Some days ago, starting with
the voice of one Mr. Avinash Pednekar, there was
a string of complaints in the Navhind Times over the organization of the II
Goa Arts and Literary Festival.
These complaints suggested that the Festival had been a failure because the
sessions had been poorly attended, because sessions failed to start on time,
because many of the big names who had promised to come simply failed to show
up, and finally, these complaints alleged that the principal organizers of the
Festival, Ms. Sahai of the International Centre and Mr. Vivek Menezes, were
both arrogant and rude. This column will suggest that such opinions while being
valid opinions of the complainants are merely one way in which the facts
experienced by these complainants can be understood, and set forward another
perspective on these same facts.
The first complaint was over that
of size, this complaint emerging because the Goa Art & Lit Fest was
compared to the huge crowds that throng the Jaipur Lit Fest. This comparison
may have been effected not only because of the similarity in the names and
concepts of the festivals, but also because the organizers of the Goa Lit Fest,
perhaps expecting Jaipur Lit Fest like audiences, had erected a huge marquee
that dwarfed the audience that did assemble for events held in that space. The
question that we need to ask however, and this question is being posed to the
organizers of the Lit Fest as well, is whether the Jaipur Lit Fest must
necessarily be a positive reference point for the Goa Lit Fest. The Jaipur Lit
Fest, that is said to have begun in 2006 as a ‘civil society’ initiative has in
addition to allowing space for audiences to encounter authors, today grown into
a media-house and
corporate extravaganza that raises hordes of
ethical issues
and attracted trenchant criticism. Complaints abound of how the size of the
event has prevented intimate encounters between author and reader, or indeed
among readers, and how a literary event has descended into just another
carnival.
Given that Goa is often presented
as the location of carnival, we should not be surprised if the carnival becomes
the goal of our cultural events. Yet, there is more that Goa is capable of
producing.
One of Goa’s most eminent
offerings is that of scale; it offers an option for the small and intimate.
Perhaps nowhere was this benefit of scale demonstrated as in the film festivals
that used to be organized by the
Moving Images Film Club in the
International Centre Goa and the Kala Academy. Almost every screening would be followed by
the most stimulating of discussions, made possible essentially because of the
intimate nature of the gatherings; a fact commented upon by one of the national
organizers of the Tricontinental Film Festival, highlighting this occurrence as
something unique to Goa. When held in the more confined spaces of the
International Centre’s permanent halls, the sessions of the II Goa Lit Fest
shared in this magic of intimate and sparkling conversations. Indeed, it was
precisely because the event turned out to be so small, that new bonds were
forged between authors, and between authors and those who did attend, something
that is not often possible in larger events, when much is lost in the crowd.
Indeed, one of the more prominent authors who participated in the Goa Lit Fest
indicated that it was precisely the scale of the event that encouraged them to
privilege Goa over Jaipur. It was when events took place in the big marquee
that one was left with a sense of a small audience marooned in a sea of empty
chairs, unable to communicate with the discussants thanks to the technical
failings often associated with sound systems, and the distance between audience
and the discussants on the stage. It was these effects of the scale of this
marquee that also stripped these gatherings of any sense of intimacy, and
perhaps left persons with the feeling that the event was under-attended, and lacking
in intellectual stimulation.
If there is a lesson that the
organizers of the Lit Fest must take seriously, then it is one of architecture.
Lose the stage, and engineer more intimate settings for the sessions; sessions
that allow the chemistry between the discussants to be communicated to the
audience, for the audience to get a sense of proximity to the discussants being
highlighted at the sessions, and safeguard the participative tone of the event
thus far. Not only does size matter, but how you use it makes all the
difference.
When dealing with the charge of
the arrogance of the organizers one needs to invoke a different understanding
of architecture. A personal evaluation of Goan ‘civil society’ suggests that it
is in fact largely lacking (as is perhaps the case with civil societies across
India) the institutional density that one theoretically associates with a
vibrant civil society. What one has in place are restricted personal and
familial networks that even when allowing for the organization of interesting
events, carry with them the self-limiting nature of these networks. Thus once
the personality involved with the event disappears, thanks to the lack of an
institutional investment that can provide continuity, the event disappears as
well.
In such circumstances, the process
of initiating, and carrying forward an event is often the result of the dream
and exertions of one individual. In such a context then, there is often no
difference between an attack on the individual and an attack on the event
itself, the two being synonymous. In the context where the social structure
actively prevents the creation of a civil society, and privileges the
development of personality cults and the reinforcing of the power of closed
social groups, even if this dreaming individual seeks otherwise, they are often
bereft of the opportunities to create a more inclusive organizational
structure, and unable to create distance between themselves and the event. Removing
one is akin to destroying the other. It is in this context that we should
perhaps see the alleged arrogance of the organizers of the Goa Lit Fest. This
arrogance should be seen not necessarily as personal attributes, but as stemming
from a larger flaw in our social architecture that actively prevents the
well-meaning from transcending the limitations that social structure imposes on
us. As this column has often argued, the individual is not always the
independent and conscious entity that we are encouraged to imagine, but as
often merely an unconscious tool of larger social processes.
In light of this argument,
perhaps the organizers of the Lit Fest, whom we have to thank for their
exertions in initiating the Lit Fest, regardless of the shortcomings and our
critiques of its organization, could actively think of expanding the
institutional framework within which the Lit Fest is held. Such an expansion
would allow the Lit Fest to be the investment not only of the individuals who
conceptualized this event for Goa and realized it for two years running, but of
a wider civil society that would invest making the event a recurring and more
genuinely participative one.
(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 4 Jan 2012)
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