 Whatever you did, if it wasn't good enough, you needed to try and do better and keep at it. Actually, village life produces the philosophical ideas that are germane to democratic thought and practice. I mean, just losing four of your bandmates, soulmates is bad enough. But the worst thing is out of those four families, two of the families blame to me. But the progress from 1991 to 2017, I think, only took India to a better place. It was really through the transition into politics that I had the good luck of becoming a writer. To the British Library after two years. All of us know that COVID really took a toll on every sector and especially the arts and entertainment sector and everything to do with literature, etc. However, what happened with us at JLF is that we used the occasion to go online very quickly. And as we shut down on the 20th of March in 2020, we went online with a new series on the 4th of April called JLF Brave New World. And we followed one, followed it with JLF Words are Bridges, which was a series on translations. And both these together with all of the JLFs that went online, JLF London, JLF Boulder, Colorado, or JLFs in other parts of the world really increased our community. When we did JLF last year at the British Library, we had about 7000 odd people coming through the doors over the two and a half days. In 2021, when we went online, we had 450,000 people watching JLF at the British Library online. And as of today, that number has gone up to 5 million with a reach of 10 million. Similarly, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, we choose to attract about half a million people on the ground through the doors every year. In 2021, when we did it online, we reached 27.5 million people and people who we wouldn't otherwise have even thought would be interested in the Jaipur Literature Festival. While normally our first and second were always people from the US and the UK, third was typically Canada and then Australia, much of Europe. Now it's changed completely. Our international audiences today come still number one and two from the United States and the United Kingdoms. But three is Germany, four is China, five is Indonesia, six is Uzbekistan, don't ask me why, but it is. Nine is Saudi Arabia, ten is Japan. So it's completely changed for us the way that we see the festival. And none of this would have been possible if COVID hadn't forced us to change the way that we get literature and knowledge and information out. As you all know that when we began the festival, our whole idea is can we use considered knowledge and considered information to push back on the narrative of hatred. By creating opportunities to understand other languages, other cultures, other people, other traditions, other religions, other colours, other castes. Because it's through ignorance that you have hatred and through hatred you have the kind of violence that we're seeing that's consumed all of us. So we gather here again in 2022 delightfully to do both a physical festival and a hybrid festival. We'll be online, you can watch us online. And of course we would love for you to come every day, today, Saturday and Sunday, for this incredible program that Namita, William and our colleagues at Teamwork Arts have put together and savour the riches. Before we go there, I left my glass of wine just behind there. I wanted to raise a toast to our wonderful booker. Ten days ago, as many of you know, the International Booker Award was announced. And Gitanjali Sri, who is going to be speaking tomorrow, won the award. And it was for the first time a translation from Hindi into English, which is now hopefully going to be seen in French and in many, already in French and in many other languages. You will hear Gitanjali, apart from a slew of all our wonderful authors here over the next few days. So just to raise a toast, even if it's water, to you Gitanjali and to all our visiting writers who've joined us today. Our charity partners, and as you know, every year we try and have a charity partner because we do understand the need to be able to reach out and help as many people as possible. Our charity partners this year is the Salam Balak Trust, who works with street and working children. The charity was set up 32, 33 years ago in India. Today they look after about 9,500 kids every year, kids who run away from home. Our colleagues from Salam Balak Trust should be here. Nick is here. Nick, if you wave, people will know who you are. And then anybody wants to speak to Nick, please do so. Anybody wants to write a check to Nick, please do so. He'll be delighted. And finally, just a big thank you again to all our many sponsors, to Hannah Rothschild and the Rothschild Foundation, who literally, at the very last minute, William asked them to help fund this large deficit that we had this year. The sentiment still seems to be from sponsors that we love you, but we're not sure whether we're giving anybody money. But Hannah Rothschild Foundation did. British Council stepped up to the table literally at the last minute. Rebecca, Skinda, thank you so much. Our wonderful partners, of course, our sweet partners, Sumit, your organization has been amazing. So thank you for keeping our livers happy. And, yeah, Haliran, thank you so much. To Rajasthan Tourism, I don't know whether Gayathri Rajwar has finally found her way. Hi, Gayathri, thank you so much. Rajasthan Tourism are our partners in India as well. Surina and HS, who have just walked in, who are our founding sponsors and, of course, the sponsors of the DSC Prize for Literature. HS Surina, thank you all so much. And finally to all our colleagues at the British Library. You know, for us, we go to so many different parts of the world. When we come here, it's really, we work together as a team. We had, as we said, we fire. Did it change our plans? Not really, it's par for the course. But we did all of this because we really work together wonderfully. So thank you, Roli, Jamie, Konrad, John, B, everybody who's made this possible. And to tell you a little bit about the program, can I ask Namita to say a few words, talk about the program, and then William. And then we'll have a wee bit of a break while we play the audio visuals. And Rebecca will come in and introduce the session that we're all waiting for with Monica, Ali, and with Jeshri. Thank you. Namita. So both Sanjoy and William just speak from the top of their head. And though I've heard some of it before, but they just know how to speak like this. I have a piece of paper. I just forget that, but I'm going to move away from my script to say that what you just saw today is really the sense of the Jaipur Literature Festival, the flexibility, the commitment to immediately turn a crisis that could have faced many other people into a fun