New initiatives for the city

In the last four or five days I have been planning two new projects. First is the Student for Students project under the Education for All scholarship scheme. The second is the planting of one lakh tree saplings in and around Kolkata over the next 12 months. The Sheriff of Kolkata, Utpal Chatterjee, is planning to initiate this project. He called for a meeting at The Conclave that was attended by the Commissioner of Police, Gautam Mohan Chakraborty, Saurabh Chaudhuri, Conservator of Forests, IFS (Govt of West Bengal), Mr Harsh Neotia and a representative of Rotary Clubs.

In the next day of the meeting, I placed a proposal that we expect to finalise in our next meeting. Since both these projects required considerable deskwork and time, I missed out on a lot of events in the city where I was invited. I was not able to attend the French Consulate’s reception at Hyatt nor was I able to attend the reception of Friends of Nepal at HHI. Not just that, I could not make it to the launch of the Bengali channel Mahua at the ITC Hotel.

And then, there was the Kolkata Police Coca Cola Friendship Cup 2010 yesterday that was graced by the renowned Brazilian footballer Romario. Mr P K Tiwari of the Mahua Channel was also there. As I had missed the opportunity to meet them earlier, I made it up later in the evening at the ITC Health Club and said hello to them.

Tomorrow I shall attend Mallika’s book launch at the Oxford Bookstore. Mallika is the elder daughter of Dolly di who is a personal friend of ours. However, I will miss the comedy show of Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood at the ITC Hotel since it’s timing is clashing with the book launch.

Theatres and comedy films are my favourite pastimes. I have picked up about 15 comedy films from North America, besides our Mr Beans, hoping to watch it at home but have not been able to see a single film so far. I also had plans to see the movie Inception but had to call it off at the last minute.

The fact that most often we end up doing things our hearts don’t desire, and miss out on those things that we want to, haunts me. May be this is the price one has to pay for leading an active social life.

ess bee