Ac­com­pa­ny­ing Ira Math­ur in the pre­sen­ta­tion of her mem­oir, Love the Dark Days, at the Jaipur Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val.

Tere­sa White

Our leisure­ly car jour­ney from Del­hi along­side hills, mus­tard fields, farm­steads, camels and tem­ples, did not pre­pare us for our car­riage turn­ing in­to a pump­kin.

We ar­rived in Jaipur with just enough time to catch a five, show­er and dress for the first of the “new lev­el of fab­u­lous­ness” func­tions (as my sec­ond daugh­ter, Rik­ki, de­scribed it when she saw the pho­tos).

But the ho­tel staff (as a unit) was hav­ing none of that: taxis weren’t or­dered, dri­vers weren’t avail­able, and much head-shak­ing and chal­lenges were thrown at us.

So, our Ira, dressed in an ex­quis­ite chif­fon sari, stepped out on­to the road. With a flick of her hand, she sum­moned three au­torick­shaws.

In fact, she sum­moned one, but three ap­peared, their front wheels con­verg­ing at the same point, a re­spect­ful inch from Ira’s se­quined toe. We jumped in the near­est one, and off we went, hel­ter-skel­ter, bump­ing through the streets of Jaipur, our hair blow­ing wild­ly un­til we ar­rived at the Princess’s Palace (Ram­bagh).

We weren’t al­lowed to take the hum­ble ve­hi­cle on­to the palace’s grounds. So, un­like the oth­er guests, we had the de­light­ful ig­nominy of walk­ing up the long dri­ve­way to where the golf carts could ush­er us to the re­cep­tion. Hair-tossed, but high-spir­it­ed, we crossed the thresh­old in­to the rose-scent­ed fes­ti­val and our first en­chant­ed evening.

The fol­low­ing day was of­fi­cial­ly Day 1. And Ira, Imshah, and I were back im­mersed in books and all things books. I was heart­ened to hear one of the fes­ti­val or­gan­is­ers at the open­ing en­treat us to go for­ward, lis­ten, and ar­gue. A bit of a re­lief, ac­tu­al­ly.

I had al­ready had an ar­gu­ment the night be­fore. It was when I aired my Ele­na Fer­rante the­o­ry (I am not shar­ing it in the pa­pers, so don’t both­er to ask), on­ly to be told by a woman that I was com­plete­ly wrong and that she held the se­cret.

In typ­i­cal Eu­ro­pean con­ti­nen­tal ar­ro­gance, she pro­ceed­ed to re­hash the near­ly decade-old NYT ex­pose in­to Ani­ta Ra­ja. I point­ed out that in­ves­ti­ga­tors went for her hus­band (Domeni­co Starnone) first and then her, that the the­o­ry has had no cur­ren­cy since, so what, there­fore, was the foun­da­tion of her cer­tain­ty?

It amount­ed to Ra­ja be­ing her neigh­bour, be­ing ex­cep­tion­al­ly def­er­en­tial around her hus­band, and blush­ing deeply when she was told that Philip Roth loved The Neapoli­tan Quar­tet. I was left to sur­mise that the main ob­jec­tive of the sto­ry was to let us all know that the teller knew the Starnone/Ra­ja pow­er cou­ple and that she knew Roth even bet­ter. Strewth. A wait­er then took one of those re­veal­ing videos. It shows us sit­ting down to a sump­tu­ous din­ner on a plush so­fa whilst this pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pound­ing woman, now stand­ing be­hind us, slinked away from our par­ty. It was a move that I ob­served a fair few peo­ple sub­se­quent­ly reen­act up­on her as the fes­ti­val pro­gressed.

I am ac­tu­al­ly mis­lead­ing you, though; the fes­ti­val was en­light­en­ing, en­gag­ing, and joy­ous. Not at all ar­gu­men­ta­tive. There has been such a re­mark­able sense of cu­rios­i­ty, cel­e­bra­tion, and good­will.