afternoon evening outside in the sun where nobody's frowning, nobody's looking stressed, except maybe me, yeah. Teamwork, I want to raise, not a toast, we've had Mitai to do that. Let's give Teamworks and the British Library a huge clap for just for holding it together in the face of just things going a little more than a little bit wrong. So I'm returning here to the British Library after a gap of three years. It's continued as Sanjoy told you to be hybrid, to be digital, but it's different to be in these familiar surroundings welcoming you here. So much has changed in these years, but books and ideas and creativity and questioning continue to nurture and sustain us. Welcome to the celebration of ideas, stories, narratives of poetry and music, of ideas and conversations. The human race has evolved through its ability to tell stories and to share each other's narratives. A world without stories would be a world without chronicles, without history or science or creativity or intuition. This weekend, beginning today, we look at the world as it is and as it could be. Our opening session just now with Monika Ali takes us through the complications of love, family and identity. We welcome Gitanjali Sri, Booker International Awardee of 2022, who will tell us of borders and boundaries and her novel Raith Samadhi, translated by the stellar translator Daisy Rockwell as Tomb of Sand. It's a special delight to have Amish, author, diplomat, now filmmaker and the director of the Nehru Centre, join us again at the British Library. We are honored to have Ramchandra Guha speak of his recent book, Rebels Against the Raj, Western Fighters for India's Freedom. We examine Eastminster, Westminster, constitutions and their fault lines with Helena Kennedy, Tripur Daman Singh, Chintan Chandrachur. We speak of four mothers, matriarchs and memories, of new media and the slipstream of information, of Russia yesterday and today, of architectural and cultural history in Hampi and Vijayanagar, of the creative economy, of agriculture and the roots of democracy, of Bangladesh and the birth of a nation. We speak of crime and punishment with Vasim Khan and Sanya Falerio and Shravanibasu. Nikesh Shukla tells us of how our stories matter. The stellar Shashi Tharoor tells us of pride, prejudice and panditry and also has a very special surprise for audiences which wait and watch. It'll be bigger than the fire. We end with hope and laughter for in our uncertain times, laughter too is a form of courage. We must battle the collective amnesia, the instant and disposable memories that are a reality of the present. The future holds a universe of new narratives unfolding stories. This present too will become history and future generations will turn to our chronicles to better understand themselves and the world. Join us over the weekend to celebrate books and ideas, music poetry, my gratitude to my co-director, William Dalrymple. Between us we bring a very wide perspective and Sanjoy Roy's ever-sharp eye points out newer and better things for us to do as well. The colleagues at Teamworks, thank you all for this joyous journey, so full of learnings over the last 15 years. Thank you, Jay Hind. This used to be my London office. Many of my books were researched upstairs somewhere deep in the bowels. There are said to be 36 miles of East India Company documents lurking under our feet somewhere. And so much of the history of the two countries lies around us. I hope you have taken time to have a look at some of the exhibitions and some of the extraordinary manuscripts in the exhibition galleries. It is wonderful to be back in person. We had a small festival last year, but to be back now with the full JLF despite the slight hiccup of earlier this afternoon. And it's very nice to see that we brought the Delhi heatstone with us, warming up the London pavements with a bit of Indian sun and heat. We have an extraordinary programme this year. I think it's actually the best programme we've ever brought to London. The finest writers from both countries, ranging from Geetanjali, who finally got her visa and made it with minutes to spare after a bit of a hiccup. We have around the room so many great talents, but also many wonderful writers from here. Anthony Beaver, who has a knack of timing things perfectly, has produced a book on Russia and the Russian Revolution, just perfectly coming out this week in time to catch renewed interest, sadly, in that part of the world. Simon Seabag Montefiore, the great Colin Thoubron, arguably the greatest travel writer alive. And it's lovely to see these two worlds come together in this way. And we haven't, we have negotiated all the perils. We brought writers to the Maldives a month ago and nearly had them eaten by sharks. We've nearly burnt you all alive this afternoon, vegetarian. But the show goes on, the show goes on. So please, can I welcome to the stage? I think, is it straight away? No, not yet. No, we have more speeches. You have more speeches. Big hand for most speeches. Can I please invite on stage Rebecca Hart from the British Council. The British Council has been a fabulous partner with us, for us, always standing together. Can I please invite Rebecca on stage, Rebecca? Good evening, everyone. It's really wonderful to be here on this lovely summer evening, with all of you to be part of the global tour de force that is the Jaipur Literature Festival. My name is Rebecca Hart and I'm the Senior Literature Program Manager at the British Council here in London. The British Council builds trust and understanding between people in the UK and around the world and are delighted to be continuing our long-standing partnership with the Jaipur Literature Festival. We're thrilled to be supporting this evening's event with Monica Ali in conversation with Jaishri Mishra as they discuss Monica's latest novel, Love Marriage. Our partnership with Jaipur Literature Festival is part of the British Council's India-UK Together Season, a season of culture which marks the deep connections and 75th anniversary of India with a landmark programme that will strengthen the friendship and vibrant cultural bonds of both countries while addressing shared global challenges. Throughout the season, people in India and the UK will have the chance to experience innovative and exciting creative work from some of the best UK and Indian arts organisations, artists and institutions creating together. The season has a strand which focuses specifically on literature and we'll see writers, poets, translators and publishers come together to collaborate, create new work and build stronger connections. We really look forward to bringing forward new voices, new writing, new translations which will contribute to the next generation of our very special shared cultural and literary