Three Questions for the Wandering Indian

Byline by M.J. Akbar: Three Questions for the Wandering Indian

This has become a three-question tour: Can rising India cross the hurdles without collapsing into a painful hobble? Where are the roots and branches of Muslim Terrorism? Is Pakistan a failed state and what does this mean for the war in Afghanistan?

To jaded Delhi eyes, the sky is much more vast in Canada. That could only be an illusion, right? Wrong. The horizon is not limited by claustrophobic cement, concrete, stone; the vision is not trapped by the tensions of road-crawl, or blocked by the arrogance of bullies who believe that a steering wheel has lifted them out of the demands of common decency. It is not distance that makes Canada seem like a frontier, although it takes a while to ingest that London is only a midway point between Delhi and Toronto. This frontier is not merely the boundary wall of the familiar; it is also the gateway to new space.

I am in the pretty urban village of Waterloo, obviously within British-Canada, for French Canadians are unlikely to institutionalise the memory of Napoleon’s defeat. But the tensions of the 19th century have thinned to inconsequence. Waterloo is the home of CIGI, the think-tank started by one of the creators of the ubiquitous Blackberry, which is my host. Billionaires in Canada do not believe that the only duty of money is to make more money. Money can also seed ideas, shape policy and perspective with the help of gardeners gathered from the finest academic and diplomatic nurseries in the world.

This has become a three-question tour: Can rising India cross the hurdles without collapsing into a painful hobble? Where are the roots and branches of Muslim terrorism? Is Pakistan a failed state and what does this mean for the war in Afghanistan? Canada has lost nearly a hundred soldiers already to the Taliban, with no end to the war in sight; the voter, if not the government, is beginning to flinch just a little.

I suggest a little adjustment in the focal lens, and the India story becomes much clearer. India may be growing at 9% or thereabouts each year, but every Indian is not growing at that impressive pace. Perhaps 20% of India is growing at that much-touted rate, but nearly 80% can choose a number from the lower single digits. The imbalance is both demographic and geographic. The result is virulent social conflict, the worst stream being an epidemic called Naxalism.

There are many tributaries, including caste and communal tensions. Moreover, aspiration is the right of every youth in a free society, and India is indisputably free. That is the core strength of modern India. But aspiration is also the parent of frustration. Until we manage these contradictions, instead of fooling ourselves with silly World Bank mantras like the trickle-down theory, which is such a solace to limp minds like that of finance minister P. Chidambaram, the India story will always seem vulnerable to sudden, even if temporary, descent into chaos. If it is any consolation, China has worse problems lurking behind the propaganda and dictatorship, but that is very poor consolation.

At least the phrase is becoming, gradually, more accurate: it is Muslim terrorism, rather than Islamic terrorism. As I have argued before, Islam does not permit terrorism, even during the worst phases of war. An increasing number of American and Canadian intellectuals and decision-makers have also begun to realise that war-mongering is not the only appropriate response to the problem. A simultaneous battle has to be fought, with equal vigour, in the minds of the young. At the core of this debate is a question: where lies justice? If the armies of some Western nations have travelled thousands of miles merely to impose forms of neo-imperialism, then the war will continue. If they have gone to induce the emergence of modern, equitable societies and nations –– although the job would be far easier in the hands of men who build schools than generals –– then the battle for the mind can be won. The 21st century has given us all that we could ask for, but it forgot to give us peace. Peace cannot come without understanding.

Understanding is impossible without dialogue. Dialogue can only be possible between equals, or it becomes a monologue. The world will not move forward on an axis of evil; that axis can only push it into reverse direction. An axis of good is perhaps equally sentimental. The world will move towards peace only on an axis of equals. This is the first principle of democracy, a point often forgotten by democracy’s drum-beaters.

