It is the 13th edition of the HLF. And it has grown every year despite the many issues it faces in terms of finding a space, finances and other stuff that organising such events entail. But it chugs on and well and this year it seems to have somehow acquired its own distinct flavour too.
I am doing some work this time - as a moderator for a session on 'Women in Sports' which has two debut authors Aayush Puthran, a Cricbuzz journalist who wrote this fine book called 'Unveiling Jazbaa - A History of Pakistan's Women's cricket' and Madhavi Latha Prathigudupu, a paralympic champion and a sports administrator for swimming and basketball for the disabled who wrote her life story 'Swimming Against the Tide'. The session was yesterday, Day 2 and more on that later.
The venue Vidyaranya High School is strangely good despite its lack of parking facility, (generally space), but it more than makes up with its character, its setting at the foot of Birla Mandir, the trees, the hustle and the location which is central. The lack of space makes the entire activity seem more energetic.
Lots of interesting stuff none which was more interesting than finding Deepti Naval on the list since I just finished watching 'Saath Saath' a week ago, who was in conversation with my good friend Sathya Saran on Day 1. I bought a copy of her book and got it signed and I am hoping it will not shatter my illusions - we all tend to think of her as the 'Chamko' girl or as one of the many characters she played which are so endearing and non-threatening that we somehow feel she should only be like that and nothing else.
Day 1 began post lunch on January 27th and this time I decided to attend as many sessions as I can, for no reason other than that I never attended a festival on all three days. After some initial glitches with a young lady at the registration counter - go to the other registration, are you a delegate (I was not sure if I was), cannot find your name on the list (I found it for her), cannot find your tag and kit (by this time Vijay came in and helped me get some temporary one but I am sure I would have found mine in the tags and kits if I was allowed to), I went in search of Aayush Puthran who had just landed at the airport. I attended the inaugural where everyone spoke - nothing stays of those speeches and most times they are saying the same things. I went hither and tither until Aayush came in at 4 and since he was hungry we walked to Kamath and had a dosa. Dropped him off, watched a bit of Sathya's talk with Deepthi Naval and headed off to my corporate engagement with Panzer Solutions. Hopefully I will join them for dinner at the IAS Officer's Association later.
Aayush is an articulate young boy, who speaks with a rare clarity, humility and ease. He works with Cricbuzz and being in such a cricket heavy space, has lots of information on the cricket administration and the inside stories. I met a few old acquaintances - Giri, Sadhana who are all part of the HLF Organising Committee. Later that evening I dropped in at the IAS Officers to catch up with Aayush and bumped into Rudra, my old schoolmate, whose company was one of the sponsors of the HLF. In that short conversation I found that Rudra was one deep guy - he was a sailing champion at school and apparently was my batchmate at OU when we did our engineering. How could I have missed Rudra in four years of being in the same college? But he says he kept a low profile, does not remember bumping into me. He is indeed a mystery. But it was fun catching up with him.
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