heritage. I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Sanjoy Roy and the Teamwork Arts team, the team at the British Council for all of their work putting together this phenomenal and exciting programme and now I'd like to invite Monica and Jaishri to the stage. Are the mics working? Thank you, JLF, for entrusting me with the kickoff session. Honoured. And welcome everyone. I suppose I should start by explaining I was dressed for the stage, dim lighting, flowy clothes, lots of makeup so forgive me if I look a bit scary sitting here in a tent with all my slap on. I should also apologise, I think that a few of you here who came expecting to see Gurunda Chanda on stage with Monica Ali. She couldn't be here tonight so I'm afraid I am what you've got. I'm sorry if you're disappointed but I know this wasn't meant to evoke compliments and all of that but I just thought I should tell everybody that I'm sometimes disappointed I'm not Gurunda Chanda so I know exactly how you feel. But I should endeavour to make this as entertaining for you as possible, aided by where's our book gone? Aided by a very entertaining book so it shouldn't be too difficult for me and a very engaging author. That was one hell of a book. You kept us waiting a long time, ten years in the making. Yeah, was that worth it? It was a cracking read, it really was a cracking read. I suppose I want to start by asking whether it was as much fun for you to write as it is a reading experience. It was a lot of fun to write but writing is nine parts torture to one part just enormous fulfilment and pleasure. But with this book as soon as I had, because I started off writing two different stories and I wasn't sure that either of them was going to turn into a book. There was a story about Yasmin who is now the protagonist of Brick Lane and she's a junior doctor at a big London hospital and it was about her love life. And then I had another story on the go which was about Harriet who is a north London sort of liberal, lovely, intellectual, famous feminist, force of nature. But I wasn't sure that either was going to be the book that I was going to actually tackle. And then I had this light bulb moment when I thought, what if I put them together? And writing is, you know, 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. And this was, you know, the 1% as soon as I thought that I thought it's going to be a lot of fun to write. And I knew that it was the book that I had to write. It's quite, it's very funny, especially in the beginning. It sort of starts off a bit like a typical comedy of manners. And it's very tempting to imagine the author guffawing and laughing. I used to imagine P.G. Woodhouse doing this, tears running down his face as he's busy writing. He wouldn't have used a keyboard in his time. But comedy can take a lot of hard graft as well, isn't it? It's about getting the timing absolutely right and getting it spot on. So I couldn't figure it out because it was such fun, the first few pages, after which it starts to tackle more of the serious issues and it deepens in different ways. So it changed tones likely, I think. Yeah, I mean, I hope that the comedy or the humour, let's say, I prefer humour, I think, to comedy. But I hope that the humour doesn't disappear. But you're right, it deals with a lot of difficult shit because life throws that at us. And I think with humour it's possible to sort of see all our folly and frailty and human striving and ridiculousness and just hold it with compassion. So that's what I try to do. That was, I think, what I was trying to get at is how much of that is hard work, and as you say, perspiration. And how much of it is just your way of looking at the world? Because a lot of, like you said, very difficult issues are tackled quite lightly in this very sympathetic way. So does that come from just your own attitude to the world? Yeah, I think so, I think so. Which isn't to say that it's not hard work writing, but I think, yeah, absolutely, that is my way of coping with the world. There would be people here who wouldn't have read the books, I think, so we start with a little reading and that will give you a glimpse into what I'm trying to say about the humour that you've kind of experienced. I'd say virtually from page one, it sort of hits you right there. Shall I read now? Yes, please. You tools in your passage. So I'll just read for, what, 45 minutes? Could close the doors? There are some Eastern European countries where you have to read for like two hours. In Germany as well, you have to do that. Don't worry, two, three minutes will be fine. I'm starting from page one, so I don't need to do any setting of the scene. In the Garami household... It's like a stage play, isn't it? The Garami household has arrived. All right. In the Garami household, sex was never mentioned. If the television was on and a kissing with a tongue scene threatened the chastened cardamom-scentred home, it was swiftly terminated by a flick of the black box. When Yasmin began her first period, her mother had slipped her a pack of Kotex maxi pads and murmured instructions not to touch the Quran. This was confusing because Yasmin never touched the Quran anyway, except at the behest of her mother. But it also made sense because menstruation, where she had learned in a biology class, was linked to reproduction. And the dotted line diagrams and the text book were surprisingly yet undeniably linked to the actors who pushed their tongues into each other's mouths, thus ruining everyone's viewing pleasure. Now at the age of 26, Yasmin knew all about sex. The human body had long since yielded its mysteries. He had slept with three men and was engaged to be married to the third, Joe, a fellow doctor at St Barnabas Hospital. Her parents shook out on Anisha, liked Joe because as a doctor, he was automatically suitable. And because everyone liked Joe, he was gifted that way. If Anisha longed for her daughter to marry a good Muslim boy, it was an opinion she kept to herself. Yasmin sat cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by medical texts, waiting to be called down for dinner. She should have been studying for yet another exam, but couldn't concentrate. Four books lay open to demonstrate a commitment that she was unable to put into effect. Instead, she'd leafed through a magazine she'd found discarded on the train. When tomorrow night was over, she'd laugh at herself. It wouldn't be as bad as she imagined. Her parents would meet Joe's mother for the first time. They'd all eat dinner together at her house in Primrose Hill and discuss wedding plans and make polite conversation. Big deal. The thought of her parents inside that discreetly sumptuous Georgian terrace induced a faint feeling of nausea. She followed it down. Nothing embarrassing