So you don't exactly expect to see Aamir Khan at a literature festival - that too, in Jaipur. Sure, he was scheduled to "hold a session" with Tehelka Features Editor Shoma Chaudhury, but before that session? And after that session? After giving the media the slip, I might add ... sitting quietly in the audience, listening to other people speak?

Making a quiet entry - this is my 2 feet moment - followed by his bouncer/security detail, to listen to the Oscar-winning Christopher Hampton, or the three lovely Pakistani authors Moni Mohsin, Shahbano Bilgrami and Kamila Shamsie ... and there he was sitting in the audience, listening as they spoke.

Which really shows you the beauty of the entire Jaipur Literature Festival, in a nutshell. A nutshell, I say, because it was spread over 5 days, so for people who were actually working there - media, organisers, etc - by the end of it, it was like being dead on your feet. Not a pretty sight.

Actually, for that matter by the end of it, star draws Ian McEwan and Donna Tartt were also a little peaky - ready to stop interacting (though they were ever-so-gracious about it!) and start doing their own thing (like seeing the sights).

Jaipur has marked its spot on the global literary festival map...in no small part thanks to its organisers - this year, long-time India hand William Dalrymple joined Namita Gokhale and Eleanor O'Keeffe on the board, to get the big names... the star attractions.

So although Gore Vidal was supposed to be the big name draw, and he dropped out (after some unpleasantness at the Galle literary fest in Sri Lanka), there was still more than enough to go around. In fact, 5 days later, I wonder what/which slot he would really have held on to.

It's not that I wasn't looking forward to meeting him - I really was, and I'm not the only one. Aamir Khan apparently cleared his schedule partly due to Mr Vidal's expected presence.

But nevertheless, it was a huge success - with just the right amount of glamour, to impede full media access but swell your soul.

Who were my personal favourites? Well Ian McEwan for one - he wears his brilliance so lightly! But he definitely has that whole dry wit going, and gets his point across. What talent!

Fatima Bhutto scores as well, with her calm, collected presence, talking about what are definitely traumatic moments in her life with élan. And make no mistake, she's no push-over...she can be just as cutting, when asked questions like "Who will win the Pakistan elections?" (For the record, she asked the journalist in question, who would win the US elections... ouch!)

But she did decide against talking to the media - or it was decided for her, one of the two.

I think celebrity literary agent David Godwin, who's now associated with this literary festival, is utterly charming. But sharp too... You'd know him because he represented Arundhati Roy from The God of Small Things days as well as "our" other Booker-prize winner Kiran Desai. He had a greatly entertaining session on "gothic fiction" with the supposedly-reclusive yet surprisingly-witty Donna Tartt and Ian McEwan on the last day of the fest. But weren't the audience left feeling a little cut down to size when we learned this was not exactly what these two (three) greats wanted to spend their time doing!

Now that I think of it, there were so many nice moments - I liked interacting with, and watching in action as it were, poets Jeet Thayyil and Tishani Doshi... John Berendt reading about the rat-killer from his novel as we soaked up the sun and a great meal by Ritu Dalmia... talking to Miranda Seymour, after her intense discussion on her gripping but disturbing family memoir... I loved the performance poetry with human beat box (is that the right phrase!) Jason Singh... meeting publishers, literati, regular folk, other media-folk... it was a good mix.

A great mix? Well, of course you hear some kvetching - and that's never going to go away. The groaning about Aamir Khan (though let's face it, he certainly brought in the crowd!), the slight annoyance of the media being treated as pesky flies, in bits... I missed the Anoushka Shankar concert, which was right after the Aamir Khan session... I also couldn't attend the Indra Sinha session as I was at the Imagining Pakistan session ...so some clashes in the schedule... but for the most part, yes it was inspiring, and entertaining, and light-hearted yet profound. And free, for the most part!

So there you go, in a nutshell.

Trust me, that's the short answer.