Our journey begins with Journey

Yesterday evening there was a function in city organised by Prabha Khaitan Foundation in collaboration with the British Council Kolkata. This function was initially planned for the 17th of December but was pre-poned to 16th December as 17th was a holiday on account of Muharram.

Adrian Johnson, writer, poet and story-teller from Birmingham, was the Chief Guest (picture) of the function. Mr Johnson, who was the 14th Birmingham Poet Laureate in 2009, has a very personal style of reciting poems and story telling.

This was the first pilot project of British Council-Prabha Khaitan Foundation in which the book Journeys was released by industrialist Hari Mohan Bangur (picture). The book Journeys is a collection of short stories, poetry and reportage by writers associated with the South Asian diaspora centering around the theme of journeys.

The award for best writing was given to Hema Raman from Chennai. I seized this opportunity to meet the young and very young writers and some other guests.

Sujata Sen, director, British Council, thanked Prabha Khaitan Foundation for this collaborative effort and successful program.
I had met Sujata (picture) a couple of months back and mooted the idea that Kolkata should host some Indian and foreign writers, scholars, poets on a regular basis. I had suggested a year-long collaboration between Prabha Khaitan Foundation and the British Council Kolkata for this project. Sujata had liked the idea very much.

Today’s program was the first in the series of such collaborative effort. The modalities of our association and future course of action would be worked out in details.

I am sure Kolkata can look forward to many interesting programs like today’s in the days ahead. Our journey has begun with Journey.

ess bee