At the launch of Three Novellas

Today I attended the launch of Three Novellas at the Oxford Bookstore in Park Street. The book is a translation from Bengali to English of Nashtanir, Dui Bonand Malancha. Translated by Sukhendu Roy, the Book was formally released by the Governor of West Bengal M K Narayanan.

The release was followed by a discussion on the book by Supriya Chaudhuri, Prof Department of English, Jadavpur University and Swapan Chakravorty , director, National Library. Nabaneeta Dev Sen (file picture) could not attend the function as she was not well.

I thought I’d see her today at the Oxford as I haven’t met her for almost over a month now. In Kolkata, each day there are several programmes every day at the same time to mark 150th Celebrations of Tagore but I felt this book launch was be very helpful for the non-Bengali community as the Governor said that translations are really useful for a non-Bengali like him.

Also met Sujata Sen, Director, British Council Kolkata, at the Oxford and discussed about the possibility of some joint programs with British Council and Prabha Khaitan Foundation. We had talked about it six months back but I could not give the idea a shape. We decided to sit next week and try to work out a programme.

After the Book launch, had masala chai at the Oxford chai bar in traditional tea glasses with Bharti Roy, Governor and Suranjan Das, the Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University over light conversation. It is a good feeling to have tea or chai in traditional glasses in the company of such intellectuals.

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