would happen. Fretting like this was stupid. The bedroom door opened and Arif slid in. That is some bush he said, shaking his head. She slipped the magazine under a book. Out, she said, I'm working. His words slowly infiltrated. Out, she said again. Arif closed the door and leaned his boneless, insolent body against it. You know about it, yeah? The picture. Like I was telling you, every article about it goes on about it, but I had to dig bare deep to find it. Wanna see, Apa? He pulled his phone out of his jeans. Yasmin had decided she wouldn't react. No matter what provocations her maladjusted little brother attempted. In spite of herself, she recoiled, shrinking back on the bed as Arif brandished the phone. The last thing in the world she wanted to see was Harriet Sangster's private parts. She wondered, not for the first time, if Joe had seen the infamous photo of his mother naked on her back with her legs split wide, head raised a stair, challenging and defiant, straight into the lens. It's a feminist photo, she said, and her voice remained even. It was decades ago. You wouldn't understand. Stick with your porn. Stick with your hairless porn. I sort of shot out of my chair at the point at which Yasmin years sticked your hairless porn to her brother. She was clearly, by page two, going to be a completely different kettle of fish after Nazneen or Brick Lane did. You signaled that very early on. Much to my delight. Much as I like Nazneen, much as I sympathize with her, the kind of spirited young Bengali woman we were going to deal with getting this book was an indicator very early on. That was very heartening. I wanted to ask you about the sort of slight of hand you've employed in calling the book Love Marriage. Yeah, because while there is a lot about love in it, not just romantic love, there's all kinds of love, and while there's a fabulous Will They Won't They Marriage story in it as well, essentially the book is about sex, isn't it? Sex! Well, that makes it sound as if your characters are at it all the time, which they're not, obviously, this isn't 50 years of age. How embarrassing. No, you're right. It is, thematically. Thematically, it is. It's also, as you say, it's about love, it's about marriage, it's about family relationships, adult-child-to-parent relationships. It's about many, many things. But the narrative backbone, as you have so astutely seen, and I think all readers do see it, but it's the necklace on which all of the beads are threaded. So it's not... I mean, there are two sex scenes in the book. It is not 50 Shades of Grey. You'll be really disappointed if that's what you're signing up for. It's not like that at all. But it's the thing that many of the major plot points turn on. So whether that's infidelity, revenge sex, sexual addiction, sexual violence, issues of sexual identity, it's how the protagonist sort of wrestle with their own identities or mature into those identities. And even the really tricky incest narrative, which obviously, I mean, I'm very worried about spoilers because there are some really key turning points in the book that I would hate to give away. So I think I might ask you to... I know in some of your interviews that I've watched, you do actually explain a little bit about the sex addiction storyline as well. So I'm going to ask you to explain the background. I know people have heard the first two pages, but just a little synopsis of what you think the essential story is. So I know up to where I can go with the spoiler elements. Okay. I hate to give anything away that you wouldn't want to. So I won't say what happens in the end. No, certainly not. Okay. So, I mean, Yasmin, as we've just heard, it's a gage who married to this. I mean, he's a wonderful man. He's a fellow doctor. He's handsome. He's charming. He's rich. He's also really kind and caring and sensitive. But then he does the unthinkable and he cheats on her. And then she does something that shocks her even more, which is that she then has... It's more than revenge sex, but that's how it sort of starts off with a colleague. And so this is tearing her up inside because she's always been such a follower of the rules, a good girl, a good daughter, a dutiful person. Good in the moral sense as well. So then she's harboring this terrible, as she sees it, secret. But what she doesn't know is that Joe has an even bigger secret, which is that he is a sex addict. And that was the thing that was the most difficult structurally to approach and to narrate. I needed to find a way of doing it that didn't lose the sympathy of the reader. Because sex addiction is like, oh, is that really a thing? Is he just a dickhead? Is he a selfish thing? It's an excuse, it doesn't really exist, all of that. So my decision was that we needed to be close to Joe, the reader needed to be close to Joe, but without being directly given his perspective, because if I had that from the beginning, then we would know right from the beginning about this addiction. So he's in therapy for his addiction, and it's through the therapist's point of view that we come to understand Joe and his addiction. And that was really an important exploration for me, the nature of addiction. I'm so pleased you mentioned that, because it's very difficult to talk about the book without everyone knowing that Joe has this problem. And the device you use of the therapist was brilliant, I thought, because there really was no other way to create sympathy if we were hearing or seeing everything from Joe's point of view, isn't it? And then the complication of then realising what happens to Yasmin when all this starts to reveal itself to her. I really loved writing, Sandor is the name of the therapist, and I loved writing his scenes. And when I wrote my first draft of the book, it was really long, because I just couldn't start writing, and I had 140,000 words. But don't worry, it's nowhere near that long. I've now cut it then, more or less than half. But one of the things that had to go, or quite a lot of it, was Sandor's story. But now I'm adapting it for the screen for TV, and it's great because TV is really, really story hungry, it's a medium, so I can bring back a lot of Sandor's parts that had to hit the floor earlier. The very fact that he refers to Joe as the boy throughout is a reminder of how young this couple really are. They're trying to find their way through love and marriage being the ultimate goal in their minds, and it's a tricky terrain for them to traverse, isn't it? So you do really feel for them. And I thank very much for Yasmin actually, partially because she is a woman of science maybe, or because she just is that kind of a person. She can't give herself up to the feelings of, even when she's feeling loving and glowy, she goes oxytocin, was that the