Jug, Jug Jiyo, Jug!

When a ‘festival’ calls itself a ‘carnival’ in just its second year, you know this is not just any new-born but someone growing in a hurry! The Times Literary Festival made its debut last year (2010) in Mumbai’s NCPA, about which I had blogged about here. This year’s Times Literary ‘Carnival’ was held at the Mehboob Studios at Bandra, Mumbai from 2nd – 4th December 2011 on a much larger scale – clearly the crowds had swelled in numbers compared to the turnout at last year's Fest! The organization of the event was the responsibility of our beloved columnist, Bachi Karkaria and Namita Devidayal, another Times staffer, who tried their best to bring in as much variety and spice in the proceedings through a thematic diversification into Hindi song lyrics – by roping in the likes of popular Bollywood lyricist Gulzar and the upcoming folk-musician Raghu Dixit to bring the festival to life!

The event gave an opportunity to readers and wannabe writers to meet several authors like Rashmi Bansal, Sonia Faleiro, Chetan Bhagat, Rahul Pandita and several others and pick up a signed copy of their work - as they chat up with them on the sidelines! Last year I had the opportunity to talk to Amish Tripathi and Ashwin Sanghi and my favourite columnist Bachi Karkaria at the book stall at the NCPA. This year it was an opportunity to have a few words with Jug Suraiya, Bunny Suraiya and Rashmi Bansal in between sessions!





Being a die-hard fan of ‘Jugular Vein’, a column by Jug Suraiya that never fails to entertain with its dollops of humour, this was an opportunity to listen to the writer talk on 3rd Dec, about his book, “JS and the Times of my life” with his wife, Bunny. The talk was indeed very enlightening – providing deep insights into what makes Jug the phenomenal success he is today. “Why do people only think of you as a humour writer, although you do write a contrarian column ‘Second Opinion’ and have written spiritual pieces for the Speaking Tree, short fiction and poems?” Bunny asked. Jug shrugged and said he hoped people wouldn’t be laughing–out-loud while reading his other pieces! Jug further clarified that he was more like a ‘ventriloquist's puppet’ when it came to journalistic writing of pieces of current affairs and opinions.

When asked “Is there any ethics in humour?”, he replied with 2 rules of humour that he observes strictly “Rule No. 1 - Always make fun of yourself, before you attempt to make fun of others and Rule No. 2 – Always make fun of those who are more privileged than you NOT of those under-privileged, deprived sections of society – those that are more at a disadvantage than you are – you couldn’t be making fun of the poor downtrodden, could you?”! So very true, Jug!

When asked about the blogging community and their work, he responded that it is what he called a large “prosumer” group, those who ‘produce’ as well as ‘consume’ the produce amongst themselves – a phenomenon made possible by the internet today. "Junior Statesman", the magazine that he began his career with, was such a ‘prosumerist’ magazine, which encouraged readers to contribute to it rather than have elite columnists being featured. When asked if 'JS,the magazine'could be revived, though, he responded that "it could be – but only in the electronic medium – not in print"!

One young man cornered Jug in the question and answer session, when he commented that although he did offer his ‘Second Opinion’ column to readers of TOI, in his opinion, he was not having or offering any opinion at all! He cited examples when he had contradicted himself at different points in time. Jug was at a loss for words, although his wife, Bunny appreciated this young man with “That was really a good question!”

Oh, Jug may have a good explanation for this some other day – although he had nothing to offer on the spur of the moment. Well I can understand, I too had this one question in my mind that I did not ask him during the session:
“You say, you are the ‘ventriloquist’s puppet’ - Pray tell us who is the ventriloquist?”

Whatever the answer, I truly love your “Jugular Vein” – the column, that is!

“Blogger’s Post-Script – My personal treasurable take-away was an autograph of Jug I took on a photcopy of one of my latest published articles - And this picture i took of Jug and his Bunny!”