Has the literature circuit been Bollywoodised with Priyanka Chopra delivering the Penguin Annual Lecture this year? The answer is: what hasn’t?
When I published my debut novel, ‘Almost Single’ a decade ago, I had barely any contacts in the business. It was beginning of the era of chain bookstores: prime location, fancy chrome-and-glass, aesthetically-designed book displays, and little ‘hang out’ spots.
I imagined my first book launch would have the casual intimacy of the gathering in a book store, and a thoughtful audience engagement. I held on to that thought, waiting for my time. My book was published and the publisher said we could have a function. Then came the question: “Which celebrity we were bringing to the launch?”
A celebrity, I wondered, scrolling through the limited contact list on my phone. Where would I find one? And wasn’t the book supposed to be the ‘celebrity’ at a book launch?
Literature festivals have become the ‘fashion weeks’ of our time. Everyone is having one. Last evening, I met a lawyer who said he was curating a legal books festival. This morning a friend called saying tech guys in the US wanted to bankroll a literature festival. A few months ago, a voluble politician made it to a lit fest and posted the ubiquitous ‘good time’ photograph from the event, and mentioned all the people in it (including Bollywood), barring one – the author Vikram Seth, probably one of the finest Indian writers on the world stage today.
Has the literature circuit been Bollywoodised with Priyanka Chopra delivering the Penguin Annual Lecture this year? The answer is: what hasn’t? The lecture series, which was started as a commemoration of twenty years of Penguin in India, has opened its platform to thinkers, writers and leaders. Priyanka qualifies as a leader in her own right. Having worked with her, I can personally speak of her as a bright, articulate, driven and highly sensitive woman, who has scaled the heights of success in a steady fashion, not just in India but in the United States as well. She fits the bill, is a triple threat – actor, dancer and singer, and has been strategic about her career moves and her public profile building.
However, I still cannot help but feel that Penguin has invited her primarily for the ‘Bollywood’ glam she will bring to the event, and the PR overdrive that will play out. And books and publishers need to be in the news, as media and mind space continually shrinks for them, despite the innumerable lit fests.
But think about it, this is the year when Time Magazine declared that the person(s) of the year were the women who championed the ‘me too’ campaign. Hollywood power structures got dismantled over the last few months, golden boys like Matt Damon who could do little wrong got skewered for utterances. Forget the ceiling that needs to be broken – which is the subject of Priyanka’s speech, and frankly a little dated and over-done. As we stand today, the fortress of silence that facilitates predatory behaviour in the glamour industry has been breached in an irrevocable way by women.
Priyanka, with one foot in Hollywood and the other in Bollywood, was ideally placed to speak of it. It is no secret that predatory sexual behaviour is commonplace in the Indian film industry, which functions much like the unorganised sector, offering little to no protection for women who work in the business. Priyanka herself has spoken of this, without getting into details. She permitted herself to go this far, only because of who she is as a person, and also because of the fact that she has a bonafide career outside of Bollywood. No ‘A list’ Indian female actor has spoken of this other than her.
Leaders, thinkers, writers change the times with words, a ‘lecture’ is an outdated vehicle for the communication of ideas that will change the world, that will emancipate people from safe insularity. But it is a platform nonetheless.
As Priyanka takes the stage to speak of breaking glass ceilings, I hope she speaks of the many who have been harassed and victimised in the glamour industry, here and abroad, in the past and in the present. I hope she uses this platform to lend voice to the voiceless, to those who suffer daily indignities. I hope she doesn’t ‘lecture’, but steers the narrative towards true emancipation and dignity. That’s what leaders do, male or female.
Advaita Kala is a novelist and movie script writer.
Priyanka Chopra should speak about whatever under the sun she feels like speaking about. She should decide her own agenda, her narrative and her forum – without everyone: you, me, uncle, aunty, author, big brothers, bigger sisters, dictating what she should be speaking about. If that is sexual harassment, then let her speak whenever, however and to whomever she wants to speak. It is bad enough that the author can’t seem to look beyond her PR appeal, but now we will also be condescending enough to decide for a perfectly articulate woman, just what it is that will make her lecture worthwhile. This arrogance of literary figures and their subtle ways of looking down on Bollywood in all stereotyping glory — I think Priyanka Chopra went past that stage a while back. Let the woman speak and think. She’s earned that right. Or was born with one.
Intelligent view on a topic that is too easy to blow off as bw dumdum speaking at a venue she has no right to. She does have a right and you said why. At same time, elephant in the room: BW male who can deny her work because of power, a la Harvey W. As you say though at the least she can help us if she talks instead of lectures. You write so well