word? Oxytocin, yeah. That's what's happening to my body right now. Odopamine, yeah, that's why my body's reacting in the way it is. And you feel for her, and she's a little bit of an anxious sort, isn't she? And as the book opens, the big anxiety is the meeting of these two families. Every single South Asian in the room will understand immediately that a marriage is never a marriage between two individuals. It's two entire plans coming together. And the interesting thing is that it doesn't matter. You don't have to have a South Asian background. People understand that all over the world, I think. That's why I gathered that. My daughter, I'm going to blame this on my daughter. My daughter makes me watch a terrible reality TV show called Married at First Sight Australia. Okay, I make her watch it, actually. It's just brilliant. And the idea is it's appalling, really low-rent, manipulative, very, very addictive television. So you have this panel of three so-called experts who match two single people. And the first time that they meet is when they get married. And then they have to live together. So there's all sorts of dramas, but a really big point in... This is totally irrelevant to the book. I don't know why I'm talking about this, but I'm obsessed with it. But a really big point is when they meet the families and the friends. And of course it's germane to whether the marriage is going to be a success. Of course it is. It's not just, you know, somehow in the UK you think, oh, well, it's just, you know, two individuals meet and nothing else matters. But it does matter. And despite the differences in every way, racially, culturally, class, you know, in so many ways these are two such different families, it actually works out reasonably well to start with, doesn't it? Well, I mean, Yasmin's anxiety at the beginning is, I think, really understandable because any bride to be, it's going to be a big thing in the family's meeting for the first time. Plus, the Grammys are, you know, pretty conservative, I'd say, culturally, and Harriet is the complete opposite. It should be a lot to handle for anyone. There's also a class anxiety. I mean, the Grammys are solid middle class. The father is a doctor, Yasmin's a doctor. They live in a nice suburb. Harriet is, like, properly posh, moneyed and, you know, up a middle class, I would say. So there's a class anxiety around that. But what happens when they get together is that Harriet embraces the Grammys, especially Anisha, much too much for Yasmin's liking. And then she's like, you know, what the hell? I wasn't supposed to be getting an Indian-style mother-in-law who starts interfering in the wedding planning and, you know, takes it all into her bosom and interferes. So, yes, her worst nightmares are not born out in the way that she thinks they're going to be born out. They're born out in a completely different way. In all different circumstances. But, I mean, Harriet really, force of nature is one way of describing her. You know, when I was... Have you met any Harriet? Oh, I know lots of Harriet. I've been invited by Harriet to display my Indian cooking to friends of hers. So it's actually... These Harriet's, I think, not London Amounts in Harriet, is it? You'd be amazed... Is she based on anyone you know? A whole lot of Harriet's. No. Would you be amazed at how many people have said to me, I'm worried I might be Harriet? Am I Harriet? I think I might be Harriet. No, no, no, no. I was worried this end of mine would read your book and think, Oh, Harriet! I mean, the thing is, Harriet... You know, on a superficial reading, you could say, oh, she's like an example of white privilege and she does integration by steamroller. That's when Jill says, she's, what, the Gouramis are Indian enough to give her an orgasm? Yeah. This is nothing she likes better than the idea of Indian relatives. You know, Yasmin is very suspicious of Harriet's intentions and she's like, oh, she's exoticising Mars, she's treating her like a pet. But actually, Yasmin is wrong, you know? And there is a friendship there. Yasmin is making assumptions... Yasmin hates it when people make assumptions about her based on her gender, her ethnicity, quite rightly so, but she's making assumptions about other people left, right and centre, including about Harriet and she's not right about Harriet. And to me, Harriet has a really good heart. Yes, she can be a bit annoying, yes, she can be overbearing, but she's got her own demons, she's got, you know, family dynamics that she doesn't understand. So, yeah, I'm very, very fond of Harriet, actually. I think, well, on me, I have to say, I was a bit frightened of her at first and then I thought, what an awful mother-in-law to get. And then, you know, really felt for Yasmin and then she started to grow on me as well, Harriet, I could see. She actually answered a question I'd had for a long time because when I came to England as a student, you know, went down to the university swimming pool and was startled, astonished actually to see women walking around naked in the changing room. Me with my good South Asian inhibitions and sensibilities. And I asked an Indian friend about it, mentioned it to someone who'd been here longer than me. She very sagely informed me, oh, posh English people, they walk around naked all the time in front of their children. Didn't you know that? I've never been able to corroborate that with posh English people, but Harriet... There's a few probably under posh English people, maybe later on. So it's hard, I know. But Harriet kind of, I think, watching the interaction between her and Joe kind of started to answer some of the questions that I've always had about posh English people and how they interacted at home. But like you said, it's a complicated backstory. It is very complicated. It's a very complicated backstory. You know, at the beginning of the book, Yasmin is, I would say, quite envious of Joe and his mother, the Sanctas, that that household that open, they talk about everything, they discuss everything, everything openly sex. Doesn't have to be a secret thing. You know, it's not unmentionable like in our household. But she can walk into the bathroom when he's showering. