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4 SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAIDECEMBER 17, 2017TIMES CITY | Times Litfest 2017

Log on to www.timeslitfest.com

Venue Mehboob Studios | Entry Free

Festival Curators | Bachi Karkaria and Namita DevidayalTo register for children’s workshops, write to timeslitfest@gmail.com

SUNDAY December 17JSW HALL10am-11am

Despots Then and Now |From Stalin to Trump North Korean dissenter Hyeonseo Lee, Stephen Kotkin, Shashi Tharoor, Rajdeep Sardesai. Patrick French moderates

11.15pm-12.15pmThe making of a Poet | How

Gulzar inspired Vishal Bhardwaj

12.30pm-1.30pmPartition and Poetry in

Golden Slippers | Gulzar speaks on being a novelist at 80 with Rakhshanda Jalil

1.45pm-2.45pmLife is Not a Silo | Why we

need the humanities Princeton professor Stephen Kotkin, historian Patrick French, professor Supriya Chaudhuri. Sunil Khilnani moderates

3pm-4pmHanuman Or Karna? | What

kind of loyalty do netas want?Devdutt Pattanaik

4.15pm-5.15pmIt’s Ok Not To Be Ok! | Mental

illness has many forms, is everywhere Neerja Birla, Anupam Kher, Sudarshan Ramakrishna

5.30pm-6.30pmSeventy is the New Seventy

| Who the hell wants to be thirty? Shobhaa De, Hema Malini, Ramkamal Mukherjee. Srijana Mitra Das moderates

6.45pm to 7.45pm

Empirical Evidence? |Did we really need the Brits? Shashi Tharoor in conversation with historian Zareer Masani

TIMES HALL10am-11am

The Wonder of Panini’s Sanskrit Grammar | Catching the ocean in a cow’s hoofprint Vikram Chandra

11.15am-12.15pmCapturing the Rainbow in

Black & White | The world in a camera Bill Hayes on his forthcoming collection of street photos, How New York Breaks Your Heart, with Sooni Taraporevala whose latest book, Home in the City, is just out

12.30pm-1.30pmWe are Not Twins! |

Mythologists Devdutt Pattanaik and Ashwin Sanghi on the bane of their lives

1.45pm-2.45pmAround the Campfire |

My best travel story With astrophysicist Jeff Koehler, Sam Miller, Robyn Davidson. Moderated by Shreevatsa Nevatia

3pm-4pmTechnology, Language, and

Identity | Aurélien Bellanger, Bhalchandra Nemade, Supriya Chaudhuri. Moderated by Ishaan Jhaveri

4.15pm-5.15pmCall Me Sherlock | The

researcher as detective Sheela Reddy, Sumana Roy. Kushanava Choudhury moderates

5.30pm-6.30pmThe Lives of Others | How to

get under the skin and include the blister Patrick French, Robyn Davidson, Akhil Sharma.Moderated by New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman

ADITYA BIRLAHALL10am-11am

Pixies and Pixels | How digital has changed the style and substance of storytellingDeborah Treisman enters the new zone with Pragya Tiwari. Moderated by Chiki Sarkar

11.15am-12.15pmThe Cold Cruel World of

Upper Class Crime – From Nanavati to Indrani? | What’snew, what’s not BachiKarkaria and Supriya Nairfollow the scented trail

12.30pm-1.30pm Finding Osama | Hot tips,

cold trails: the torturous path to the World’s Most Wanted Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott Clark chat with Meenal Baghel

1.45pm-2.45pmThe Writer and the Publisher

| Do Saints Eat Chocolate? Jeet Thayil in conversation with David Davidar

3pm-4pmOur Gendered Brain? | Are

men and women really wired differently? Science writer Angela Saini, techie Sujit Saraf,finance strategist Sandra Navidi. Moderated by Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar

4.15pm-5.15pm Miss Laila and Mister Manu |

Manu Joseph disarms Namrata Zakaria

5.30pm-7.30pmMASTERCLASS | Are you

novel-ready? Ten tips from publisher Chiki Sarkar

TIM DELHI AIRPORT HALL10am-11am

Memories Are Made of This |Head of History Robert Seatter describes how the BBC creates moments of celebration, exploration and revelation

11.15am-12.15pm Dishing Up the Diaspora |

How Jews, Indians, and other wanderers changed the way world eats Veteran food writer Claudia Roden breaks bread with Vikram Doctor

