Meeting Kamal Haasan

With Kamal Haasan

Nov 11, 2013: Today morning I organized a tea party in honour of Kamal Haasan who is in Kolkata after a long long time to attend the Kolkata Film Festival that was flagged off yesterday with great fanfare with Amitabh Bacchan, Jaya Bacchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Mithun Chakrabarty and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and host of dignitaries from Tollywood and others.

Kamal Haasan, who wears many hats in sync with his talents, is considered one of the most talented and versatile actors of India. He is a reservoir of talent and a great conversationalist. No wonder all the invitees, over short notice, turned up at The Taj Bengal poolside to meet and greet him.

With Toni and Kamal Haasan

It was simply great to have him among us and be in his company and get to be a part of his engaging conversation. One can never tire of hearing him for hours. Among those attended the late morning tea party, that concluded well beyond the tea time, were industrialists, actors, directors, and cultural connoisseurs of Kolkata.

To name those who came were, Arunima, Abir, Abhishek Datta, Agnimitra, Anandi Ghosh, Aparna Sen, Arindam Sil, Bickram Ghosh, Esha Dutta, Gargi Roy Chowdhury, Harsh Neotia, Nandita Pal Choudhury, Prasenjit, Pritimoy, Rituparnaa, Tanusree, Toni, Suman Ghosh, Sachin Verma, Sangeeta, Suman Mukhopadhyay, Shanti Surana and of course our Usha (Uthup) di who has known Kamal Haasan since the days when he just another actor trying to carve out a film career.

With Nandita Pal Choudhury, Usha Uthup and Kamal Haasan

Geeta Gopalakrishnan, Director, Donor Relationships, who is looking after Tata Medical Centre Cancer Hospital in Kolkata was also in Kolkata and attended the get-together.
Kamal Haasan talked about the possibility of Tamil-Bengal collaboration in films and charmed us with his conversation.

After a late afternoon tea, Mr K Mohanchandran, General Manager of Taj Bengal hosted a few of us and Kamal Haasan at the Taj restaurant Chinoiserie. Kamal Haasan himself is fond of Chinese cuisine. There was yet another round of engaging informal conversation with the six of us.

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