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, I wanted really to play a bit with those old tropes or stereotypes of, oh, a South Asian culture is more closed and therefore more backwards in some way and a Western culture is more open and therefore better and freer and so on. You know, I just wanted to just prod and poke at that because, you know, Joe and Harriet don't talk about everything openly. They can't because they don't understand themselves and they don't understand their family dynamics and relationships. And Joe with this sex addiction is anything but free. I mean, he is the very definition of shackled to his compulsions. You know, he's not free at all. So, yeah, I just wanted to sort of poke and prod a little bit at those assumptions. You know, is it always better to have the sort of the liberal open attitude to always lead to the best results and, you know, I'm sure it's a bit more complicated than that. It is a lot more, isn't it? Yeah. And one of the things Harriet wants, you know, starts to do is invite Anisa to her house to talk to her friends about Islam. Yeah. So I did want to ask you about Islamophobia because Harriet, you kind of invert it very cleverly with Harriet. She's very keen to not be seen as Islamophobia. In fact, the very reverse. She wants to caulk a snook at her Islamophobic friends. So she insists on the Nicar. Yeah. She wants to invite an Imam to the wedding. It's kind of, like you said, steam-rollering her way through the wedding plans that Joe and Yasmin have. But there was also that you tackle Islamophobia, I thought, very well in the character of Rania who's Yasmin's friend from her school days. So she's this jeans-wearing, you know, great, big, green eyeshadow. But where's the hijab? Yes. And is constantly being invited to talk about oppression. Hijab oppression, she said. Yes. So you talk about the hijab hypocrisy of Europe. I mean, I think, again, people who've come from India to this will be well aware of the levels to which Islamophobia have kind of gone. And I'm not here to quiz your knowledge of the Indian political situation dire as it is. No. So we're not going to talk about that. But the fact that you've tackled it, tackled what Muslims here probably have to deal with on a daily basis. I thought it was quite, it was clever and sort of lightly done again, as you seem to have tackled all the big issues in the book. Well, thank you. I mean, there's also Arif, who is Yasmin's little brother, who's kind of the black sheep of the family, and he's done a degree in sociology, which is of no use to anyone according to his father. What is the point? You've got to be an accountant or a doctor. And he, Arif, has already been profiled when he was at university. So a lot of showpats rage around Arif and what he's doing with his life actually comes from worry and anxiety about life is just harder for a young Muslim man in this country. So beneath all that anger is anxiety, and beneath the anxiety is love for his son. So what I try to do is to play out, it's not about the issues, it's about the family dynamics. I mean, that's what interests me. And each of those characters has a different point of view. And from where a showcat stands, Arif complaining about prejudice in the UK showcat is like, well, you know, back in India, we're not talking about microaggressions against Muslims, we're talking about, you know, something far, far more serious. So again, it's from the perspective of the character. Those dynamics were very, very interesting as well. In a typical South Asian family, you would probably find the son is the revered one and the daughters are the ones who get put upon slightly. But again, that's kind of inverted. And that was very interesting. I thought that Yasmin is the one who's always told the line and done exactly what was expected of her and rises to all her father's big expectations. She sort of resents her as well in some way, doesn't she? You know, the relationship with Arif that she has is quite complicated by that because she feels like she's had to be more and more dutiful to fill in for his misdemeanours. But also she has a really sweet relationship with Arif. Oh, yes. And he's the one who's actually in the end cleverly finding love. If you wanted sort of a more positive root through whatever love, you know, the stuff that would lead to marriage. Arif's the one who seems to master it surprisingly, astonishingly while Yasmin's still kind of floundering. Yeah. And I think with his relationships, there's less distance between surface and reality. And I think a lot of what I'm packing and dealing with in the rest of the book, with the Garamis, with the Sanctas, is the appearance and then what's really underneath. And with Arif and his girlfriend's family, really what you see is what you get. And therefore there's much less anxiety. Yeah. I need to ask you about research as well because the most moving scenes for me certainly, you know, brought tears to my eyes were the one set in the geriatric ward where Yasmin works. And obviously a book that features where the two main protagonists are junior doctors. There's a lot of them working in a busy London hospital and all the pressures and tensions of life as a junior doctor. And brilliantly done, I thought. I mean, these would be news reports that I would have read or some kind of report comes out talking about the NHS. Very recently there was one about discrimination and bullying in the NHS. And all of those things are there in the book which presumably you started writing some years ago. Yeah. So what kind of research did you do for that? I mean, I first, I knew you weren't a doctor and then I thought, I know she must be married to a doctor. She's only husband and now he isn't a doctor either. So I just had to ask you about it. Yeah, it's funny. I was interviewed at the Birth Literary Festival by Rachel Clark who is a doctor. She's a palliative care doctor and she's also an author. She wrote a book, her first book was called Your Life in My Hands, Diaries of a Junior Doctor. And she's got another one called Breathless. Anyway, she interviewed me at birth and she said, oh, I was looking for the mistakes in your book for all that, you know, in the wards. And, you know, actually, then I thought, well, you know, what's really difficult, because you can get the facts checked, is trying to make the atmosphere and how did you do that? And I ended up googling to see if you were a doctor if you had a medical background. And I just thought, I mean, that's just a brag for no reason. Just because I'm really proud of that. It's not even a humble brag, it's just a brag. But, you know, I did loads of research. I read a lot. I mean, everyone's got experience of the NHS. Everyone's got, you know, my grandmother on my mother's side. You know, she died at the age of 96, so she was in and out of hospital. And then lots of journals. I still get emails from the subscriptions department at the New England Journal of Medicine saying, you know, come back and re-subscribe. I don't need to read another medical journal. But I like doing research. And the thing about research is that you've got to then pin it aside and not be tempted to do an info dump. Because information is cheap, really. Let's face it. I mean, you know, you don't have to have a membership to the British Library, which I do. But, you know, you