It’s a mad, mad world — this sums up the mood at this year’s Jaipur Literature Festival at Hotel Diggi Palace. Crowded, noisy, with hardly enough space to stand, forget sit, and yet it got way crazier on Sunday. The second session of the day was titled “O”, and it was bang on. All the aunties, teenage boys and girls, old women and men, and TV reporters screamed with almost orgasmic pleasure when the Big O arrived. There was ear-splitting excitement the moment Oprah Winfrey set foot on stage, in a green raw silk kurta with Kashmiri embroidery, khaki ankle pants and a pink stole. There was whistling, cheering, and girls wearing ‘O.P.R.A.H’ T-shirts stood up and shouted out their love.
The crowd took time to calm down. Once it did, Barkha Dutt, TV anchor took over and in her inimitable style, head nodding, hands on heart or gesticulating vigorously and continually, gave an effusive, breathless and fitting introduction: “Her impact goes way beyond TV. Poll after poll says that Oprah Winfrey has more credibility than any President... Many say that Barack Obama could not have become President had Oprah not endorsed him. She has brought back authors literally from the dead and revived the love for classics... we love, admire and respect her immensely, especially women...”
In India to shoot episodes for her new TV show, Winfrey arrived in Jaipur after interviewing Deepak Chopra, Gregory David Roberts, the author of Shantaram, the Bachchans, widows in Vrindavan, families living in chawls and slums, including 11-year-old Anchal.
“For my new series, Next Chapter, it was important to feature this country and try to represent a broad point of view and not just show one thing,” she said. talking about her slum visit, she says, “It was important to me to go to the slums but not show the worst of the worst... When I am telling a story, I want people to feel that the hearts of the people that they are watching is the same as theirheart... If you show people eating from garbage then people think these people are not like me. If you show somebody who is living in dire circumstances but still wants the opportunity for a better life for themselves, then you connect to them. It’s still the same story but it allows you to see that there is light...”
In little Anchal, who lives in “this tiny little space” in Mumbai with five people, where Winfrey couldn’t figure how everybody slept, “probably spoon fashion”, and yet is a star in her class and wants to be a teacher,” Winfrey probably saw a reflection of herself, of her growing up days in Mississippi. Though her grandmother’s great hope for little Oprah was that she would grow up and be a maid like her, and would often pray “I hope you get good white folks, I hope you get good white folks,” as Winfrey said her great fortune was that she was never put in a segregated school. “So for not one moment was I indoctrinated with the idea that I was less than anybody”.
Raised by her grandmother to be religious and to go to church regularly, Winfrey said that she developed a personal relationship with God. “Bible says we are God’s children. I didn’t have a daddy, so I thought that God was my daddy. Growing up believing that God is my father and that through God I can do all things – this is the fundamental reason why I was able to believe in myself. You become what you believe, not what you think or want... I didn’t believe there was a ceiling. I believed that I could and so it happened”.