It is counterproductive to dismiss Pakistan as a failed state, or underestimate the Pakistani’s desire to protect the cohesion of his nation. But the moment has come for clarity: Pakistan must reject theocracy as a failed idea. That is the real battle corroding the vitals of Pakistan. There is an enormous danger for not merely Pakistan, but the whole of South Asia, in the increasing appropriation of nationalism by theocrats, since they have positioned themselves in the forefront of the war against the foreign presence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is the question that theocrats raised in order to chip away at Pervez Musharraf’s credibility: why was Pakistan fighting America’s war against fellow-Muslims? The non-theocrats, to use a clumsy term, consist of both democrats and autocrats in Pakistan. But both the civilians and the generals are being pushed into the American corner by a combination of events and an absence of real options. The fog of this war is intellectual, and more Pakistani politicians are dying in friendly fire than anyone might want to count. The boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan is notional in many respects, and this is not only because more Pashtuns live in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. There is no real dividing line on the battlefield where the Taliban is conducting operations against the NATO alliance. In fact, a rational assessment would indicate that the intellectual and political battle has to be fought far more vigorously in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, because it is the Pakistani street that will determine the outcome to a far great degree than the Afghan village.

One would have to be a substantial fool to suggest that these answers are comprehensive. But if they take a crucial debate a step or two forward, then the purpose will have been met. It is not only the sky that is vast in Canada. The mind is also more open than one finds upon travelling a little to the south of this country. Canadians, by and large, have a more intelligent view of the world than the neocon ideologues who have shaped the imperial policies of Washington in the last eight years. But Canada does itself, and its cause, an injustice when it sends only troops to Afghanistan. Guns may pacify the present, but it is only butter that buys the future.

From Promise to Compromise

Byline By M.J.Akbar : From Promise to Compromise

A government slips from "midterm" to "end-term" condition not when it has lost its majority, but when it has lost its ability to govern. Only a confident government goes for a midterm poll because it believes it will be re-elected; an "end-term" election takes place under an anxious one.

Language facilitates communication; but becomes a trap when misused. The misuse may not be deliberate, merely complacent. But a complacent phrase can enter the discourse, shape decision or indecision and leave a sharp, self-inflicted wound.

"Midterm election" is a case in point. One is not being pedantic; a midterm election does not have to be precisely in the middle of a government's term. But there is a political definition of "midterm" that separates it clearly from the "end-term" phase of a government's life.
In the British-Indian system of a parliamentary democracy, a "midterm" election means any election called prematurely, either because the government feels it is advantageous to go back to the people, or because it no longer has the majority to survive, and Parliament cannot offer an alternative ruling formation.

A government slips from "midterm" to "end-term" condition not when it has lost its majority, but when it has lost its ability to govern. Only a confident government goes for a midterm poll because it believes it will be re-elected; an "end-term" election takes place under an anxious one. Tony Blair, the most successful Labour Prime Minister in history, won three elections by going to the polls early. He had not lost his majority; he chose an earlier date because he considered it politically propitious, and it was the point at which he could maximise the extent of his victory.

His successor, Gordon Brown, took office a year ago and entered his "end-term" phase within four months, when he somersaulted out of an implicit promise to call an early election. He may retain the confidence of Parliament, but he lost the confidence of the country. Since then he has been Dead Man Walking. If Labour does not change him he will take Labour to the grave: where else would you expect a Dead Man to go?

A calendar has something, but not a whole lot, to do with a government's credibility. Governments do not explode suddenly, in a blaze of fireworks. The more objective metaphor is colder. Governments melt like icebergs, piece by piece, before sinking into oblivion. The moment this process accelerates, the "end-term" begins.

The decisive moment for the Manmohan Singh government came last August, when it seemed, for about a week, ready to challenge his coalition in pursuit of a policy which the Prime Minister believed was in the national interest: the Indo-US nuclear deal. The force and conviction with which the Prime Minister hyped up the deal was sufficient to convince many in-between that there must be something in what he said. The Prime Minister was, not so subtly, transferring his personal credibility to the deal, and many were ready to buy this transfer. But when the same Prime Minister walked away from the nuclear deal in order to save his government, his personal credibility took a beating. He became just another politician who was ready to compromise the national interest in order to remain in power. If the deal was truly so vital to India's future, then it was more important than the few remaining months of his government. And if it was less important than his government, then it was not so vital after all.

After that, the Communists began to wag the dog, creating just enough distance from the alliance they had delivered, baby-sat and nurtured. Last August, the Congress could have signed the deal and increased its seats in a subsequent election. After Gujarat, its tide began to ebb. In August 2007 the Gujarat elections had not taken place. The BJP was still a defeated party. Narendra Modi not only saved his party; he also shifted the key debate to governance. His victory was on the single issue of good governance. And just at that point, the Manmohan Singh coalition's reputation for competent governance, never particularly high, began to wither. If it had tainted itself with compromise on the nuclear deal, it began to seem pathetic in tackling economic issues.