don't have to have that. Information is really cheap. So doing the research is a great way of putting off that evil day when it's you and the blank page. And then research gives you the courage to make things up. I remember being told once, in fact, I was researching something here, lock all that research away in a cupboard before you even sit down to write. And that's clearly what you've done, because there's no info dump and there's no large tracts about the NHS and how, you know, the different reports you probably had to read. Now, I don't want to put you on the spot too much, but I found that dug up an old essay that you'd written. It's a really ominous start to a question. But I found something that you wrote in an old Guardian essay probably around the time you were writing Brick Lane. So I just wanted to know, it's a way of charting the journey you might have made as a writer from, when was that, about 20 years ago? Yeah. And so I wrote it down because I wanted to get your words right. But you talk about the tyranny of representation. You were quoting CLR James and you said, meaning that your brown skin becomes the dominant signifier when you write. And after that, the books, I mean, I was assuming that you wrote this at the time Brick Lane came out, but the books that you wrote after that seemed to take a very determined path away from allowing your brown skin to be the signifier in your writing. And now in a little strange sort of way you've returned. Yeah, I mean, well, I see it a bit differently as in wasn't a determined whatever. That's just me. That's who I am. You know, I'm not one thing or the other. I'm both. And I'm really, you know, happy to be both. So my writing is a reflection of that rather than I think, you know, at the time and subsequently I did have that question posed in slightly different, less intelligent ways than you just put it. You know, are you trying to get away from Brick Lane? Are you trying to get away from your, I don't know what, ethnicity? I mean, you know, how would you do that? And why would I want to? Do you know what I mean? This is who I am. And I understand that it's difficult for people to sort of get that. But I don't think it's that hard. I don't know. No pressure from publishers and agents because the reason I'm asking is, again, goes back to love marriage. Is that brilliant cameo you have of this young man called Nathan, who's one of Harriet's mentees. He's an aspiring author. He's written the Nico thriller, which he's struggling to get published. And then Harriet herself tells him, I think she doesn't cover herself in glory, does she, when she tells him stick to something closer to home, perhaps? She says. And in that one line is, I thought a whole world of the kind of expectations were brought up to someone, ostensibly brown-skinned, who's working and writing in this milieu. And I did wonder whether there was a sense of... There's a little pot shot at the publishers. And I know they're not here, which is why I asked you earlier. You're publishers here tonight. You can say what you like. Yeah, I try... I've tried to avoid looking at reviews, but you always get to know some of the things, because people tell you, or the publisher sends you a couple of lines or whatever. There was one review of love marriage from one of the broadsheets, much of the times, or I don't know. My husband and I went to see his parents, who live in Bristol, and my mother-in-law, because she's proud, had put this review on the fridge. So at which point it's really difficult to avoid. So while you're eating your cornflakes in the morning. And the headline was something like... Brick Lane for 2022, but with more sex. Which is the most inane thing. So it's just really, really stupid. It's actually quite a good selling line, so maybe I shouldn't deconstruct it too much. But it is stupid. It shows the kind of surface level of understanding. So if I think back to Brick Lane, Nazneen, the protagonist, she grows up in rural Bangladesh. She's not educated. She doesn't speak much English or a few words. She's working class. She lives in a working-class community in Thamla. Her husband's largely unemployed. It's quite a tight-knit poor community. Whereas Yasmin, she's highly educated. She's born in London. She's middle-class. She lives in a nice suburb, in a place where everyone minds their own business. And she has a completely different set of family dynamics and relationship issues and so on. So it just makes me wonder, if I were a white writer, and 20 years ago I'd written about an uneducated, working-class family and working-class community in one part of London, then 20 years old I wrote about a middle-class, also white family who are professionals and have different... I don't think anyone would be saying, oh, it's that. It's a white family again. Brown people were not all the same. You know, it's just sort of... A cop snacker. A book about brown people, another book about brown people. Brown and brown. I was wondering, do we have... I've been told people gasping for their cocktails. Oh, no, there is... Okay, so a little time for audience Q&A. Instructants, shut up. So, yeah, there's a roving microphone. If you put your hands up and we'll... It's making sure I covered everything I wanted to ask you. Thank you so much, Marika. It's really a pleasure to hear you. I haven't read your book, and I just... I tend to. I just want to say, I'm a PhD in sociology, much like Arif. I don't know much about love, unlike Arif, I suppose. But I did end up writing a book on love beyond love and arranged marriage. It was based on Indians, and like middle-class India, actually. Oh, wonderful. Obviously also quite boring because it's sort of academic, so it can't really be as interesting to the audiences. But one aspect that came out in my research, and I was just wondering if that figures in your book, was also the factor of age. So we talked about anxiety, Jay, you mentioned anxieties. And I was wondering how... Does that feature in any of the protagonists? White or brown or however, when they're thinking, is this now time for me to get married? There's pressure to get married. Because one of the things that I found out was that when you're sort of younger, you're more interested in experimenting. And one of the things related to sex, what I found was that if a boyfriend is not pleasing in bed, it's okay if you're in your 20s. Both... In your 30s, they're like, they never please in bed. So that can never really be... That shouldn't be... That's no longer a criteria. So one of the things that I researched was how the criteria changes. And it was age and also related to sex. And I was just wondering if any of this features in your protagonist and your storyline. Yeah. So, Hanon, what were you saying? That in