June 10, 2013

The Safari – celebrating Ranthambore

At the ITC Rajputana party I hosted to celebrate my Ranthambore travelogue -The Safari

June 10, 2013: Today morning I flew in from Jaipur to Kolkata.  The day before yesterday, I hosted a party at the Suryavanshi Mahal of ITC Rajputana, Jaipur, to celebrate the publication of my travelogue on Ranthambore or Ranthambore Diary – The Safari – which went off very well.

The theme of the get together was Ranthambore with a difference – its local culture amid music, painting, photo exhibition, dance and folk art.  It turned out to be a sort of art and musical soiree that enthralle the guests.

Jaipur’s glitterati and wild life enthusiasts attended the get together and raised a toast to The Safari. Wildlife conservationists from Ranthambore, Dharmendra Khandal, Nagendra Singh Hada, and forest guard Rajesh Sharma who find many a mention in the book were there on the occasion.

With Y K Sahu and Dharmendra Khandal

Pratap Nath and Sugan Nath gave a live rendition of ceremonial music while Narayan Singh and Ramsahay Meena took to the canvas and their live sketches and strokes of yellow and black brought alive the spirit of Ranthambore tigers.  Gopal and Mansingh gave a demo of hand block artm painting on apparel.

With Ankita Singh and Chavi Rajawat

Once again, the jungle and animal motifs added to the evening’s Ranthambore aura. A photo exhibition of Ranthambore tigers from the book on display were greatly appreciated by the guests.

With Rohit Kamra

Apart from the usual cocktails the real hit thing of the evening was the mashak performance by folk artistes.

With Mashak players

Mashak or the mashak been, as is often locally called, is a bagpipe like musical instrument, usually made of goat skin, that is popular among the locals of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in India. This strange wind musical instrument caught the fancy of the guests.

I am thankful to Shri Vinod Joshi and Dr Dharmendra Khandal of Tiger Watch who helped me in organizing the evening. As usual ITC Rajputana put in their best efforts to make the Ranthambore theme and the evening a grand success.  Today evening I am hosting a farewell dinner for Dean and Jane Thompson the US Consul General at the Taj Bengal, Kolkata.

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