Fogged in

Today is Xmas and I am in New Delhi at the Maurya Sheraton Hotel. Delhi and surrounding regions are under a dense fog cover. Many trains and flights have been fogged in with schedules going haywire.

My yesterday morning flight from Kolkata to Delhi was on air for an extra hour due to the fog. Had it been another 10 minutes the flight would have been diverted to Chandigarh or any other nearby airports.

I thank myself for availing the morning flights again. Though the flight was nearly 75 minutes late, I still managed to be on time for my 11:30 meeting. After this meeting I met Namita Gokhale and had a detailed discussion on the forthcoming Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) 2013.

I am planning to do some event with the Rajasthani authors around that time during the Lit Fest.

We also decided about my mother Late Dr Prabha Khaitan’s autobiography A Life Apart – an English translation of Anya Se Ananaya (Hindi) by editor and author Ira Pande.  This English translation would be released during a special session at the JLF.

Anya Se Ananaya was the last published book of Dr Khaitan and is one of the largest selling books by a female author in Hindi. Its English translation would help me in taking her works to a larger audience in India and abroad. She would be the first Rajasthani writer whose translated work would be released at the JLF.

Today early noon I shall meet Padma Shri Urvashi Butalia whose publishing house Zubaan has published the book with a foreword by Namita Gokhale.

I shall take an evening flight to Kolkata today.
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