In Conversation with Vikram Seth

October 16, 2008. Neka Museum – Ubud.

This must be it. The most anticipated event in this year Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. The committee did an excellent job of choosing a bigger venue this time (I still remember the sweat in last year Kiran Desai’s session). The hall in Neka Museum was crowded half an hour before the session started. After successfully squishing my not-so-petit-frame into a chair together with recently bought books to be signed), the Vikram Seth stepped into the stage. Along with him was the moderator, Edwina Blush. She hilariously mimicked a smitten school girl who is about to meet her Teen Idol and huskily said, “I think you all know what it means.”

From then on, Vikram Seth told the audience about his childhood and how he was teasingly called ‘gregarious hermit’ by his school friends. Book was a retreat for this adorable self-deprecating author. A bottle of wine accompanied the conversation and at one point, after a constant wine refilling, an elderly audience next to me said to her friend “She really should stop drinking.” Vikram Seth also shared to the audience about his educational background, his interest to Chinese poetry and how Pushkin’s Onegin influenced his style of writing (hence, The Golden Gate).

The most memorable pieces from this session were the reading. He reads from his children book, Beastly Tales, a poem about The Hare and The Tortoise. Truly a session to remember.

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Literary Treasure from Ubud

All successfully signed by the authors, of course ;-) like this copy of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil:

or like this copy of Vikram Seth's Two Lives (VIKRAM SETH!):

God, I’m such a literary groupie.

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Baby of the Ball

Just when I thought I might be the youngest in the audience, I saw this cute literary baby. More to come about this year Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.

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SapiMalas is Lost in Literary Feast

Ubud Writers & Readers Festival… here I come! More stories, gossips and tales later.
Cheerio!

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Suri's Wall of Fame

I have to admit something. I'm a huge fan of this petite socialite. I know she hardly talks in full sentences nor known for some outrageous remarks or diva-esque attitude. Yet. But look at her. Just so adorable. I don't care if her papa is a sofa-hopping-scientologist. I can't wait to see her all grows up, become a talented and famous actress and leading women of the world what they should wear in her apparent fashion style. Never mind that I shudder of envy a little bit because I am now in my twenties and never wore a Burberry dress.

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Au Revoir, Paul Newman

I'm heart broken. I just read the marvelous article about Paul Newman few weeks ago in Vanity Fair September Issue and now he passed away. The article couldn't be more timely and just the perfect tribute to celebrate the life of Paul Newman. Do read it here. I daresay it is one of the most beautiful article I ever read because I cried a little when I read about Paul Newman's death on the internet. To think that we won't be able to see the piercingly beautiful blue eyes again...

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Greed Over Geger

A month ago I watched a cute robot saving human race from morbid obesities and redundancy. Three days ago I spent my night watching a movie about how infertility affecting human race in near-future. Yesterday night I spent watching zombies taken over Great Britain. Those entire movies really do make me wondering. Imagine all the movies about future that you have seen and think about what they all have in common.

Yes, they are all bleak prediction of our future. I suspected HBO plotted a special program called “Extinction of the Human Race”. The imagination of wild Hollywood writers has gives us glimpses of our civilization. Either that we are enslaved by apes, technology or alien; or that we might live inside a satellite in a galaxy far, far away; or else replaced by bionics that looked like Jude Law (you won’t hear me complaining).

In the end, those movies do give us hope. A savior, a plant or an antivirus. Nevertheless, human kind must always suffer first. They killed each other, they hide, they runaway, they do anything to avoid being perished. It brings me to the very point of this entry. Reading The Bali Post this week, I realize that we are actually living the future. This is future. Every action, every wicked crime that has been done is based only for one motive: greed. That is the very thing of which history always begin or end.

Please give me one good reason, other than greed, which motivates Badung’s Board of Regency decided to sell 600,000 metre cubics of sand from Geger Beach? The one beautiful beach in Badung which hasn’t been ruined by industry and commercialism. With the sands, our “honored member of the boards” will also rob hundreds of local seaweed farmers from their source of living; destroy the sea ecosystem and create atrocious erosion. As if global warming signs are not clear enough. Feel free to share your thought on how to save Geger Beach.

Greed, in the end, destroys us all.

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