Culturally charged

Community service may not be that crowd-pulling an idea but, “we could always have a space where people can come and offer workshops, share their ideas and skills, watch films together or have poetry reading sessions,” Sukhmani Kohli talks about Cafe Kaffee Kuchh. The idea is to open space for people to make food together and serve it, voluntarily. “We also want to open the space for people to come and just spend time reading books or starting interesting conversations with new friends. We want to open ourselves to people participating and contributions, monetary, physical work or with just their presence.”

The group held its first meeting last Sunday at Children’s Cultural Centre, Lajpat Rai Bhawan, Sector 15, Chandigarh. and will meet every week between 4 and 8 pm. A poetry reading group that has already booked the café as their meeting point and more are welcome. “It’s nice to pause for a while, look around and savour the moment. It’s like cycling as against going on a fast motor bike. When on the cycle, one tends to notice more, to absorb one’s surroundings more. Slow motion is good sometimes…most times. “Go on, take your time. Digest your food, digest yourself. Have a chai,” Sukhmani invites.

Coffee, cake and chatter; a perfect backdrop for a cozy meet, one that’s also literary in spirit. The Chandigarh Ladies Book Club was Simran Grewal’s idea to catch up with old friends, meet their new families and of course, get to pore over books. “I came back from abroad after many years and wanted to reconnect with friends from school and college and make it an activity that would also encourage reading, a personal passion. And so, some 15 of us decided to take it up seriously in March this year,’’ Grewal loves the regular meets and decided it would be a simple affair. The venue is not a coffee bar, but the homes of the ladies and the menu does not exceed two items. It’s the hostess, who usually zeroes in on the book to be read. “We give each other a month to read the book and then discuss it. This month, it’s The White Tiger that we are glued to,’’ Simran says they hope to read one autobiography, biography and a classic by this year end and feels the club is a fantastic way to catch up and share.

The need for informal gatherings, where like-minded people can discuss art, culture, music is what the city needs and it’s a get-together that has to be encouraged, Diwan Manna, Chairman of the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi, who is all set to have a monthly get-together either at the State Library or Museum and hopes to start a conversation with either an art or film show and then take it further.

A play, movie, concert, dance recital, always culminates with an informal chat, “it’s an unsaid ritual among us friends, and is usually done over a cup of tea, either at the venue itself or the nearest home. The nuances of a theatre performance, what could be done better, the high and low of a music concert, the acting, cinematography of a film…it’s a practice that has been going on since our repertory days and there’s a sense of fulfillment in this gathering here that’s hard to explain,’’ smiles Kamal.

Now free from professional responsibility, Rajnish Wattas is itching to give shape to a plan that’s really close to his heart — forming a discussion circle that will encompass people from all walks of life, who are curious and inclined to meet more people and have free-floating conversations, where politics and business are taboo topics. “We will begin this month, right now we are five of us friends and the circle will only widen. We hope to have a topic of discussion, be it about a book, a painting, music, piece of architecture. There is no agenda here, just a purely mutual sense of enriching our lives, widening our horizons and sharing some happy moments over high tea.’’

Let the good times roll!

With input from Navdeep Sandhu