The agenda ahead

July 10, 2012: After returning to Kolkata from Bhutan I got very busy in office work so much so I missed Shreya Pandey's birthday party at the Shisha on Saturday.

I had quite a number of meetings on Saturday in order to work out the modalities of the events scheduled for this month.

On July 16, 2012, I have The Bengal board meeting at the Taj Bengal and prior to it there would an informal felicitation of our board member, Dr Md Mansoor Alam over tea.

Dr Alam, a leading scholar of Persian language, was conferred a Certificate of Honour last month by the President Smt Pratibha Patil at a grand investiture at the Rashtrapati Bhawan for his lifelong contribution and promotion of the Persian language and literature in the country.

Ms Roopa Ganguly, another board member of The Bengal, who won the National Award for best female singer this year, would also be felicitated.

On the same day in the evening (7:30 pm) Prabha Khaitan Foundation would be hosting a Story Reading Session of Aparna Sen’s new film Goynar Baksho produced by Shree Venkatesh Films at the same Hotel.

After The Bengal board meeting, there is a Singapore trip on the cards and then on July 21^st I am initiating a series titled An Author's Afternoon in association with The Taj Bengal, T2 of The Telegraph and Siyahi – a Jaipur-based literary organization.

The idea of initiating this series is to invite authors from various parts of India and abroad for an interactive session in an informal environment with like-minded people of Kolkata. There would be six to 10 such events annually.

The first event in this series is scheduled on Saturday, July 21^st at 4 PM in which Moon Moon Sen would be in conversation with the author Pramod Kumar KG, MD, Eka Cultural Resources & Research, a museum consulting company in New Delhi.

Later this month there would be another event in Jodhpur. Tomorrow, I leave for Delhi.

ess bee