London Literature Festival 2009

All bookworms run to the Southbank Centre now. The London Literature festival opened on Thursday night with a talk on democracy by the 1997 Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy.

The festival goes on until 16th July, with plenty of VIP appearances scheduled, including Vikram Seth, Buzz Aldrin (not really sure what he is doing at the Literature Festival, but hey, he was on the Moon, so who am I to question?), Aravind Adinga, Marina Lewycka, Hanif Kureishi, Amartya Sen ... and plenty of others. Apart from author appearances, there are bookclub readings and even a creative writing school.

Now, I love reading, but the thing that always alienates me about these events are the pseudo-intellectual women who frequent them. They all have public school accents, master's degrees in mostly useless subjects (sociology, gender studies, human rights etc.) and they all think they can save the world by expressing their opinion. I would not really mind sitting next to these ladies, you know, I keep myself to myself, the lights are off, I try to concentrate on the person on the stage. But they ask questions.

Here's an example: "I am studying a postgraduate degree in blah-blah-blah and writing a dissertation on blah-blah-blah ... Your talk was all about democracy and the exploitation of tribal people in India by mining companies like Vedanta. Now, me and you have had the benefit of an education, but how do you explain these concepts - like democracy and freedom and human rights - to these simple people? Isn't that beyond their understanding?" The ever-so-smart Arundhati Roy brushed the question off as "muddled" and proceeded to say that "Some of the most ignorant people I see are often the most educated ones. " Priceless. Clap. Clap. Clap.

Today, I went to a talk by Sam Miller & Vikram Seth on Sam's book "Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity". It was a pretty light-hearted session where Sam and Vikram talked about things such as the monkey shit scam in Connaught Place and some unfortunate incident at a buffalo slaughterhouse where Sam nearly got killed by a bunch of angry butchers. Yet, the intellectuals in the audience just could not help themselves. Questions included: "What do you think of Mughal architecture?" I mean, isn't that like asking what you think of the Big Ben? What is there to think?! Another gem: "I went to a talk by Arundhati Roy earlier this week and she had some pretty dim views on democracy in India. So, what can you tell us about democracy in Delhi?" Ehm. A little heavy, if you ask me. Besides which, Sam probably had no idea what Arundhati was trying to get across in her talk several days earlier. I really felt sorry for Sam having to answer that one! I don't think the lady who asked it really cared to hear the answer. She just wanted to hear her own voice for a little while, in front of an audience, asking something clever.

Is it just me, then, or do these Show-off Intellectuals bother you too? Or does anyone actually enjoy themselves in these circles?