12.30pm-1.30pm Friend of My Youth | Amit

Chaudhuri reads from and discusses his new book with Sumana Roy

1.45pm-2.45pm VR Film Screening: BBC film

Crossing the Sky directed by Anna Bressanin who talks about the making

3pm-4pm The Single-

Column Assassin? | How cartoonists kill it Cathy Wilcox, Sandeep Adhwaryu and Hemant

Morparia sharpen their pencils

5.30pm-7.30pm Film Screening: The Secret in

Their Eyes followed by Eduardo Sacheri talking about the book behind the film

HDFC LAWNS11am-noon

PERFORMANCEMorning riffs with Bombay Bairag. A blend of contemporary, classical, and Sufi music

12.30pm-1.30pm Democracy’s XI | Is cricket

the ultimate Indian dream? Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai on his new book

1.45pm-2.45pm Where Sparrows Fall | Bird-

lover Bikram Grewal talks on the older kind of tweets

3pm-4pm Travelling Light | Navigating

the bumpy bipolar terrain Shreevatsa Nevatia confides in Dr Shamsah Sonawalla

5pm to 6pmPERFORMANCE

Readings by Vivek Oberoiand Richa Chadda

6pm-7pm

Into the Heart of Language: Gopal Gandhi delivers the keynote to our Lifetime Achievement Awards. We honour Bhalchandra Nemade, Krishna Sobti, Perumal Murugan, Dhurbajyoti Borah

7.15pm-8.15pm PERFORMANCE

Hungarian folk band Kalaka

WORKSHOP HALL 10.15am-12-15pm

MASTERCLASS | How to write a film script with Anjum Rajabali

12.45pm-1.30pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP

| Totally Mumbai Bhelpuri: Bringing the city alive through its yummy food stories

1.45pm-3.15pm MASTERCLASS VR the World

| Learning Virtual Reality With Memesys (for professionals)

3.45pm-4.45pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP

| John Dougherty sings and reads for children

5.15pm-6.30pm CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP |

Creative Expression with MPower. Experimental drums and art circle

6.45pm-8.45pm MASTERCLASS A Taste for

Stories | Learning how to tell them with Vayu Naidu

The repressive North Korean regime’sinsistence that citizens report againsteach other in criticism sessions still

haunts dissident Hyeonseo Lee.Years after she crossed over to China at

the age of 17 and then to South Korea, shestill cannot tell her mother she loves her. “Idon’t know how to say it. We had grown upcriticizing, we did not know how to compli-ment,” she said in a session titled ‘Escapefrom Kim’ on Saturday at the TOI Litfest.The state-controlled atmosphere was suchthat there were no friendships and no trusteven between spouses. “Once a student toldthe teacher that his friend suddenly had ma-ny new things in his house. The school infor-med the state. They found a relative hadescaped to China and was sending money.The entire family was punished,” said Lee.

Her book, The Girl with Seven Names,chronicles her accidental escape from Nor-th Korea and her return to help her familyescape. Lee said her crossing into China wh-

ose border was located across a river facingher home was indeed an accident. “I thoug-ht I would be back in a week. I did not think itwould be years till I saw my family again.”

In North Korea at the time, state terror, incl-uding public executions, were common. “Isaw a man being hanged when I was sevenyears old. I saw another man shot by police.”

Citizens did not question such acts beca-use state propaganda ensured they were notexposed to another way of life. “We thoughtthis was the way things were. We did not kn-ow democracy.” She crossed the border afterseeing the impact of the famine in NorthKorea. She lived as an illegal immigrant foryears before seeking asylum in South Kor-ea. “I was arrested once in China as an illeg-al immigrant but managed to get away beca-use I could read and write fluent Chinese. Ichanged my name with every city and scho-ol to escape recognition. In fact, HyeonseoLee is my seventh name. I hope it’s my last.”

With her family in North Korea untilshe helped them escape, she lived with yearsof guilt. She, though, admitted that SouthKorea was also problematic for North Kore-an refugees. “South Korea is so developedand educated but they only respect people fr-om rich countries. Chinese and South Asi-ans are not treated kindly. North Koreansare treated worse than the Chinese.” Onceagain she found herself hiding her identity.Despite her new life in South Korea, Leefinds it difficult to shed the fear of the past.

