Ms. Navi Pillay served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008-2014. May 2015, Stanford Faculty Club, Gold Room Reflections When I realized I was assigned a seat at the table where Navi Pillay would be sitting, I was both excited and intimidated at the same time. I did not know how approachable, friendly and ‘human’ she is till we started talking – first about my research and interests, then about her childhood, growing up as a South African in a Tamil household, while being recognized and…
Chitra, The Warrior Princess
May 8, 2015, Cubberley Theater, Palo Alto Singer in EnActe’s Chitra Dance Drama From Chitra’s website (link)… In honor of his birth anniversary, EnActe honors Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore with a new re-imagining of his acclaimed work Chitra, based on an episode in the Mahabharata. Theatre meets dance as Director Ranjita Chakravarty draws from Tagore’s 1895 one-act Chitra and his 1936 dance-drama Chitrangada to create the spell-binding tale of Chitra, Princess of Manipur. Born to a King promised only male heirs and raised as a male warrior, a chance meeting…
Wisch Fellowship Recipient for 2014-2015
Awarded the Wisch Fellowship during academic year 2014-2015 May 2015, Stanford Faculty Club, Gold Room
Presented a talk on women Bauls in India and Bangladesh at Pratham
Pratham USA – First in promoting childhood literacy in India April 23, 2015, South Bay From Pratham’s website (link)… In the 1990s, half of the world’s illiterate children were in India. We created Pratham to change that. We believe education is the fundamental right of every child and no child should be deprived of this basic right simply because he or she does not have access to it or does not have the resources to realize his or her dreams.
A Bare Stage
Written and directed by Sukanya Chakrabarti April 18, 19, 2015, Nitery, Stanford, CA A Bare Stage is about a woman who reconstructs her story by taking instances from her life and putting them up on stage. But the stories that she tells are those about deferred dreams and disillusionment. About A Bare Stage The structure of the play is not linear, and goes back and forth in time to create this sense of remembrance, which does not necessarily follow chronology. Since the story is told both in the form of…