It is now evident that inflation ate away any goodwill for the government at a rapid pace: the fire of the belly rarely leaves authority untouched. The mismanagement of oil prices speaks for itself. Oil prices did not start rising last week; this has been a phenomenon spread over the whole of last year. Many serious economists were predicting the prices we are witnessing today. A government with time on its side has the ability to take tough decisions. By winter it was clear that the government had limited options: it could raise prices, which would mean risking the stability of the coalition and a further push on inflation. If that was unacceptable, it could have initiated measures to reduce consumption. Or, it could have foreseen the crisis ahead, argued that only a government with renewed strength could handle such a crisis, and gone to the people. It did nothing. Today, it is in a complete bind. There is no money to meet higher costs (particularly after the great squander of national wealth in order to bribe voters in the Budget), and no will to raise it from consumers. If prices do not go up, we will see an oil famine in the country as oil companies run out of funds.

A government that could have won an election last August is sitting, heavy-bottomed, on a panic button eight months later.

There is only pseudo-drama in the much-debated question on whether the government should call an election in October-November or wait for the scheduled end of Parliament in March-April. It doesn't matter much anymore. The Opposition, which was once eager for a midterm poll in the forlorn belief that anything was better than the status quo is now quite happy at the thought that elections might take place only next March. In its view, the longer this government sticks around in office, the more seats it will lose. Yes, of course, a delay would enable some ministers to make more money, but who can argue with the kismat of the corrupt?

The Manmohan Singh government has travelled from promise to compromise; it will need huge dollops of good kismat to travel any further.

The Alibi Game

Byline by M J Akbar : The Alibi Game

In public life — and both the market and politicians are in public life — you need not only a thick skin but also a strong chin. You have to take the blow on the chin and keep standing. A totter is not a pleasant sight in public life.

Logic and politics are not necessarily incompatible. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If you live by market forces you die by market forces. Inflation is the most logical face of market forces. It is the market that sets the agenda. It is the market that raises prices based on its assessment of supply, demand and profitability. The market has no loyalty, least of all to government. The market has no social conscience: no food-trader ever died of hunger in the famine, or emerged out of the crisis with his bank balance depleted. The market is loyal to one concept, profit. The politician wants to win; the market wants to profit.

Their paths converge most of the time, but not all the time. When their interests converge they are the best of pals: see the width of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's smile when, in normal times, the Sensex booms across the skyscrapers of Mumbai. But that boom follows its own laws, and not those of the government. If profits can be sustained then the Sensex will boom even during a period of high inflation, at least temporarily, when there is still purchasing power in the market.

When the interests of politicians and the market diverge, they can be obstinate in the protection of their own needs. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi would dearly love to wake up one morning and discover that prices had levelled off or were even showing a downward trend. If they could order businessmen to do so, they would have done it, for a general election cannot now be too far away. But the businessmen who cozy up to politicians in the privacy of drawing rooms, doling out large bundles of cash, will not take such orders even at the cost of hurting their political friends.

It is, to use an apt phrase, a trade-off. The market should not cry when the politician lets it down. The politician must not weep when the market betrays it. In public life — and both the market and politicians are in public life — you need not only a thick skin but also a strong chin. You have to take the blow on the chin and keep standing. A totter is not a pleasant sight in public life.

Inevitably, if not wisely, politicians rush towards the false comfort of alibis when under threat. The Indian consumer does not want lectures on whether food prices are rising across the world; he wants to know what the government has done about it. In any case, this phenomenon was evident at the beginning of last winter, and that is already six months ago. What did Finance Minister Chidambaram, or his economics-professor boss, Prime Minister Singh, do about it last November and December? If they had taken the measures that suddenly seem wise to them now, things would have been under some control today. Instead, they were cooling their heals and heating the market. Now the market is cooling its heels and lighting fires under the government.

Alibis can be cruel. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has already blamed the changing consumption pattern of the Indian poor for rising prices. Sharad Pawar has never blamed the bloated stomachs of the rich for rising prices — ever wondered why? He believes food to be the natural right of the rich, and an unnatural right for the poor. He does not quite put it like that, because that would be too direct, but that is the foundation of his thought process.

