Warm as always

This evening I went to The Park Hotel to meet the delegates of Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival. This Festival, which started two or three years back, has shaped up very well this year as was evident from the program chart.

With the Festival starting tomorrow, it was a pre-eve dinner. I met Gopal Krishna Gandhi and his wife Tara Gandhi for the first time since they left Kolkata. I also met the present Governor M K Narayanan and his wife Padmini Narayanan. It wasn’t one of those Page 3 gatherings but more of a cerebral or intellectual kind with lots of book lovers around. I chatted up with Dhritiman Chatterjee during his smoke break.

I love hearing Gopal Krishna Gandhi but missed his speech on the Writer’s Cramp at the Victoria Memorial today. I told him that I missed his speech but had read some the articles he had penned from Chennai. “Don’t waste time reading all this,” he quipped.

At the end of the program, while coming out of the Hotel’s lobby, Gopal Krishna Gandhi pointed at the Governor’s car stationed in front of the driveway and cautioning his wife not to sit in that car. “Ours is the next one,” he joked. He shook hands with the driver of Governor’s car and all the policemen on duty – people who had earlier been at his service. He was warm as always.

I was flooded with the memories of memorable evening functions during his tenure. I recollect an article that mentioned him as the best-mannered man of public etiquette and behaviour.
From The Park I went to attend the dinner of Purba Paschim to celebrate the 25th show of Tagore’s Raktakarabi at The Conclave.

I met Bratya Basu, Dipanker Dey, Dolon Roy, Chaiti Ghoshal, Ranjan Bandhopadhyay and others (pictures). It was also the birthday of Soumitra Mitra – the man behind Purba Paschim. Besides the presence of people from the theatre world, Calcutta Police Commissioner and his wife also joined in late to wish him on his birthday. The dinner concluded around 1 am.

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