Jaipur Diary – What the F!
Irvine Welsh’s ‘fuck’ fixation.
[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]
His was the last and the shortest session in the Jaipur Literature Festival. His was also the only session in which questions ran out before the stipulated one-hour time. That’s no indicator of the cult status of Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting. His tent was full and the people – mostly college grad types – were looking starry-eyed at the man as he read about sex with the disabled, excerpts from a forthcoming book that is a prequel to Trainspotting.
“We human beings are programmed to failure. We’re somehow tuned to make terrible life decisions and that fascinates me,” Mr Welsh said, while sipping red Sula wine.
Tonsured and a little paunchy, Mr Welsh, looking like Hindi film villain Prem Chopra of the 70s, used the ‘kind of” phrase nth times and the ‘fuck’ word 15 times. “It’s not offensive,” he said. “That’s the way people speak.” Welsh used other cusswords too but the audience gasped only once, when the moderator disclosed, “Welsh enjoys gardening, George Eliot and Jane Austen.” One woman cried, “What the F!”
Fans of Mr Welsh
Wine please
You’re a perv.
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