Weekend? What was that again? The Calcutta Club- Telegraph Debate 2004

I worked throughout the weekend. I was supposed to go to the Calcutta carnival at Chaplin Square with Mad, but could not, since I was at work. Wrapped up at 6:00 pm and then Mrs. Nimbupani came up and gave me a pass for the Telegraph - Calcutta Club debate held at the Calcutta Club. The topic was 'Should the state fund the arts?' The panelists consisted of Jayant Kripalani, Mahesh Bhatt, Rahul Bose, Shyamanand Jalan, Irfan Khan, Nafisa Ali, Rajeshwari Sachdeva and Victor Banerjee with Dileep Padgaonkar moderating the debate. As was expected, Nafisa Ali did not have a clue about what she was speaking, Irfan Khan was out of his depth and Rajeshwari's argument could only be termed as school-girlish. Nafisa Ali, Irfan Khan, Victor Banerjee and Rajeshwari were speaking for the motion and the other four against the motion. The against-the-motion team was easily the better one and it was a pleasure to listen to Shyamanand Jalan's clearly defined points that were a testimony to his skills as a solicitor. Mahesh Bhatt was somewhat of a waffler and chose to debate the issue rather personally citing his problems in getting his movie released and in getting funding for Saaransh. Jayant Kripalani was fun to listen to, but rather theatrical and his plea of not letting the 'grubby little fingers' of the state to the Arts a bit over-done. Rahul Bose cited the recent International film festival to build up his case and the fact that 25 documentaries were not allowed to be screened because they were uncomfortable for the state. Jayant Kripalani elaborated on that and dragged in the fact that Leni Riefenstahl's films were screened at the festival, but was unaware of Ms. Riefenstahl's gender and provided a moment of hilarity when he was informed of the same.

While introducing the speakers, Dileep Padgaonkar mentioned the fact that Nafisa Ali wanted to be identified as a 'Bengali Babe'. Madame Ali is campaigning against Mamata Banerjee this year in the forthcoming elections and one can only feel pity for the party that has chosen such an bubblehead to campaign for them.

I do not know whether the organisers could not get politicians this year or generally wanted to dumb-down the event, but I was looking forward to another interesting political debate (as it mostly is) instead had to suffer 'Bengali Babes'. I hope next year's topic reverts back to politics or social issues as has been happening in the past.

Also, I desperately need a holide. The only count of days I have, is from project timelines. How sucky can that be?