Author’s Afternoon series
July 21, 2012: I was scheduled to arrive in Kolkata from Singapore last night but arrived on 19th evening as I had finished all my work and I also had in mind to attend the event – `An Author’s Afternoon’ – a series that I have initiated in collaboration with The Taj Bengal Kolkata.
The idea is to invite different authors for an interactive session with a specially invited selective group. The guest author for today’s Afteroon would be Mr Pramod Kumar KG – the author of Posing for Posterity: Royal Indian Portraits.
Mr Pramod Kumar KG was first director of the Jaipur Literary Festival that was held in 2006. He is also the co-director of the Mountain Echoes Literary Festival of Bhutan and the managing director of Eka Cultural Resources & Research, a museum consulting company is New Delhi. He is also the founder director of Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing in Jaipur.
Since royalty was the subject of Promod Kumar’s book, Mrs Moon Moon Sen, who is married to a scion from the Tripura royal family, was approached and she gladly agreed to take the hot seat next to the author to set the conversation rolling. The event was held at The Souk – the Afro-West Asian exotic cuisine joint of The Taj Bengal, Kolkata. The high point of the Afternoon was the collection of personal photographic collection (picture) of Sen family.
Moon Moon Sen showed the audience one cigar box, with a silkscreen print of The Maharaja of Coochbehar, that was presented to her by none other than the Maharaja himself. The 30 selected members at the event, who were the audience, had a whale of a time.
The Afternoon Conversation series is poised to set a new trend by moving away from the conventional and hackneyed book release functions. The very idea of holding discussions and chats on a particular book livened up the event and made the atmosphere more interactive, informative and pleasant.
This series, initiated by me, has the support of Siyahi, a Jaipur-based literary organization, and T2 – the popular supplement of The Telegraph, Kolkata’s leading English daily.
After the event, I invited Pramod Kumar KG to a dinner. Some of my diplomat friends also joined us over dinner.
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