With FLO and KK

I am at this 11am meeting at the Hotel Accord in T. Nagar. It is not very new but many people aren’t aware of it. Posh.

FLO ( which is the FICCI Ladies Organisation) and IWA (International Womens Association) are hosting a joint meeting.

Nandini Alva and Padmini Ravi who direct the popular Bangalore Hubba are to make a presentation on this unique fest.

Presenting them is Shobana Reddy, chairperson of FLO.

Some 90 women listen closely and when it it interaction time, one woman stands up and talks about Madras Day!

Wow! I tell myself. The Madras Day idea has indeed sunk in, some where, some place.

Which is what our team set out to do three years ago.

First, get the Madras Day legend sink in. Then, get it to be August 22. And finally, believe that it is a day for the city!

FLO’s top team wishes they had known of the Day earlier so that they could have marked a special event on their calendar.

But they will compensate – they will invite me over in September to talk to them about what the concept is all about and what they can do too.

Charukesi, the writer brings negative news. The writers’ group that he visits wont be able to dedicate its monthly meet to Madras. We aren’t giving up. Perhaps we could get a short story writers group to do something. Reading sessions are engaging.

And we are hoping KK ( Krishna Kumar ) of Masquerade who shuns the base and the lowly whacky for hugely serious theatre, will band his actors for a reading session at some city venues.
A year ago, we shared the book by C. S. Lakshmi. A Penguin book that Lakshmi edited with a nice collection of essays, stories, poems, illustrations and more – all on the city.

KK assures me that he will be ‘in’ this year.

We wonder if we can have the session at the Nageswara Rao Park, Luz.

Everybody of Mylapore and thereabouts walks in this green oasis now maintained by Sundaram Finance. On weekends, some 2000 people swarm the park in the mornings.

SF sponsors a kutcheri every first Sunday of the month.

The walkers’ group host yoga classes and another group has tried a speaker’s post.

KK’s readings of poems, story and essay may well give a different dimension to the Madras Day to which everyone is invited.