Party at my house in Jaipur

Yesterday night, I hosted a dinner at my Jaipur residence and invited few of my political and bureaucratic friends. The group was also joined by friends and known people from Kolkata like Madhu Neotia, Suresh Neotia, Ina Puri, Kunal Basu, Sangeeta Dutta and others.

There were many people from all over the world in Jaipur who are known to me and they also attended this informal get-together including Girish Karnad, historian Helen Kee, Om Thanvi, Ashok Vajpeyi and others.

From Jaipur apart from Nand Bhardwaj, Digambar Singh, Jyoti Khandelwal – Mayor of Jaipur, Mamata Sharma, Chairman, National Commission for Women, Rajiv Arora and other friends from political background were also there.

The Jaipur weather is freezing cold and even on a small lawn with about 125 people get-together, five gas heaters and ten big sigrees were not enough to create warmth around.

It was delightful conversation not only on Salman Rushdie but also on Jaipur civil society, Jaipur Literary Festival and the recent Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and the upcoming Jaipur Film Festival as well.

Diverse segments of people from diverse walks of life, of course have diverse opinions but everybody is of the same opinion that from January 15 to February 10 is the best time to be in Jaipur as far as literature, culture, film and sporting activities are concerned.

I have called a group of ghazal singers for live performance followed by violin players as after 10 PM, Jaipur has a law, at least in my residential area that microphones cannot be used.

The guests and I both enjoyed the ghazals as well as the violin music and I was thinking that in fact, it is a good time for me to hold a get-together in this season every year, as apart from Jaipur I can entertain known guests from my cultural circuit who visit Jaipur in this season.

ess bee