Mr Pawar has now some help from the Lord Protector of the World, American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She too blames the rise of food prices on the Indian poor. Has she ever paused a minute to think about the consumption pattern of pets in American households? They consume food worth over fifteen billion dollars each year, enough to stave off hunger among Africa's poverty-stricken children. I know this is an unfair world, and I don't believe that pets should suddenly be cut off their feed. But at least we should be spared pomposity from the privileged.

Prime Minister Singh seems to have a strange, hands-off look these days, as if he is not really responsible for the mess that has collected beneath him. Indifference may be the last alibi left, but it is not an answer. When the mask of indifference is punctured by incidents like the exposure of help given by the Prime Minister's Office to a less-than-honest minister like the DMK's T.R. Baalu, the search for alibis reaches panic-station because the image of a clean Prime Minister must be preserved at all costs. The explanations trot out, one after another. The PMO letters were "routine". There is nothing routine about a Prime Minister's Office recommending that gas supplies be made available to the industries of a Cabinet Minister's son. There is nothing routine in the fact that a reminder was sent within five days, the first of seven. In government snail-mail the first letter would probably not have reached its destination in five days. A second in such a hurry is not routine. Oil and Gas Minister Murli Deora suggested that there was nothing in helping a colleague. Really? Even at the cost of rules and regulations? And if there is nothing wrong, why was nothing done? The answer is simple: the bureaucrats in the ministry did not want to break the rules. That is why eight letters were needed. Clever Mr Deora wants to have his cake and eat it too. Difficult.

The Indian in the bazaar has a right to ask how many letters the Prime Minister sent his Finance Minister on inflation.

The Prime Minister is a calm man who hides his stress under a self-imposed blanket of resignation. He was the surprise choice four years ago, and his personality aroused hopes at street and village level. All that remains of that once-promising reputation is the belief that he is personally incorruptible. But what use is his personal integrity when all around him there is rampant corruption and mismanagement. Is there a friend of his who can tell him that there are many kinds of dishonesty in public life? Permitting Cabinet Ministers to feed from the corruption trough so that you may preserve your job also amounts to disservice to the people.

9% for 9%

Byline by M J Akbar : 9% for 9%

If political parties do not politicise the misery, what should they politicise? What are they in politics for? To celebrate Diwali every week? Heaven knows, enough politicians do that already. Corruption is so rampant that minimal proprieties have been abandoned.

There are two dangerous moments in the life of any politician. One comes when he has the misfortune to be the messenger of bad news. Good news is brought by a crowd; bad news is borne by an individual, for the crowd suddenly discovers it has other things to do. The messenger's loyalty and courage are always praised — he may even, in some circumstances, be awarded the Padma Vibhushan — before his tongue is sliced off and deposited in a very cold icebox. Bad news may be necessary, but that does not mean that it is welcome.

The Left Front, which is the raft on which the UPA government has been sailing for four years, decided that it would carry the news about inflation-turmoil to the closed mind into which every government retreats under pressure. The Left, which is still anxious to save the Manmohan Singh government from self-inflicted wounds, wanted to hear prescriptions. Instead, it got a sniffy sermon based on the extraordinary assertion that "political parties should not politicise the misery of the people".

Living in Delhi is sufficient to addle what little brains the Almighty has allotted to me, but I find this quite incomprehensible. If political parties do not politicise the misery, what should they politicise? What are they in politics for? To celebrate Diwali every week? Heaven knows, enough politicians do that already. Corruption is so rampant that minimal proprieties have been abandoned. One example is sufficient. The Prime Minister's Office has written eight letters between November 2007 and February 2008 to the petroleum ministry, headed by Murli Deora, demanding that gas supplies to companies owned by shipping and transport minister T.R. Baalu's family be expedited. Questions arise: for starters, it would be nice to know how many letters the Prime Minister's Office has written to finance minister P. Chidambaram demanding that inflation be brought under control. But of course the Prime Minister believes that inflation cannot bring down his government, while the DMK can, and therefore its ministers must be appeased.

More interesting: why does it need eight letters on the same subject? The PMO contains the most powerful bureaucrats in the country, backed by the authority of the Prime Minister. No letter can leave the PMO without the PM's personal sanction even if he does not sign the missive himself. Murli Deora is not famous for being subversive, or revolutionary. Why would he need to be told eight times? There can be only one reason: because the PMO's directive demanded that the petroleum ministry flout a rule in order to help the family of a fellow Cabinet minister. The sheer persistence — eight letters in four month — tells its own story.

