At the Arts Acre Foundation

With Basant and Sarala Birla

April 17, 2014: I arrive in Delhi today afternoon to attend a private function in the evening.Yesterday in Kolkata, I went to Arts Acre Foundation for the inauguration of Sarala-Basant Birla Auditorium. His Excellency Shri M K Narayanan, Governor of West Bengal, formally inaugurated the Auditorium in the presence to Sarala and Basant Birla. I met Sarala and Basant Birla almost after six months, at this age, the couple is still as gracious as ever.

Arts Acre Foundation is a dream project of my artist friend Suvaprasanna and inspite of my best intentions and continuous follow-ups from Suva da, I could not make it to visit the Arts Acre Foundation earlier. I was totally amazed to see the Foundation. Late Pandit Ravi Shankar had laid the foundation stone of the initial Arts Acre 1 project way back in 1984. This one is the Arts Acre 2 which is much bigger and grander in scale.

With Manoj Mitra and Subodh Sarkar

In fact, I postponed my Delhi trip by a day for this event and it was worth it. Harsh Neotia, who is one of the Trustees of the Foundation, told me that Suvaprasanna had put in about Rs 17 crores from his personal fund for this Foundation. Hats off to Suva da, I have not seen such an instance of an artist giving this kind of money for the cause of art and culture.

There were a large number of diplomats and cultural personalities from all walks of life present during the inauguration. In fact, the Governor, also spoke in a very light mood.

I am sure Arts Acre Foundation will be a great leap as far as Bengali modern art is concerned and will soon develop as the new art and cultural hub in the city. 

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