So I read this article by Rajpal Abeynaike today, and after suppressing the urge to correct the grammar, scratch out the excessive ‘???’ and the sorry excuse for language in general, I wished I had followed instinct and scratched out the entire article in the first place. First of all, there is no excuse for publishing such a badly written article (truly, Rajpal is lucky he is the king of his castle) but surely, you have some responsibility to your readers not to insult them by churning out articles like this. First of all, it made no sense and the writer ended up looking pretentious and precocious. Second, if you’re going to pass judgments on people, be in a position where you are legitimate to state criticism. If you have nothing important to say, then keep your mouth shut. Don’t say things for the sake of saying just because you assign yourself a lot of importance.
Its so easy to find fault with GLF, the organizers are elite, the price is high and so on and so forth. But guess what? Nothing comes free, nothing comes easy. Wake up to the reality that surrounds you. 10k is nothing today. And no one can organize a literary festival of that magnitude without spending a lot of money. Sure it has wrinkles it needs to iron out, but give it some time. Applaude the fact that its actually taking place in Sri Lanka. If it was in a nearby country you would have paid much more to go for the fest and come back and claimed it was cheap.
If you can’t afford it, don’t go. Read about it, hear about it from those who went. You do it everyday. The concerts, the FTV parties, Russel Peters at waters edge, the bashes at the Hilton, not all of us can go, but I don’t see people campaigning for all this to be made free and accessible to everyone. And why should it? If something is not within your reach, too bad, better luck next year, but thats life we face it everyday. Also, kudos to the organizers who made the student prices so great. After all that, I can’t see why people make such a big fuss about it.
Quoting from the article, which generally gives a gist of what I’ve been hearing from other people as well, “Why does knowledge have to be so expensive? Weren’t some of the greatest authors and playwrights of the previous centuries poorer than church mice with nothing to live for? Did they prance around in their Prado’s and GTi horse carriages?”
Yes, some of the greatest authors and playwrights were poorer than church mice, but that does NOT mean that writers who prance around in their Pradas, Prados are any less in terms of writer quality and content. Being poor was never a deciding factor of a great writer was it? Knowledge is not expensive, LIFE is. Walk out of Cargills with a meagre amount of goods and you’d have spent some 5000 rupees. You can’t bring down such great writers and organize events without charging people a little more than they may be willing to pay. Its not the organizer’s jobs to dish out of their own pockets. Their father nor yours is covering the costs that are INEVITABLE, whether the writers are brought down from London or Koswatte.
I think its wonderful that there are people who still say things like “maybe they should make it possible for people from all walks of life be it rich or poor to be able to enjoy literature and knowledge equally”. Its true, its like how we need a some amount of anomie in society for it function properly and reinstate the limits and rules we function in. Its so wonderfully idealistic to throw in someones face and say “why should the poor be denied”. The poor shouldn’t be denied, but you know what, a literary festival is not the answer. If one is so concerned about making things equal for the poor, then help that lady who had to take her dead sons body back by BUS to her village from the cancer hospital, wrapped up in a sheet, pretending he was actually sleeping, because she couldn’t afford anything else? Or that student struggling their way through school? Oh there are ways to help the poor my friend, making the GLF free for all is not the answer. Besides, the “poor” are too busy making a living to take 4 days to listen to people whose books they can’t afford and perhaps books they can’t read because they’re too poor to go to school.
Direct your energy into channels that actually need so much enthusiasm and concentration. Then maybe in a few years, we’ll all go for the GLF and look back on the days when we had actually had to PAY to come there.
Musings of hers 