Lahore Literary Festival 2014 kicks off with a slow start at Alhamra at sharp 2:30pm

Bigger and better, I really don’t know. Or I think I can’t say that for sure so soon. Today was the first day of the much-awaited Lahore Literary Festival 2014. It just had to rain; same as last year. I arrived at Alhamra at sharp 2:30pm, the exact time the first session at the Lit Fest was going to start. Excited, I would get to see Vikram Seth in person. Seth is one of my all-time favourite novelists, mostly because of A Suitable Boy and it won’t be too much if I mention here that my copy of A Suitable Boy says, “J’adorelivre (I love/adore this book)” on its very first page in bold as abhorrent, as I am to scribbling on books.
So I arrive. Surprisingly, Vikram Seth’s session was not much over-crowded. Something I was glad about but also a little sceptical. Because at least, my experience with LLF last year taught me that the sessions with the more popular writers were usually more crowded. 
As I had expected, Seth was lively. Because despite my limited concentration span, I managed to listen to every word he said. Seth read out some passages from A Suitable Boy, An Equal Music and Hanuman Chalisa. I was mostly interested in A Suitable Boy of course. I never really liked An Equal Music, always thought it was located too far from my roots, Europe that is.

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