If only such persistence had been shown, and during the same period, in the effort to curb inflation, the Left might have not needed to remind the government that the Finance Bill had still not been passed, and it could not be passed without the Left's support.

But at least the Prime Minister's formulation recognises that the people are indeed miserable. And when they are miserable it is hardly surprising that they tend to vote against those who have made them miserable. The Congress did have an opportunity in Karnataka to recover in the coming Assembly elections, but inflation seems to have punctured its chances.

Here is a fact of life that Prime Minister Singh and Mrs Sonia Gandhi, his mentor, may want to remember: it is the people who politicise misery when they convert their anger into a vote.

Which brings us to the second danger in the career of a politician. This is visited upon the more fortunate, for only someone who has been permitted to roar as a lion can be castrated into bleating like a scapegoat. You can't make a scapegoat out of a goat, can you?

When the political price of inflation becomes even more evident, there will be clamour within Congress ranks for a public sacrifice. There is already talk that this sacrificial lamb, or goat, will be finance minister Chidambaram. Since no Prime Minister offers his own head as sacrifice, Dr Manmohan Singh will gracefully step aside so that the chap down the pecking order can take the hit.

It is difficult for finance ministers to last the course; the portfolio is simply too demanding. By such norms Chidambaram has done better than most. He can be pleased at the fact that he has presented every Budget since the UPA came to power, and even if he ends up on the political platter his successor will inherit all the problems without the satisfaction of delivering the annual Budget in February. By then the general elections will be upon us, even if they are not brought forward.

But what he should be angry about is that it will be his head on the platter when the responsibility for inflation is not his alone, even among his peers. He might be particularly irritated by the fact that no one is raising a finger at his bete noire, Kamal Nath, for instance (the two ministers have been sparring with less courtesy than wrestlers in Haryana). One factor in the rise of steel prices is because Kamal Nath has pushed the export of iron ore at virtually any cost, both to the exchequer and the environment, and even now refuses to increase export duties. Or Chidambaram might legitimately ask why the DMK ministers, who are the well-heeled guardians and dons of the cement industry in Tamil Nadu, do not get blamed when cement prices rise.

There has always been a disconnect between the misery of the people and the joy of the winners in the 9% growth lottery, as the BJP-led NDA discovered to its horror in the last general election, and as the present government could find out in the next election. As someone archly remarked, India has 9% growth for 9% of its people. Unfortunately for the political and business elite, India has 100% democracy for 100% of its people.

A Roman Diary (Blood Brothers)

Byline by M J Akbar: A Roman Diary
Rome

India is the world’s latest quotation mark. Nepal has become a question mark, Sri Lanka an oversized exclamation mark; and Bangladesh is imprisoned between brackets, the space for leeway decreasing by the day. Pakistan is teetering towards a full stop.

China has turned into yesterday’s paragraph: still impressive, but with the contradictions becoming evident through cracks separating sentences.

What a wonderful feeling to be an Indian at that moment in history when the world begins to applaud as India comes within reach of that long-promised tryst with destiny, and shifts imperceptibly towards the centre of the stage. The auditorium is packed with distinguished Roman faces and eager journalists. The launch of the Italian Edition of my book Blood Brothers (published by Neri Pozza as Fratelli di sangue) is the excuse. They have come for another glimpse of the Indian story. The book is a portrait of the heart of India, pumping blood to its veins through valves distinct in faith but united in purpose. Italy is waking up to a question that has been asked and answered in India for a thousand years, that runs through three generations of blood brothers: how can different faiths live together? There are many convoluted answers. Here is a short one.

It takes two sides to make war. It also takes two sides to make peace.

The weights on the panel for the discussion about the book are heavy: Sandro Gozi, president of the Italian-Indian Association; Dr Roberto Colaninno, president of Gruppo Piaggio; Dr Guidalberto Guidi, president of Ducati Energia and Dr Giuseppe Marra, president of GMC. Italy’s businessmen are more interested in India than Italy’s politicians. That is the good news. The future is bright.

