After battling laziness, and not-wanting-to-move-feelings for four days, I went by to the schedule of things seeing as it was Wednesday, and one of my all-time favourite days. (Besides Saturday nights of course, but I can’t stand Tuesdays, they make no sense as far as days go), I figured it would a good time for me to get some Culture. And, it looked like I was in luck as well, there was a talk on Sensuality, Desire And The New Age Woman, something I am *ahem* moderately interested in. Plus, I had met the speaker Alka Pande, many times, back in Delhi, and she’s pretty cool.

I dragged Unsuspecting Male Friend with me, who rolled his eyes at the subject matter, but thanks to my feminine wiles (why did I even need this talk, I asked myself) he was persuaded to come along. I got there a little late, but Alka Pande had just about begun, and was talking about women through the ages, how perceptions had changed from the Kama Sutra and Ajanta and Ellora through the present day. There were slides too, pictures from the Kama Sutra, which made the man next to me do a nervous heh-heh-heh. (Actually, the audience was mainly women, which is not surprising, I suppose, but I would have thought curiousity or something would have driven more of the male of the species to make an appearance. Unsuspecting Male Friend looked like he had been thrown in with the lions.)

A little digression, if I may, as someone who is new to the city: the David Sassoon library is lovely. It doesn’t look like it would be lovely, not from the outside at any rate, and sitting above an optician with a very shady name (Lund and Buckley, which made the street kid Delhiite in me snigger for quite some time) but once you enter it’s like a little oasis amongst all the traffic. I could imagine myself reading in the little garden, pottering around in the reading room, and being transported to the last century. Every town should have some place like that, truly.

After Alka Pande’s talk came photographer Vikram Bawa, and frankly, I can’t see why he was invited at all. He had done no research whatsoever to make his presentation, his slideshow looked like a portfolio, and after some time, all he could say were things like, “I only shoot beautiful women.” Or, “I saw her naked, I admit I had an ulterior motive.” Or “This is one of my good friends–I call her a horse, because she is so large, ha ha.” By the end of it, my eyes were rolling so far back in my head, I could see my brain. But the other people seemed to enjoy it, maybe his chatty conversational style appealed more to them than Alka Pande’s researched-type talk.

At the end of his little monologue, Vikram Bawa was persuaded to show the photo he had received a PIL for, and maybe he isn’t the best presentor, but this picture was really good. It showed two naked men, one standing, the other with his legs entwined around him, kissing. Two of his friends apparently, and by the end of it, said Bawa, “I thought it was like a man and a woman.” I think he should stick to not talking.

So, I didn’t learn very much about sensuality and the New Age woman, no. But I did get to see the library, which I’ve been meaning to. And a controversial photograph. Not bad for one evening’s work, right?

ps. Unsuspecting Male Friend was made happy by taking him to the large white jet plane in the grounds, which he happily walked around and prodded and examined and crawled under, so don’t feel too sorry for him.