Writer Speaks Of HerEscape From N Korea

‘As a 7-yr-old, I saw a citizenhanged and another shot’

Pics: Uma Kadam

There were no friendships in a state-controlledatmosphere, says Hyeonseo Lee

TEAM TOI

Men really need to findways to deal with rejec-tion without going ba-

nanas,” said English feministauthor Laurie Penny, ticklingboth genders inside the cozyTim Delhi Airport Hall at whatturned out to be a juicy, hour-long dissection of themuch-assailed topicfeminism. Titled ‘Sexand White Lies’ andmoderated by filmmak-er Paromita Vohra—k-nown for her works ongender and for herblood-red lipstick—thesession lightly un-packed the various lay-ers, pretenses and stereotypessurrounding the weighty sub-ject including notions of unionand privilege.

Here, after deliberatelystalling the “anxiety-inducing”opening question about heridea of feminism by saying abunch of thank-yous, Pen-ny—the writer of ‘Bitch Doc-trine’—stated that feminism to

her meant “questioning whataspect of economic and socialstructures are keeping inequal-ity between genders alive”.What followed were many quir-ky insights: the friend zone isnot such a bad place (“youhaven't been rejected as a loverbut chosen as a friend,” saidVohra), men are “fragile” be-

ings who should learn toeat ice-cream and moveon after a rejection andthat expression of fe-male desire is seen as abetrayal of gender.“When I've been intim-ate with men, some aresurprised and say:‘Wow, you’re really en-joying this’,” said Penny,

eliciting guffaws.A key point arrived when a

man asked if it was bold to sayhe is a feminist. “Saying youare feminist is different frombeing (one),” said Penny. “Ameasure of a man's feminism ishow he behaves when there areno women around or when hethinks there are no womenaround.”

What’s the measureof a man’s feminism?

Laurie Penny

TEAM TOI

Writers tend to be intro-spective, lonely people.

Movies oblige us to work in away we are not used to,”said Argentine writer Eduar-do Sacheri, part of a panelthat saw four people whosewritten works have beenadapted into films and TVshows discuss the vagaries ofadaptation.

Titled ‘My Book Is AnOpen Film’, the panel, moder-ated by poet and dancer Tisha-ni Doshi, brought togetherSacheri, Australian-Indianbusinessman Saroo Brierley(the inspiration for the film'Lion'), Canadian-Irish author

Emma Donoghue, and writerVikram Chandra (whose 'Sa-cred Games' is now beingadapted into India's first Net-flix series).

Though all four harbour asecret affinity for the solitarycreative process of literaryfiction over the collaborative

demands of filmmaking, theyagreed that films must haveenough wiggle room to makeradical leaps from the book.The panelists also felt thatthough movies have their ownstrengths, they lack the densi-ty and philosophy of books.

“Fiction doesn't need to

move as quickly as movies,”said Donoghue, adding that ifthe thoughts of her protago-nist—a young boy in captivi-ty—were to be replicated infilm as in the book, “it wouldlook like something shot witha GoPro camera”. This is whyChandra, whose protagonistspends the first 200 pages wan-dering and thinking and whospent nine years writing thebook, chose to stay away fromthe writing room of the TVshow. “I know how annoyingthe writer can be when theytry to control what the filmshould be like,” said Chandra,who felt neither film nor TVcan transport you to anotherworld like a book.

Writers chart the coursefrom paper to screen

CREATIVE PROCESS

TEAM TOI

REALITY CHECK: OLD, NEW, OTHER WORLDS

(Above) Poets Lisa Ray and Tishani Doshi discuss their old challenges and new freedoms at the session ‘Girls are coming out of the woods.’ (Right) The session ‘VR the World’, a masterclass to introduce first-timers tovirtual reality. Audience got a sense of how VR films transport the viewer to the location of the story, recreate theatmosphere, and heighten empathy for subjects by creating a sense of immediacy and involvement in the stories.“The second you start working in VR, everything you know about making a film goes out of the window becauseyou have to create a sphere of images,” said Zain Memon, co-founder of new media studio Memesys

“What’s a bigger subject than[Joseph] Stalin?” asked Ameri-can historian, academic andauthor Stephen Kotkin duringhis session on the Soviet ty-rant. “A biography of Stalin isa history of the world. He line-edited novels, he pre-screenedall the films, he decided all theforeign policy affecting Euro-pe, Asia, sometimes Africa, theUS and Latin America. Moreo-ver, if you are interested in po-wer, this is the gold standard ofdictatorship. No one has everaccumulated or exercised mo-re power than Stalin.”

This explains why Kotkinhas just completed his secondof three planned volumes onthe dictator. His first volume‘Stalin: Paradoxes of Power,1878-1928’, was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize and his latest,‘Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941’, is a 906-page tome.

