Oprah Winfrey Steals Show in Jaipur Literature Fest

An hour before chat queen Oprah Winfrey was scheduled to arrive for her session at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India, a kilometer-long queue of fans could be seen outside the venue.

When she did finally arrive, Winfrey looked stunning in a Sabyasachi Mukherjee-designed embroidered salwar-kameez and she made one memorable statement after the other, as she gracefully answered questions from anchor Barkha Dutt, of NDTV, a national news channel.

When I first came to India, I was overwhelmed by the chaos, the traffic and people who never stopped for red lights, by men riding donkeys, women wearing helmets with saris and oxen-drawn carts laden with steel, Oprah told Dutt.

It made my head spin - I felt like I was part of a video game. But I realized there's a method to the madness - there's a karmic calmness within the millions of people that keeps them moving along a path. Being in India has expanded my idea of humanity, she continued and all the while her words were being tweeted to all corners of the world.

Dutt had tweeted, before the session, stating she would ask Winfrey if she did truly plan never to return to India. However, given the American talk show host's answers, everybody present was convinced the world-famous television personality was in love with India and would definitely be back.

You think you can understand India through its clichés, but you can't - you have to come back again. The paradox I could not understand was how a family can be so loving and protective towards its girl child, but then hostile and cold if she is widowed, she explained, speaking of a visit to an ashram for widows, Death is contagious and no one wants to be reminded of this - across the world; but this has to change.

In addition, Winfrey spent time with a child from the Mumbai slums - an eleven-year-old girl and her five-member family.

At the end of the stay, I wanted to bring her home with me, Winfrey said, adding in jest, My partner is always worried that he's going to find me at the airport with another girl child!' She has already adopted two children.

Finally, when asked why she had not married Stedman Graham, her partner of 25 years, Winfrey said she wasn't the marrying kind.

I know that in a country like India where women have arranged marriages that turn into love it may seem like a mystery as to why. But if we were married, by now we would be divorced, she said.

Oprah Winfrey arrived in India last week. The first place she went to, straight from the airport, was the residence of the Bachchan family, one of Bollywood's most influential clans, to meet actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her new-born daughter, Beti B.