JLF2023: Of ageing wine and high spirits

Some minds draw out your deepest emotions like a windswept straw without a muscle of will in its veins. And, yet the freedom to flow naturally and without purpose that abandons the self in the presence of an enlightened mind cannot be easily disengaged. Not at a gathering of mellowed minds aged in the barrels of experience and served on a stage we all know of as the Jaipur Literature festival. 

On Day 1 of the JLF2023, women speakers who own their confidence and art, took the centre stage. In an era, where going viral for a day is the benchmark for popularity, singer Usha Uthup got the audience in raptures just the same way she was engaging them at the start of this millennium. Her childlike exuberance, “Hell, I’m actually the queen of Indian pop,” was endearing and relatable. She greeted Shobhaa De, a 75-year-old author who is still admired for her highbrow looks, more than her writing skills to this day, with the same warmth she engaged the audience at the event. 

De, along with yesteryear actor-turned-author Deepti Naval, spoke on Day 1 of the JLF2023. Man Booker winner, Geetanjali Shree, who shot into the limelight with her translated work Tomb of Sand (Ret ki Samadhi) in 2022, was in conversation with the English translation of her award-winning book, Daisy Rockwell, and Tanuj Solanki.

Together, these women authors and speakers are a reminder of our mind’s plasticity and how it refuses to dim when engaged in a pursuit that lights up the soul. Just like ageing wine that never gets old, only mellows, with age.