The Fortuitous Rise Of Sanjoy K Roy And The Jaipur Literature Festival

04/12/22 • 34 min

The reason I use the word fortuitous in the title of this episode of The Literary City is because Sanjoy K Roy, one of the founders of the Jaipur Literature Festival...let’s call it JLF, like everyone else...told me that its success was an accident.

Some say there are no accidents. You know, you dinged your dad’s car because you were careless...and not because the fates conspired to override your otherwise cautious and attentive demeanour.

Typically, people become successful because of their efforts—not despite them. Usually you will find that what we ascribe to luck included a great deal of knowledge, foresight and a gust of planning. As a wise man once ought to have said, the harder you work, the luckier you get yadda...yadda...

Now, JLF has editions all over the world, and—as a foot note to the flagship—its parent company Teamworks Arts handles several more events every year.

But Sanjoy Roy is my guest on The Literary City today because I want to establish that someone who turned what he calls an accident into the largest festival of literature in the world, is himself, by nature, literary.

There is one simple way to find out—and that’s to ask him.

And so, I am privileged to present today, someone who speaks for all of literature, Sanjoy Roy.
ABOUT SANJOY ROY
Sanjoy K Roy, an entrepreneur of the arts, is the Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 33 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals in 40 cities across the world including the iconic annual Jaipur Literature Festival, international editions of JLF and the launched-during-lockdown digital JLF Brave New World series. He is a founder trustee of Salaam Baalak Trust, providing support services for street and working children in Delhi. He is also the founder Trustee of the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust. Roy works closely with various industry bodies and the government on policy issues in the cultural sector in India, and has lectured and collaborated with leading international universities. He established Teamwork in 1989, a highly versatile production house with wide ranging interests in the performing and visual arts, social sector and films and television.
The upcoming bespoke edition of JLF—according to the publicity—will be a 10-day festival held from 13-22 May, 2022 and will celebrate the theme of SLOW LIFE including topics of food, art, wellness, fiction, climate change and environment. Elif Shafak and Huma Abedin are among the speakers. The location is the Soneva Fushi resort in the Maldives.
WHAT'S THAT WORD?! - "DIDACTIC".
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in the segment "What's That Word?", where they discuss the etymology and pretentious nature of the word "didactic".

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Some say there are no accidents. You know, you dinged your dad’s car because you were careless...and not because the fates conspired to override your otherwise cautious and attentive demeanour.

Now, JLF has editions all over the world, and—as a foot note to the flagship—its parent company Teamworks Arts handles several more events every year.

There is one simple way to find out—and that’s to ask him.

Previous Episode

The Fabulous Rajas—Last Shakespeareans Of Bangalore

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In old Bangalore, when you drove past the airport on the largely deserted road towards the suburb of Whitefield, was a farm, with trees and chickens and stuff that farms have.

It was owned by a couple whose voices were instantly recognizable as the principal voices of the English language stage in Bangalore—Arundhati and Jagdish Raja. Their farm was called Jagriti.

Today, the road is far from deserted and in the place of the farm, stands a theatre. A beautiful auditorium, in what should be described as a centre for all things cultural and literary.

The theatre retains the name of the old farm, Jagriti, but if there are any chickens there, I dare say, they aren’t running free on the range.

I call Arundhati and Jagdish Raja the Last Shakespeareans of Bangalore.

But now, who is a Shakespearean? Some people ask.

I mean who among us doesn’t know what ‘Platonic’ and ‘Aristotelian’ and ‘Einsteinean’ mean, but what's Shakespearean?

To me, anyone who has read a few plays of Shakespeare, has acted in a play even in school, bristles at the mention of Francis Bacon, and never finds the need to refer to him as the Bard of Avon, is a Shakespearean.

One wag described being Shakespearean as, "A modern sonnet with three quatrains and a punchy couplet."

