Jaipur abuzz with events

January 17, 2013: Arrived Jaipur on 15^th evening and went to Hotel Clarks Amer to attend a function organised by Timmie and Apurv Kumar. The function was in memory of Apurv's grandfather, Babu Brijpal Dasji Gupta's 98^th Birth Anniversary. Babu Brijpal Dasji was the founder of Clarks Group of Hotels.

The function also had a Indian Classical Dance programme called Seeking the Divine by Padma Shree Malavika Sarukkai who is an internationally-reputed danseuse and dance choreographer and a discourse by Acharya Shrivatsa Goswami ji, an eminent scholar and spiritual leader of Vrindavan. It was a full house and Malavika's was a sterling performance.

I met quite a few people during the dinner. From there, I went to a private dinner. Jaipur is gearing up for Jaipur Literature Festival 2013 scheduled from 24^th January 2013. On 23^rdJanuary, the eve of the LitFest, there would be an inaugural dinner. This year a cricket exhibition match is also planned in Jaipur between Authors' XI and Rajasthan Royals XI on the 23^rd of January 2013 at the Railways Ground.

In Kolkata, on there was the sixth edition of the Author's Afternoon on January 14, 2012. 
This time the guest was Anupam Kher (pic) whose book The Best Thing About You is You has been very well received by the market running into 12 print edition. 
Ina Puri was in conversation with Anupam, who spoke about motivation and “the power of failure”. How failure teaches one a lot about life. 

Anupam has the gift of the gab and his real life anecdotes livened up the afternoon.

The Author's Afternoon is getting popular and livelier with each edition. Later that day I hosted a dinner at home.

Being in Jaipur at this time of the year means a lot of catching up to do on the events front. 

The 15^th Theatre Festival, organized by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and National School of Drama is also being staged in Jaipur this year.

Today is the premier of Shunyo Awnko (The Zero Act) - Goutam Ghose's latest film at Nandan in Kolkata which I shall miss out. I have a cameo role in that film.

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