Art and culture forum in Pink City

On Saturday afternoon I invited some of the members from Jaipur’s art and cultural fraternity for a meeting. I was told by them that Jaipur, and even the whole of Rajasthan, doesn’t have a proper platform where the performing artistes and cultural personalities can meet and interact.

I invited them under Rajasthan National Forum, a registered society, of which, I am the serving president. I had two main agenda for this meeting.

First, the way the Desert Souls series of events is gaining in popularity with just two events so far, I did not want that there should be allegations from any quarters that we are deciding the candidates for the series on our own.

Second, to initiate a common platform for the city’s art, culture and literary world.

The meeting was attended by literatteur Nand Bhardwaj, painter Surendra Pal Joshi, danseuse Prerna Srimali and Manjari Mahajani, theatre artist Kiran Rathore, sculptor Ankit Patel, dhrupad singer Madhu Bhatt and many others. Renowned theatre artist Bhanu Bharti, who was incidentally in Jaipur, also attended the meeting.

The important presence in the meeting was that of Padma Shri Mukund Lath, who is seldom seen in these type of get togethers.

The popular thing about him is that whenever anyone asks him, “Do you live in Jaipur?”
He says, “I live in my house not in Jaipur.”

Mukund Lath has a Calcutta connection. His mother Gyan Devi Lath was the lady who had established Abhinav Bharti School in Pretoria Street. His family was known to my late mother but I met him for the first time.

Mr Lath was very negative about the idea of creating a common platform and said that every individual has to paddle his or her own canoe for these fora or committees never yielded any results. To which, Bhanu Bharti commented, “Is it not a good start that today all the prominent artists of the city are together and talking about culture in a five-star boardroom.”

I had tossed the idea of creating a common platform and requested for suggestions from the Desert Souls candidates.

Post meeting, it was decided over lunch to form an advisory group or take steps to initiate something in this desert state. It was also decided that this group should meet by the end of the month or early next month at a mutually convenient date.
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