Kotkin described Stalin inthe early years as a diligent stu-dent with impeccable gradeswho was a devout Christianand sang in the church choir.He joined a spiritual seminaryand almost became a priest butquit before giving his final ex-

am to join the revolutionaryunderground. A month afterStalin became general secreta-ry of the Communist Party, Le-nin suffered a series of strokesand was incapacitated. “Thereality was Stalin had hishands on all the levers of po-wer,” said Kotkin. “So therewas no succession struggle.”

The historian explainedStalin’s complicated ties withHitler and recited his quirks.Stalin collected watches, play-ed skittles and doodled insultslike ‘scumbag’ in the marginsof key documents in differentcolours. He was full of contra-dictions – soft-spoken and foul-mouthed, a voracious readerwho resented “fancy-pants” in-tellectuals, and a cynic who “li-ved and breathed” ideals.

Can any topic getbigger than Stalin?

Princeton professor and Stalinbiographer Stephen Kotkin

TEAM TOI Mumbai:Subway conductor-turned-author Sujatha Gidlaand fellow panellist, writerand photographer Bill Hayesdiscussed their love for theiradopted city at The Times Lit-fest at Mehboob Studios onSaturday.

For Hayes, the move to theBig Apple at the age of 48, ni-ne years ago, was a way to getover the loss of his long-timepartner Oliver Sacks. “Thepeople of New York draw mein with their stories, their li-ves,” he said.

Gidla, a Dalit who grew upin Kakinada, Andhra Pra-desh, moved to NIT-Warangaland IIT-Madras to study andthen on to New York to work at

age 25.Calling New York “the

most tolerant city”, Gidlawho became the city’s only In-dian woman subway conduc-tor said it was one of the rea-sons she felt free enough towrite her book, ‘Ants AmongElephants’. “If I had been inIndia, I wouldn’t be telling mystory because I wouldn’t wantto draw attention to my unto-uchability,” she said.

New York freed Gidla fromthe particular constraintsher family faced in India.“Hatred is not human nature.Discrimination of any kind isdriven by economic factors.That’s why even Dalit stu-dents who make their way toelite educational institutionsare still harassed,” she said.

‘Writing in NYC freedme of constraints’

TEAM TOI

Mumbai: At a spirited discus-sion on whether ‘Saffron is thenew blackened. Are the rights al-ways wrong are the liberals al-ways right?’ on Saturday, the pa-nelists were of the view that vo-ters will vie for what is best forthem in a “pragmatic” way, irre-spective of the ideologies thecandidates represent.

Deftly setting a moderate to-ne for a potentially contentiousdebate on right versus left wasmoderator Manu Joseph. To Jo-seph’s question on resurgence ofthe right wing, senior journalistand panelist Pravin Kumar, aut-hor of a gripping book, Yogi Adi-tyanath: The Rise of a SaffronSocialist, published by TimesGroup Books, the Books divisionof the Times of India Group, sa-id, “It is more about people’s op-position to secular politics as wehave been witnessing in the past70 years.” Kumar said there is“nothing good or bad in a right orleft view” and that when a viewmoves to either side from thecentre, it assumes a similar edge.

Mumbai Mirror editor Mee-nal Baghel, the other panelist,said, ‘Voters are pragmatic,smart and savvy they knowwhat they doing.”

‘Pragmatic’voters choosewhat works

TEAM TOI

The session on crony capita-lism, moderated by noted

columnist Swaminathan S Ai-yar, was a mix of money powerand politics with business,with a fair dose of economictheory thrown in, startingwith Adam Smith, the father ofmodern economics.

Discussing abolition of netneutrality, author Sujit Sarafsaid, “Taking away net neutra-lity is crony capitalism. If thishappens, it would be the deathof the internet.” Abolishing

net neutrality is a situationwhere powerful content produ-cers pay delivery platformslike telecom service providersto slow down delivery from lesspowerful competitors.

On whether Prime Mini-ster Narendra Modi has beenable to reduce crony capita-lism in the past three and halfyears that he has been in po-wer, it was a divided house. Thepanelists, though, were unani-mous in their view that at leastModi was able to stop corrup-tion of humongous propor-tions.

Money power, politics& economic theory

TEAM TOI

At five, little Saroo fellasleep on a train andwent on a ride into the

unknown. The boy, from Mad-hya Pradesh, ended upalone on the streets ofKolkata—lost andscared—before he wasput in an orphanage andthen adopted by an Aus-tralian couple in Ho-bart. That was in 1987.Twenty five years later,Saroo embarked on a GoogleEarth-aided journey to trace

his birth mother. Now 36, Sa-roo continues to live in Ho-bart, but has been to India 17times since he reunited withhis biological family in 2012.

