It was another great day at the Hindu Lit For Life festival.... with most lovely ladies gracing the stage ... It was a pleasure to see the famed dimpled smile of Sharmila Tagore set the stage on fire with its brilliance...
And then there were the gentlemen... who with there interesting thoughts, great comments and inside stories from Srilanka through Ashok Ferry as well as from the Mean Streets of Delhi's Red Light District, by one of the famous blogger "The Delhi Walla" Mayank Austen Soofi ...
But the day started with inside stories from the session 'The Green Room' by Wendell Rodricks, (beautifully brought alive by the host Ranvir Shah) ....
...who informed that after the famous wardrobe failure, the model prays before going to the stage now...
It was a pleasant surprise to see the famous Fashion Guru Wendell, (whose biggest regret in life is not to patent the Short Kurta, he designed, which is now copied the world over) attired in subdued Black Long kurta instead of usual flamboyance of Designers....
Meeting Rodricks was quite a pleasure and discussing with him about his social works around his city of Goa was enlightening. He says his inspiration to do social work came from his father and he reserves all his saturday for one social cause or another if he is in town. I was happy to receive his email on his way to Europe, from Doha Airport within few days, to connect with me and continue the discussion... as well as do something together. Looking forward to it...
The other interesting session was with Varun Agrawal, Veena Venugopal along with Lalita Iyer....
... as they discussed the challenges faced in 'Writing For The World's Youngest Nation'...
But the best session of the day was reserved for the great chemistry between Rocky Singh and Mayur Sharma of 'Highway On My Plate' Fame... The way they connected with each other on the stage as well to the audience, was amazing. Hence the most thunderous applause from the dignified and well mannered audience of Chennai was well deserved.
Finally the time arrived for the announcement of the prizes... first the surprise contest of writing a beginning of a novel, just one short paragraph which captures the reader to look forward for more received overwhelming response from the audience, who competed quite eagerly and as Vikram Kapoor said... some of the most profound entries were discovered. And the best was from the bespectacled young boy 'N Chandrashekhar'
And then, as I had already guess yesterday, my friend Jerry Pinto was announced by Sharmila Tagore, the winner of Hindu Lit Festival prize for the best fiction... and as he said, "Hearing my name announced by Mrs. Sharmila Tagore, it does not get better than that..."
Finally it was end of the festival with a lovely discussion, where young heart throb of South India Shriya Saran was engaged in lovely conversation with one of the most beautiful and graceful ladies of North Indian Cinema, Sharmila Tagore very engagingly hosted by Jerry Pinto...
It was a lovely time at the festival and I look forward to the next festival hopefully in 2014....
__________________
Shashi
ॐ नमः शिवाय
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
