A manic week

September 11, 2015: It was a busy day yesterday. I can’t remember a week day when I was in Kolkata and did not go to the office at all. 

I had a meeting at 10:30 AM and then another one at 11:30 AM. After that I went to the Italian Consulate General's residence for lunch and there I met Andrea, an Italian scholar of Hindi. She has not only read my mother Late Prabha Khaitan’s works but also studied it extensively. Post lunch there was another meeting at Park Street. 

At the YFLO event felicitating the Calendar Girls

After that, I went to attend the YFLO Kolkata event at The Park. Thanks to Shraddha Agarwal, the dynamic Chairperson of YFLO, Kolkata, it was the first time I went to a Kolkata YFLO event - “A date with Madhur Bhandarkar”. 

Madhur was in the city to promote his new film Calendar Girls with his calendar girls - Ruhi Singh, Satarupa Pyne, Akanksha Puri, Kyra Dutt and Avani Modi.

I must admit Shraddha conducted the show extremely well with her body language, articulation and questions. It has been a long time since I witnessed such a well-moderated event.

With Javed Akhtar (file picture)

The YFLO event was followed by meetings at the Hyatt Regency and ITC Sonar respectively. And then, I had five dinner invitations to attend, including The Bengal Fashion Week celebration hosted by Arijit Dutta who is also the style brand ambassador of the Fashion Week.

The only invitation I could keep was at a private residence in Salt Lake where I managed to reach 11:30 PM.

The dinner was in honour of Javed Akhtar Sahab who is in city for an event at The Taj Bengal called “Ismat Apa Ke Naam” along with Dr Rakshanda Jalil, Uday Prakash, Ratna Pathak Shah and Heeba Shah.

I look forward to hosting Javed Sahab for a dinner at my residence today. Tomorrow I shall out to New York.

ess bee