god is in the details (III)
a bangalore literature festival 2023 special feature
on the 2nd and 3rd of december, i attended the bangalore literature festival. i had such a lovely time, and the panels were so amazing, that i decided to serialise everything i wanted to say.
for a few weeks, thodi will follow a blf theme, where i discuss the things that truly spoke to me during the two-day festival, and i’m very, very excited about it. i cover broader observations like the all-pervading sense of community experienced in events like these, as well as specific phrases and points covered by authors that i instantly knew i wanted to sit with and elaborate on when i heard them.
i hope you enjoy this little deviation from the regular programme. or, you know, tolerate it with an indulgent sort of smile and slowly shake your head in a very fond and exasperated manner. there you go. onward!
ps: the title of the series is from Dr. Abraham Verghese’s lovely keynote address on the 2nd, where he mentioned the quote, and it has stuck with me every since i heard it that sunny morning.
this week’s Thought (singular)
i’ve been informed that if there’s a lump in your throat that doesn’t seem to go away, it’s either grief or gratitude
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they’re mostly normal about the end of the year. thank you for joining us. may you not wake up one morning in june 2024 and be hit with the realisation that it is, in fact, 2024. what do you mean it’s december. i can’t remember this year starting. i blinked.
hi
welcome to part III of god is in the details, a three-part series where i discuss my time at and thoughts on the bangalore literature festival 2023. this installment is about how there is no escape from your judgements, perceptions, and emotions when you’re creating, and abstractions about discipline, creativity, and the necessity of making the chore of adulthood less chore-like.
on the morning of the second day, we attended Kanan Gill’s panel where he discussed his debut novel Acts of God (2024). it was equal parts funny and profound, and what follows below is a list of points he covered that have stayed with me, even three weeks after. some of these are phrases that i managed to hurriedly jot down during the panel. some are so obvious but so succinctly stated that there’s nothing i could say that will possibly add any value to it.
everything you create is very coloured by your emotional state.
this reminds me of another point from another panel, where there was a discussion about whether you can ever create something that won’t have pieces of your perceptions and judgements in it. one of the panelists had mentioned that ‘…there is no escape.’ you will seep into your art. every word you write will be tinged with your person, which is what makes creative output so subjective and genuine craft so precious.
seeing somebody being free makes you be free.
i adore this idea of being inspired by somebody being obviously liberated in their creativity. i’ve noticed that reading more makes me want to write more, listening to music more makes me want to sing more. it’s a lovely chain reaction that gets set off when you put art out into the world. also, it feels like such a deep connection to the creative community at large. thank you for writing that. it made me want to write this. i hope this makes somebody else want to write something else.
the value of your life is the experience of your life not the output.
letting it happen - more emotion than discipline
this came up during a question about the discipline involved in writing a novel, following a schedule to complete drafts on time. the concept of ‘letting it happen’, of essentially being a vessel for your creativity…there’s something so spiritual about it.
the important part is to not cut your ideas down - don't be so insistently cruel to yourself
the best and most prolific writers have a certain detachment from their work.
at first glance this is diametrically opposite to the first point in this list. how do you put a distance between yourself and your creation? how do you detach yourself from yourself? but i think the creating is very different from the creation. i imagine that it’s far easier–but by no means easy–to take yourself out of the work equation than the working equation.
everything in life is a chore, so how do you make things funny?
and that’s a wrap on god is in the details! you can stop your indulgent head shaking and exasperated smiling now. thank you for reading, and as always, let me know about your own festival experiences! i’ll see you next week with our regularly scheduled programme :D.
The Good Side of the Internet
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this week’s Song
Weight of the World by Shayfer James
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
Thank you for this! Feeling creatively inspired and have thoughts to think further about :)