The am­bi­ence has been pure mag­ic, the tem­per­a­ture per­fect. We have walked amongst artists, un­der a par­rot-filled tree canopy, and through cor­ri­dors of colour­ful fab­rics and tas­sels. The sen­so­ry ex­pe­ri­ence and its lin­ger­ing im­pres­sion are one of sun­light, shade, and silk.

The place got re­al­ly buzzing on Day 2. That was the day of Ira’s ses­sion.

Imshah and I ar­rived at a rapid­ly fill­ing hall, and my Bish­op’s tuck­shop skills had to be ap­plied to get us front-cen­tre seats.

It was not long be­fore the room was filled to ca­pac­i­ty and the ses­sion start­ed. The in­ter­est from the crowd was enor­mous, par­tic­u­lar­ly from young women who saw Ira’s sto­ry as lib­er­at­ing and in­spir­ing.

At three points, her com­ments at­tract­ed spon­ta­neous ap­plause. Imshah and I basked in her glo­ry.

The theme of the ses­sion was hy­phen­at­ed nar­ra­tives—peo­ple who have mul­ti­ple iden­ti­ties, like my An­glo-Tri­ni self (or what my friend, Ja­son Jones, more groovi­ly dubs “Tring­lish”).

Join­ing Ira on stage was 36-year-old Sheena Pa­tel. Sheena hails from Dept­ford; her moth­er is Mau­rit­ian and her fa­ther is In­di­an via Kenya. She is a fire­crack­er, full of spunk, and has writ­ten a best-sell­ing de­but nov­el ti­tled I’m a Fan.

Sheena’s nov­el builds on in­fi­deli­ty and in­equal­i­ty in re­la­tion­ships, tak­ing on her­self as nar­ra­tor, look­ing in­ward­ly with a tough eye, and ac­cept­ing un­palat­able per­son­al truths, whilst still call­ing the pow­er-hold­er to ac­count.

Both Ira and Sheena achieve a “pilju” in their books, mean­ing the cor­rec­tion of in­jus­tice or trau­ma through writ­ing. Pilju is a term that I have ac­quired from my guilty-plea­sure binge­ing of Net­flix K-dra­mas (par­don the bathos). It is used in Rook­ie His­to­ri­an by our hero­ine’s ex­cep­tion­al­ly gift­ed men­tor. He de­scribes that he be­came a his­to­ri­an so that he could write the truth of events for ul­ti­mate atone­ment and for resti­tu­tion (his fa­ther is a ruth­less, pow­er-hun­gry so­ciopath), with­out roy­al fear or roy­al favour.

By writ­ing, the world is Sheena’s and Ira’s wit­ness. In so do­ing, they pull oth­er women along, lift­ing them be­yond their im­me­di­ate cir­cum­stances with a promise of brighter pos­si­bil­i­ties. Ex­pos­ing fe­male vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties takes, par­don the irony, re­al ca­jones. Yet, acts of ab­la­tion can strip us of our en­cum­brances and necroses. They ex­pose op­por­tu­ni­ties for fresh growth.

When writ­ers do this for us, we have the priv­i­lege of their hard-won heal­ing whilst on­ly vic­ar­i­ous­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing their pain. We left the ses­sion up­lift­ed and kicked our heels around the oth­er ses­sions and the book­shop. In fact, I was near­ly caught up in a stam­pede at the book­shop, so keen were the hordes of stu­dents to en­ter it.

The fes­ti­val is supreme­ly well or­gan­ised and, true to form, the se­cu­ri­ty quick­ly got the mat­ter in hand and shut the en­trance. Imag­ine a coun­try where youths’ an­tic­i­pa­tion of buy­ing books is com­pa­ra­ble to the ex­cite­ment of at­tend­ing a rock con­cert!

We cel­e­brat­ed that night in the fab­u­lous­ness to which I shall like to be­come ac­cus­tomed, though there is lit­tle prac­ti­cal chance of that.

We donned our glad rags and hit the Ma­hara­ja’s palace, dri­ving through the mag­i­cal streets of the Pink City on the way out and in.

I plied Ira with a glass of cham­pagne, which she nursed for most of the night. Though the night was long, nei­ther the bub­bly nor the evening lost any of its savour or fizz.