Jaipur preparations

18 July, 2014, Kolkata: I landed in Kolkata last night from Jaipur. undertook this trip to Jaipur for a couple of days soon after returning to Kolkata from my overseas trip. I have a series of events lined up in Jaipur in the coming months and it was necessary to visit the Pink City.

On 27 August, 2014, there will be the Desert Storm series with Rajendra Gangani, the renowned kathak dancer of Jaipur gharana. On 8 and 9 September, my good friends, leading film maker-director-actor Aparna Sen and her husband Kalyan Ray would be visiting Jaipur. Aparna is promoting her husband’s second book No Country. Kalyan Ray teaches literature in some of the elite colleges in US.

I plan to host a dinner on 8 August and on 9th Prabha Khaitan Foundation would be the host for Kalyan’s book release at the ITC Rajputana.

Then on 20 August there will be a lecture by Urvashi Butalia who has accepted my request to be in Jaipur for the first Laxmibai Chundawat Memorial Lecture which I have initiated with Ficci FLO.

Then, on 26 September evening the next series of Write Circle is scheduled and the Rajasthan Forum meeting will be on 9 August as well. For all this, much planning was required and I thought of making a two-night trip to Jaipur.

In Jaipur there was this event in which former US President Bill Clinton visited India’s biggest kitchen Akshay Patra.

On the morning of 15 July, 2014, Rajasthan Forum initiated another series called Sanskar. The first of the series took off in collaboration with Step By Step International School at its premises. The idea of this whole series is to spread awareness and understanding of various Indian art forms to the new generation of school children.

In the first of the series, renowned kathak dancers of Jaipur gharana Ruchika Sogani and Tanya Agarwal performed for the students. Eminent kathak danseuse and member of Rajasthan Forum, Manjari Mahajan, lent her voice to the performance. This was followed by a question and answer session with the students.

I also attended the iftaar party hosted by the British Deputy High Commissioner Northwest India, David Lelliott, who is based in Chandigarh.

I briefly talked to him and broached the possibility of bringing more British Council activities to Jaipur since the city comes under his operations.

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