Well, replace "punchy couplet" with "punchy couple" and it makes me proud to be able to present on my show, Bangalore’s last Shakespeareans.
ABOUT THE RAJAS
Arundhati Raja
Arundhati Raja, co-founded the Artistes’ Repertory Theatre in 1982. The company and its productions are now an integral part of Bangalore’s cultural history. While directing and acting, she also taught French, Biology and Drama for several years and considers her life as a teacher to be instrumental to her deep desire to encourage and support new talent. Arundhati Raja has now directed over 30 productions and continues to perform, teach and motivate a new generation of theatre makers.

Jagdish Raja
Jagdish was Principal of Pan Communications in London, England with clients in the UK, USA and Europe before returning to India with Arundhati, his wife, in 1972. He was an advertising consultant to companies and agencies and Advisor Communications at ActionAid.
Jagdish is a Graduate Member of the Communications Advertising & Marketing Society (M.CAM) London and an Associate of Trinity College London (ATCL). He is Founder Trustee of The ART Foundation, a registered Charitable Trust, which administers JAGRITI.
TO CONTRIBUTE TO OR GET IN TOUCH WITH JAGRITI
Start at their website jagrititheatre.com. Questions: [email protected]. Social: Facebook and Instagram — [@jagrititheatre].

WHAT'S THAT WORD?! - "AMATEUR".
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in the segment "What's That Word?", where they discuss the origins of the word, "amateur" and a limerick on love.

Next Episode

Brevity, Bio Physics And The Short Story With Indira Chandrasekhar

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Almost every famous author—Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Marquez and many before and after them—has written memorable short stories.

The short story has long been celebrated as an important part of literature, and in my view any effort to defend it as such is unnecessary.

My guest today is Indira Chandrasekhar—a writer of short stories. She is also a scientist and the editor of Out Of Print, a literary magazine.

I have known Indira for many years. We were in college in Bangalore, at about the same time. But the similarity ends there.

Indira made something of college. She went on to a doctorate in science and became a bio-physicist, like Jagdish Chandra Bose or James Watson.

But evidently, she likes what I do, more.

So she quit messing with membranes and macromolecules and about 12 years ago, she started a literary magazine called Out Of Print.

Out Of Print is published once in three months, online. Each issue carries fewer than 10 short stories, with a focus on writing from the Indian sub-continent.

Carefully curated, every one of the short stories in each issue is a tribute to craft, skill and style.

A 10th anniversary anthology of Out Of Print is available in bookstores and was a delight to sink into. As was her book of short stories, Polymorphism—that passage you heard in the beginning was Indira reading from this book.

To discuss science, literature and the polymath nature of old Bangalore, it is my pleasure to introduce my friend, Indira Chandrasekhar, to The Literary City With Ramjee Chandran.
ABOUT INDIRA CHANDRASEKHAR
Dr. Indira Chandrasekhar is a scientist, a writer, a literary curator and the founder and principal editor of Out of Print, one of the primary platforms for short fiction bearing a connection to the South Asian subcontinent.
Indira’s short stories have won awards and appeared in literary journals published in different parts of the world.
Her publications include, Out of Print : Ten Years – An Anthology of Stories (ed.), Context Books, the literary imprint of Westland Publishing, 2020; Polymorphism, HarperCollins, 2017; Pangea: An Anthology of Stories from Around the World (ed.), Thames River Publishing, 2012.
She serves on the councils of the Bangalore International Centre, the International Music and Arts Society Bangalore, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Mumbai and the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture Mumbai.
Out of Print: Ten Years : An Anthology of Stories: https://amzn.to/37vgqgx
Polymorphism: Stories: https://amzn.to/3xxvWmV
Out Of Print magazine: http://outofprintmagazine.co.in
WHAT'S THAT WORD?! - THE SHORT STORY
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in the segment "What's That Word?", where they discuss the history of the short story, and present a trivia section of the shortest stories ever written, such as Hemingway's 6-word novel.