December 7, 2013

A breezy eventful week

With Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal M K Narayanan and Umesh Choudhury, Honorary Consul of Switzerland in Kolkata

December 7, 2013: Last week was a breezy one in terms of the number of events held in Kolkata which I tried to make it to the extent possible. With the onset of winter this is hardly surprising. The frequency of events pick up during this time of the year.

With the British Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata Scott Furssedonn Wood and his wife Elizabeth

I attended the Navy Day on December 4 at the Navy House in Hastings. It was a well-attended celebration which was also attended by His Excellency, Governor of West Bengal, Shri M K Narayanan. The Navy Day is an annual event which celebrates the fall of Karachi and the victory of Indian navy in 1971 Indo-Pak war.

With Commodore Ravi Ahluwalia and Mr Haider Aziz Safwi, Minister for Correctional Administration and Inland Waterways, Govt of West Bengal

Also present were Commodore Ravi Ahluwalia, NM, naval-officer-in-charge, West Bengal along with the representatives of American, Russian, Japanese and French consuls. Mira Pande, State Election Commissioner, General Shankar Roy Chowdhury and many others.

On Friday (Dec 6) I attended the premier of Prasenjit starrer Hanuman.Com at the South City Mall Inox.

I noticed that the invitation card was unique. It was shaped like a “monkey cap” (picture) which indicates the  onset of winter and one of Bengalis’ favourite winter wear.  Prasenjit introduced me to his father Biswajit – perhaps the first glamour king of Indian silver screen.

And then there were scores of invitations for various wedding functions and weddings. I hardly attend wedding functions. But to attend a few of these events I just dropped in for few minutes and that accounted for a lot of time .

With Prasenjit and Biswajit

In the last couple of days, I had in Kolkata three persons from Jaipur who are known to me. One of them is  an editor friend whom I took to the premier of Hanuman.Com, another was an industrialist friend whom I could not meet and the third person  was Chhavi Rajawat, who is a sarpanch of Soda village in Rajasthan with whom I had lunch. Rajawat, who has transformed the landscape of her rural village, was in the city for the Infocom event.

In the past, many organizations have requested me to invite Chhavi Rajawat to Kolkata. But this time her schedule was very tight as she arrived by a late night flight and left the next day.

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