10th year. A pretty exciting birthday for them, then, but what really puts the icing on the cake is that this year AudioCompass will be covering it!
We’ll be running around recording talks, speaking to authors, punters, students, listening to the wide range of talented musicians (check them out here) and giving you a daily 10 minute roundup of what is officially the largest free literary fest on earth. Like a news bulletin, but for STORIES.
Each festival edition explores a number of themes and this year there are some real juicy ones. The main themes are India at 70: Freedom to Dream, Women and Marginalised Voices, and Language and Music. The writers and thinkers coming to talk about these subjects are as diverse and exciting as ever but we’ve got to have a few personal favourites, don’t we?
William Dalrymple, founder of the festival and author of a plethora of books about Indian history is always a treat to hear. This year I am particularly looking forward to learning about how the East India Company, originally a tiny private enterprise, managed to colonise a country as big and diverse as India.
Devdutt Pattanaik, mythologist extraordinaire, is another house fave, and this year he’ll be regaling us with tales of Sita, and how the Ramayana unfolds on the basis of the five choices she makes. Writers Arshia Sattar and Volga will be exploring this further by looking at her role as a feminist icon.
And last but not least, for the Language and Music theme, I will be looking out for Audrey Truschke who published Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court last year. Apparently the Mughals invested a surprising amount of time and money bringing Sanskrit thinkers to their courts and translating seminal Sanskrit texts. But why?
We’ll try and answer this question and others on the daily podcast, so stay tuned to both AudioCompass’ and ZEE JLF’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
Better yet, why not actually go to the festival? It’s not too late to book your tickets.(Check out the programme here) And for all those free mornings and extra days, you’ve always got the AudioCompass app to help you explore Jaipur. If it’s Amer Fort or City Palace you’re after, we’ve got you covered.
Another exciting feature is that we will be adding excerpts from the talks into our app as bonus stops. Imagine you’re taking an AudioCompass tour around Lutyens’ Delhi and William Dalyrymple comes along for a bit to tell you how the East India Company managed to wheedle their way from small trade to big colonial power, or you’re strolling around the temples at Hampi and Devdutt Pattanaik pops up to bring the statue of Sita to life?
Not bad, eh? Not bad at all. See you at the festival!
Photo credits: Ashwini Kapoor
