At the Jaipur LitFest and Republic Day

January 27, 2015: I landed in Kolkata in the morning after a Jaipur trip almost after three months. This is perhaps in recent times the longest duration I have been away from Jaipur.

Kolkata-Jaipur flight hops have become a regular feature of my itinerary.

At the Diggi Palace, I attended the session on N R Narayana Murthy as well as the book launch event of Anupama Chopra by Sonam Kapoor.

I met a lot of authors at the famous Diggi Chai shop which has become a part and parcel of Jaipur Literature Festival, however, from this year I noticed that the price of tea in a kulhar has become Rs 30 now, which is quite steep for tea served in kulhars.

I also liked Sonam Kapoor’s statement in which she has said as soon as she stepped on the dais “…that it is so good to see so many people interested in literature and books,” everyone laughed as Sonam made this comment on a lighter note because the huge crowd was there mainly to have a glimpse of her.

From the LitFest I went to the Polo Club for the Baria Cup and then in the evening I went to the Le Meridien to attend the Writer’s Ball.

The Writer’s Ball, which used to be the party of the year in Jaipur was held at Kesar Kyari at Amer Fort, is losing its charm. This time it seemed more like a readers’ ball as there were only a handful of authors and the crowd was much larger than last year‘s. In fact, I saw many people from Jaipur at the Ball who did not enter the Diggi Palace for a single literary session.

In India few things are very surprising. If one wants to be seen somewhere, everybody wants to be seen there. I did not spend much time at the Writer’s Ball.

Yesterday being Monday – Republic Day, I decided not to go to Delhi after hearing about so much about the security and protocols due to Obama’s presence.

I had dropped in at the Raj Bhavan in Jaipur.

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