Valentine’s day event

Hotel Hyatt, Delhi: I returned to Delhi from Kolkata last night. It was raining the whole day here and the temperature was a tad cooler. In Kolkata, apart from the Gulzar dinner on Saturday, I had to extend my stay in order to attend the concert of Aparna Sen (picture) on Valentine’s Day. It was a different kind of event and had a fresh approach to it.

Aparna Sen read out few of the love letters of world renowned personalities including George Bernard Shaw, a letter of Nargis to Sunil Dutt that had a mention of Raj Kapoor and some other letters.

I really liked the letter from the Japanese wife, though a work of fiction by Kunal Basu.

The way Rina di read out the letter was amazing as she incorporated the Japanese and Bengali accents in English – just as in The Japanese Wife – the film she directed last year. The event began with the Governor’s speech and Harsh Neotia played the role of Sutradhar. I met Madhu Neotia, Dinesh Trivedi and his wife, Sanjay Budhia and the Governor’s wife .

After landing in Delhi I went to the India International Centre (ICC) for an adda with Sunil da and Soumitra Mitra. Sunil da is also in Delhi for the Sahitya Akademi events. Tomorrow, A P J Abdul Kalam is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the event in India International Centre.

-ess bee