ubud update 2

panels are going great - i've officially finished my business here, but i invited myself onto another panel this afternoon - all about blogging, which is going to be fun. i just came out of an 'in conversation with' session between anita desai and festival director janet de neefe - i think it's safe to say that everyone in ubud at the moment has totally fallen for anita desai. i was on a panel about identity between cultures with her and meira chand on saturday. they were both gracious, but i have a definite soft spot for anita. at one stage, when responding to an audience question, she turned to me and said 'maybe shalini would be the one to answer this'. apparently my face lit up enough to risk a power outage (of which there are many - though i'm not sure how many of them can be traced back to anita).

last night was the one session i'd been a little stressed about - a debate titled 'love: who does it better, poets or novelists'. i'd been a little worried about what angle i should take, especially on finding out that my fellow team members were to be tarun tejpal and kunal basu. i met some of the poets beforehand and gathered that they were going with a historical argument, that poets invented love, and that novelists really had no business even trying. so, in the end i decided to go for the pop culture angle - i thought i'd stay close to the ground and go for maximum audience impact. it turned out to be the right decision.

i used wide-ranging references to play to different generational ideas of 'love', and with some great suggestions from mark, i picked four points and expanded on them, pretty sure that they would get me through. i decided to open with a quote from an 80's song by the masters of yacht-rock, toto - 'hold the line, love isn't always on time'. it seemed like a good idea then (it all worked out in the end, as it happens) but when we got to the venue, and as it slowly filled up to capacity (and then some), i started having second thoughts. as in any other pre-performance nervy situation, i located the bathroom and locked myself in it for a bit. now, don't worry - i won't go into too much detail here - but as i turned to grab some paper off the roll, there it was - a sign. the loo-roll dispenser had a silver cover, and on the cover was etched the manufacturer's name - toto.

the debate itself went great - funniest bit was when i mentioned mr. darcy. all the women in the audience glazed over for a bit (imagining colin firth emerging from the lake, i assume) and went 'oooh' at the same time - their combined swoons ended up sounding like a large cat purring. but on the table behind me, apparently all the other debaters - including the rest of my team - all looked at each other and said 'who's mr darcy?'. it was great fun. the novelists won in the end, and even though i had a few people come up to me and say i won it for the team, i'd like to think that tarun and kunal helped us across the line somewhat... i jest! we were a great team. after the debate we went to a poetry slam at another restaurant, m-c'ed by morganics, an australian hip-hop artist. it was an amazing evening, and it took me a while to come down... actually i think it will take me some time coming down from this trip in general. so many good things have happened here, so many new connections made, i have a feeling ubud will be in my heart for a very long time after i leave.