Businessmen succeed because they can read a balance sheet with bifocals. They also use night vision. They will not rev up the engines without foreknowledge of roadblocks in the night. I was asked direct questions. Let me mention two. What could sabotage India’s growth? And whatever happened to Gandhi?

Honesty demanded candour. Growth would be sabotaged only if there was continued neglect of the undergrowth. Growth was incompatible with poverty, or that corrosive, besetting sin, communal violence. The reason is not virtue. Morality is important, but pragmatism is more effective. Conflict is injurious to economic growth. Mumbai can have either riots or a booming stock exchange, not both.

As for non-violence: it was a brilliant strategy against an "invincible" empire. It is a hopeless glue for a nation state. The state cannot turn the other cheek against secession or terrorism.

One should have expected the favourite question of TV, print and radio journalists. What is common between Italy and India? I can think of two attributes immediately. Both Italian and Indian men are in love with, and in awe of, their mothers. And both drive cars in the heart of the city with the imperious impatience of maniacs. The Italians have an advantage though. Don’t bother if you are hit by most cars in a city like Torino. The car will get hurt. The small car is not only alive and well in Italy, but has all the impishness of a brat.

One could also suggest a unique sense of logic common to elements of both societies. The room service waiter at the friendly, gracious and very pretty Hotel Locarno in the heart of Rome, once a boutique residence of filmstars on a Roman holiday or on Hollywood business, was irrefutable. Twice he responded to my request for a bucket of ice and soda by saying that he could not take my order because his phone was not working. The third conversation was at his initiative. He, considerately, made the call. The phone was working now, he said, with more than a hint of triumph. I wanted to check how we had managed to communicate on a variety of subjects on the two previous occasions when his phone was not working, but decided that the dialectic might be in contravention of some labour law. I decided to let sleeping telephones lie.

Every human being has a friend. But only a few are privileged to have a friend like Dr Pippo Marra, the large-hearted baron of a flourishing media empire. Roman doors never remain closed before him. He had the imagination to start an Arabic news service that has become a hit across the Mediterranean: Italy is divided from the Arab world by a calm sea. His company shot to international fame when Al Qaeda chose to deliver its last message through his Arabic service. A cynosure of the media, he was the architect of the generous attention that Blood Brothers received. He offered me the ultimate hospitality, the liberal gift of his time. The highlight of his programme for me was a football match, AS Roma versus Torino FC, at the famous Roma ground, in the second of the two encounters between the teams in the knockout Italy Cup.

If news had spread that I was going to see Romano Prodi, it might have provoked a yawn or two. When people learnt I was going to see Totti, even friends could not disguise their envy. Prodi is a mere Prime Minister. Totti is a genius, star of Roma and sun of Italian football.

And how that sun dazzled! He did not come on to the field till about ten minutes after half time. Roma were still two goals in deficit from the previous game. The scoresheet was as blank as an accountant’s face. Play was stopped. Totti arrived. A thunderclap from Zeus roared down from the stands. Suddenly, touch, weave and thrust shifted the dynamic of a game that had plodded down narrow furrows. Totti flicked the ball, darted across, changed position. The field became wider side-to-side and shorter goalpost-to-goalpost. The Roma midfield and front line became touched with mercury. They found the net thrice in quick succession before Torino could understand what was going on, and then banged the ball into the net a fourth time after Torino lost their will. Totti scored his 200th goal in Italian football and received a standing ovation. I expect a standing ovation from my son when I eventually receive the signed Totti shirt that Dr Marra has promised to parcel.

It is mildly reassuring to be addressed correctly. Italians call people of the Islamic faith "Mussalmano" rather than the inelegant British "Moslem" or the absurd "Saracen". Crusaders used Saracen because they thought Arabs were children of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Mecca owes its origins however to Hajr, Abraham’s second wife. In such a fragment of language lies history. Arabs ruled Sicily till the 11th century.

Thoughts on a literary festival in Torino. The last temptation of an author, creator of characters, is to become a character actor in front of peers. Authors tend to write from the head and speak from the imagination. Perhaps it should be the other way around, but that would be far less interesting a spectacle. A literary festival is the space between ego and alter ego. Give an author a stage and watch a peacock dance. Some do it elegantly enough. Those with borrowed plumes never stop short of the Bhangra. The best, a rare few, sit on a stone in the corner of the stage, either waiting for Godot or chuckling at themselves.