“It’s been 25 years of sepa-ration. So, there’s 25years of catching up todo,” smiled the authorand businessmanwhose memoir, A LongWay Home, inspired thefilm Lion, starring DevPatel and Nicole Kid-man, that notched up six

Oscar nominations this year.“I’m amazed at the colourful

trajectory of my life and ev-erything else that’s happenedfrom living as a destitute,catching that train, the trialsalong the way and then mov-ing to Australia... and thenfinding my family throughdigital interface, then the bookand the movie… It’s all expe-dited so quickly,” said Saroo,who recently bought his birthmother a house and has beentrying to help the Indian Socie-ty for Sponsorship and Adoption, the home inKolkata where he was re-ceived in 1987.

Lost boy found mother usingGoogle Earth after 25 years

Saroo Brierley

TEAM TOI

Writing comes from a place ofdifferent compulsions. Most

writers are uneasy in their ownskin. They are trying to work out acomplex and unsolvable calculusbetween the world and their placein it,’’ said Indian-born author NeelMukherjee, who resides in London,during his talk with Meru Gokhale,editor-in-chief, literary publishing,Penguin Random House India. Butif one were to write a book, themost essential thing would beboredom. “I write 500 words everyday. I read an article when I wassmall in a newspaper aboutGraham Greene. It said that hewrote 500 words before noon andthen he hits whisky. So I write 500words daily. On a very good day, Iwrite 700; on a bad day 300 words.”

The Greene formulafor writing fiction

Ahall full of Litfest visitorsheard Mishka Ben-David,

Israeli author of best sellers suchas Duet in Beirut and Forbiddenlove in St Petersburg, accompaniedby Ashwin Sanghi, fiction-thrillerwriter of Chanakya's Chant andThe Krishna Key, highlight theirturns into writing. In conversationduring the session, ‘The ThrillerWeavers - How to prowl and poun-ce,’ Sanghi said, “Even if I write fic-tion, I do a lot research and use fa-cts in my stories. I provide a list ofsources at the end of my book.” Hetypically spends a year researchinga subject, three months on the plotand nine months to writing. “Whenyou mix myth and history, youmake mystery,” he said.

Thriller mantra

Canadian-Irish playwright and novelist Emma Donoghue (R) and Britishplaywright, poet and novelist Deborah Levy discuss the portayal ofdarkness in human behaviour in writing. “Happiness is great to live butit doesn’t make for good fiction. Happy endings work only if you can getthere through a long tense tunnel,” says Donoghue

dj

1. India’s best-loved radio show host Ameen Sayani draws a full house as he relates fond memories of Roshan, S D Burman and Kishore Kumar, among other film personalities, while host Swanand Kirkire plays hits like‘Mann re tu kaahe na dheer dhare’, ‘Piya tose naina laage re’ and ‘Jaanejaan’ to go with the anecdotes. 2. Actor Sonali Bendre enlivens a discussion on a book by author Ashwin Sanghi. 3. Indian-American best-sellingwriter Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni dwells on her art of storytelling during the session ‘All the World’s a Story’ with author Vinita Dawra Nangia. 4. Nandana Dev Sen and John Dougherty discuss subliminal messages inchildren’s books at the session ‘Catcher in the Young’, with readings by school students Rayan Mama, Ananya Mohan, Svara Kasliwal and Kabir Karkaria

1

LIT LIGHTS

3 4Pics: Uma Kadam & Sandeep Takke

2

Suhel Seth holds forth atMehboob Studios:

� ‘Bullshitting is one of the keypillars of storytelling. But it musthave intelligence, an ethic if it is inthe public domain.’� ‘Parenting has been outsourcedto Google. In my time, needingprivate tuitions was a mark ofshame. Today, the no of tuitions isa way of flaunting how much youcan afford. My plea to children is,‘Read, read, till you die.’�‘Looking after parents is not aduty. It’s your main calling in life.’�‘You’ll never have the time if youdon’t want the time.’�‘@chetan_bhagat is pani puriseller, Amitav dispenses wasabi.But both have their place.’

Suhel-isms

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CCI NG 3.7 Product: TOIMumbaiBS PubDate: 17-12-2017 Zone: MumbaiCity Edition: 2 Page: TOIMMUM4 User: rohit.bundelkhandi Time: 12-17-2017 01:41 Color: CMYK