First Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat Memorial Lecture

Entering the venue with Urvashi Butalia

22 August, Kolkata: I landed in Kolkata today evening from Jaipur. I had reached Jaipur on 19 August for the first Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat Memorial Lecture which was held on August 20 afternoon.

After the funeral of Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat, I had announced that I will initiate something in her memory and later I announced this lecture series for three years. 

Thanks to FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) Jaipur for associating with Prabha Khaitan Foundation on this.

With Balbhadra Singh

The first of this series of Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat Annual Lectures was flagged off with feminist writer and publisher Padma Shri Urvashi Butalia speaking on the topic “The Words to Say It - Women Writings in India”.

She shared her experiences and struggle as a woman to set up a publishing house. Though the publishing world is the male's preserve, she felt that much had changed and it was encouraging to see women writers, inspired by the likes of Late Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat and others, had, after lots of struggle, come forward to write on various topics. But she also expressed concern that the women who were writing were predominantly from the privileged sections of the society.

Urvashi also talked about decline in reading habits, her Rajasthan connection, the curse of Partition and so on.

With Rajyashree Kumari

Before the lecture I also attended the lunch hosted by art lover Vinnie Kakkar. She hosted the lunch for Urvashi Butalia. Lunch and event both were at ITC Rajputana so was very convenient.

In fact, late at night, I also dropped in for the dinner at the Rajputana banquets only hosted by Saroj Khemka. Yesterday I had various meetings for the future events that I am planning and also to make the Rajasthan Forum back office strong. I also had a meeting with the editorial board of a newspaper for possible future tie-ups for few activities.

I could not manage to go to the kabaddi matches of Jaipur team. Tomorrow there is a Pronam annual programme of South and South West division at the Vidya Mandir.

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