your 20s, it doesn't matter if the boyfriend is good in bed. It matters. It matters then, and they might break up for that. So they're more kind of self-aware and they're more assertive. And then as age passes, then they sort of let go of so many of the desires or aspirations that they have out of marriage. Both for men and women, but definitely for women with regard to sex. It's what I... Interesting. Gosh, I don't have a point at which you'll be coming out. Agony aren't. I mean, Yasmin does have... She grapples with... sexual desire is really part of her coming into her own. And for that reason, I knew I had to write the sex scenes, although there was only two short ones. They were really crucial. They're very steamy. Very steamy. But, you know, I was dreading it. I was absolutely dreading writing those scenes with Nazneen and Brick Lane. She takes her lover as well. But I didn't need to write the sex because it was in keeping with Nazneen's character. I just closed the door, closed the curtain. I don't need to say that. But with Yasmin, it really is sort of an integral part of her... maturing, becoming a woman, finding her own desires, seeing how much she's been in denial about her own desires. But, yeah, so for those reasons, I knew I couldn't sort of bottle out of it. But it's a terrible thing to have to write a sex scene because you've got the Bad Sex Awards sort of hovering over your head. And you think, oh, my God. So I guess for her, it's a bit of a different journey. And for Jo, sex is such a... I can't answer that question in a short amount of time because it's such a big thing for her to unravel. You'll have to read the book. There is a lot on all the things that you touch upon probably in your book. What's your book called? Okay, I'm going to look it up. When you do read her book, look out for a pepperdine. A doctor pepperdine. Everyone has the heart for pepperdine. Everyone should either meet him themselves or introduce all their single friends. Exactly. So it's just interesting about the research you did about the book and the medical thing. So I'm just curious about the research you did before Google and everything on Briclain. Just curious. Research for Briclain. I did loads of research for that as well in different ways. So I spent a lot of time with youth workers and social workers in the area, women's groups, hanging out, seeing where... I mean, things like where the drugs drops were happening because there was a heroin problem at the time. So it was a lot of talking to people, a lot of interviewing, and then whatever research materials I could get my hands on, which frankly wasn't that much because nobody was really interested in what was going on there. So it was more a question of going out and talking to people. I haven't been there in a while. Oh, well, I was at the Briclain Bookshop, actually, recently. So, yeah, I was there then. Yeah. It's changed so much. Could you use the mic, please? I think it's good. Yeah, it did remind me, actually, of the protests that took place in Tower Hamlets when the filming of Briclain happened and there were, you know, people... I mean, Asians in particular, we complain a lot when we are not represented within the pages of books, and then when you are the sort of up-in-arms, or it's caricature, and Jermaine Greer waited into that whole debate as well, which was just, I hope she's not here because everyone comes to JLF. Jermaine Greer might well be in the audience. But, yeah, that's, you know... To me, the most beloved character in Briclain was Chanu, and I don't know whether they were talking about him being character. They said the Bengali male has been caricatured or something like that. And, yeah, I so identified, it might sound curious to see, but I so identified with Chanu. Because like him, I came from India late in life. I came with an MA in English literature, rolled up on my suitcase, sort of I spouted Shakespeare people they would like me, and soon learnt my lessons. But Chanu never did. So felt for him. I mean, you know, it just... It's not the case, however, that people with a Bangladeshi heritage in this country or around the world, because I went around the world with that book. It's not true that they didn't like it. There was a handful of people. There were older, conservative men who, I think, read in between the lines, didn't like the fact that this young bride has an affair. But, you know, I was actually... I used to be a patron of the Plement Attlee Youth Centre, which is just behind Brick Lane. And I was doing something there for some media saying, and a photographer said, I covered that protest for the newspapers, but I had to get in very tight because there were only like a handful of protesters and there were more media there. So, you know, it really wasn't a thing, but as soon as it's on the tally or which it was, it was on the BBC News and stuff, then that's written into history. And that's, you know, that's the reaction from the community. It's just not true. It's just not true. They're really assuring. Because when you mentioned the TV adaptation of Love Marriage, I thought, can I see the Indian medical fraternity going up in arms? The depiction of Dr. Shaukat. I thought, well, no, not really. I can't see that happening. Is it time to wind up? Yes. People really do want their cocktails. You're very kind. And it's actually related to your last comments, which was, do you think that racial relations in this country have got better or worse between Brick Lane and Love Marriage? Oh, gosh. It's had a whole speech. Isn't it time for cocktails? Blimey. I think, Jashree, would you like to answer that one? I certainly not like to answer that. We're involved standing there and making a half hour speech and I'm not prepared. I think the thing is, it's complicated. I don't have a simple answer for that. That's why I write novels, because I don't have to give, I don't have a sort of position or a take or a, I hate that sort of hot take mentality. I like complexity. I like layers. I like seeing both sides. And that's why I'm an awfulist. Thank you, Monica. Thank you, Jashree. Monica's books are available on sale and she'll be signing her books outside, so please, and the bookshop is right there. Thank you. I'd like to also just continue with the JLF tradition and offer them these scarves. It's my pleasure to also acknowledge with gratitude, Ambassador Sujit Ghosh, thank you so much for being here and for being a support to us. It's been an interesting day and we have the gorgeous Chorangi restaurant that our RR restaurant partners offering. They've been very, very generous and the reception is now going to open up for you. We've got some cobra beer and some wine and the gorgeous food from the Chorangi restaurant, so please join us. Thank you.