JLF first day was all about Margaret Atwood and Karan Johar

It's the first day of "the greatest literary party in the world" and the clashing of dandiya sticks greets you even before the words as you enter the familiar premises of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF). In heft, as far the day's sessions go, the enormity is yet to sink in.

It's almost ten to ten and you can see the festival's music director signalling to the musicians on stage to start winding up. The presence of security is palpable. (A journalist filing his copy, a little while before, asks me whether high alert is hyphenated.) A security personnel tells the group of people behind him, hovering and on their toes to catch a glimpse of the acclaimed Margaret Atwood, sitting insouciantly in the front row: "CM madame aaney wali hai."

In walks Vasundhara Raje, the glint of her jewellery shimmering in the mellow winter morning sun. She straightaway approaches Atwood, and says, "Good to see you". A coterie of press photographers swoop in on the Rajasthan chief minister, and the drums and the shehnai and the conch start to blare.

Each year I come up with a new metaphor for the Jaipur Literature Festival, says Namita Gokhale, the fest's co-director. "This year, Katha Sarit Sagar, the sea of stories, rises to the mind." Teamwork's Sanjoy K Roy and co-director William Dalrymple have already made their inaugural speeches.

The keynote address is to be made by Atwood. The crowd begins to cheer and hoot in excitement as the the Man Booker Prize winning author heads to the stage. Roy has just told us that Dalrymple had been desperately trying to get her to Jaipur for the last seven years.

Atwood's speech is electrifying, peppered with dry humour. "To be invited to give the keynote here, I suspect I must be either very important or very old. [pause] I suspect the latter." The crowd erupts in laughter. On why literature festivals are proliferating, she says, "Writers are cheap dates... You don't need an orchestra, just the writers, their books and voices."

And writers need literature festivals; "over here the author gets his or her other half - you, the reader". Atwood says she's been to India three times in all, but the last time that she was here was 27 years ago. "That's how old I am."

The day couldn't have opened with a bigger bang.

Here are some of the other highlights of the day:

1. Author of the award-winning The Master, Colm Toibin, in a conversation with literary critic and writer Chandrahas Choudhary, spoke in detail about writing on the later (and the more prolific) four years of Henry James' life. “It is important to remember we have no recordings of his voice. We have some photographs of him. But never appeared in public life, well at least not at the time my book is set in. He never gave any readings of his work. So we have no sense of what his work sounded like. But what he really wanted... was a success in the theatre." Toibin recounts that James, after being booed and heckled on stage for a rather "devastating play", at 54, decided to shun public life and commit himself to produce his best work.

2. At "The Fiction of Privacy: Drawing the Line", author of Aarushi, Avirook Sen spoke about the "lifestyle stories" that were emerging even before the Talwars went on trial. One such was on how several channels aired a story that the couple had booked 12 rooms to have an orgy. "It isn't just a case of irresponsible journalism, it's also what the investigators put out," he said.

3. Ruskin Bond finished answering a question on which book of his the students should read. [The Blue Umbrella.] "Thank you, sir," she replied. "It was a nice answer. You're very cute." Bond also spoke about how his father, who was a stamp collector, taught him history and geography, by discussing stamps.

4. At the "Full Circle" bookstore, there was some excitement around an author, who ironically chooses to steer away from literature festivals - Amitav Ghosh. A couple next to me pointed at a copy of Sea of Poppies, and said he was good. An eight-year-old boy from Cambridge Court school asked his friend, "Tu Amitav Ghosh jaanta hai?" The friend shakes his head. "Maine toh uski bahut saari stories padhi hai."

5. Alexander McAll Smith recalled how he got spooked once when a man at a book signing event shiftily veered towards him. "He came up to me and said 'what are you doing after?'" Turns out, he wanted me to read his book. "Honestly, it was a wonderful read. I read three pages of it... It was about a man who is kidnapped by a bunch of nuns."

6. Shobhaa De in a panel on "Navigating Modernity" spoke about the misogynistic attack on Sunny Leone by a TV journalist. "He was trying to degrade her for having been a porn star, which she fielded with great dignity and grace." She went on to praise the articles that were written by both men and women, and the support Sunny Leone received on social media. "There's a change taking place."

7. Filmmaker Karan Johar no doubt was the biggest crowd-puller of the day. Talking about his upcoming memoir An Unsuitable Boy, co-authored with journalist Poonam Saxena, he talked about what it was like growing up in "snooty" south Bombay, and how he began to loathe the word "pansy". "I was an extremely effeminate child. I wouldn't know where my hands are legs were going." A journalist put into perspective the session - "JLF was Karan Johar's coming out party without even spelling out he's gay."

8. Man Booker winner Marlon James confessed that he was so surprised to win the award that he didn't even have a speech prepared. He said he should have listened to the British journalists who know these things and were nudging him to write one.