In the company of artistes

April 21, 2014: I came back to Kolkata from Jaipur yesterday and would be leaving for New York today.

From Delhi, I went to Jaipur on April 18 evening and the next day was the Desert Soul event. This time the guest was Hari Ram Meena whose main contribution is in the area of tribal literature. Hari Ram Meena is a retired IPS. He was born in Sawai Madhopur district in Rajasthan and himself belongs to the meena tribal community. He joined Rajasthan Police service in 1979 and retired as IG in 2012.

He had a literary bent of mind from an early age and made his mark in the field. He was conferred Meera Award the Rajasthan Sahitya Academy’s high honour in 2003. More awards followed, the prestigious Mahapandit Rahul Sankratyayan Award in 2009 the famous Bihari Award 2012 by K K Birla Foundation, New Delhi, for his well known novel Duni Tape Teer covering a very significant historical indicent i.e., the Adivasi Jaliyanwala which took place at the Mangarh Hills of Banswara district of Rajasthan.

So far, Mr Meena has written eight books including two collections of poems, one long poem, two travelogues, one novel, one book on Tribal Discourse, and one edited book of compilation of tribal poems. He did lot of research work on tribal issues after travelling to various areas, including pockets of interior tribal areas. Now a days, he is residing in Jaipur.

It was an extremely well attended function.

In the evening went to Jawahar Kala Kendra to attend the kathak performance title “Ananya” presented by my friend Shivani Sethia who lives in London. For the past one-and-half months I had been trying to persuade her to perform in Jaipur. Shivani learnt kathak in Jaipur and then, after her marriage, shifted to London. I was impressed when I learnt that she was teaching kathak in London but had never performed in her own city – Jaipur.

Her yesterday’s performance was much appreciated by the guests and Chiranjib, the classical singer from London, also performed with her.

Shivani took to learning kathak at the tender age of seven in Jaipur under the tutelage of classical danseuse Geeta Raghuvir. Shivani first mastered the Jaipur gharana style of kathak and then moved on to master the Lucknow gharana under the guidance of Pali Chandra and later under Gauri Sharma in London. She runs a cultural organisation called Gurukul in London.

On Sunday, early morning, I drove down to my native place Sujangarh, which is about 200 kms from Jaipur, and returned the same evening to take a flight back to Kolkata at 6:55 pm.

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