She fawns over everything old, which is but a priceless gold after all, and needs to be treasured for life.

Nidhi Munim, a graduate of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Kolkata, seems to be choosing to take the path less travelled — and currently, that path is leading to the beach.

Cultural fusion at Kolkata fiesta
Pramita Bose

This “argumentative Indian” is articulate, accommodating and being a diplomat in foreign service, has infinite patience. Meet Vikas Swarup, the suave and charming author of Q&A (his maiden novel on which the eight Oscar-winning Hollywood blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire was based), Six Suspects and the just launched The Accidental Apprentice, which by his own candid admission, has come out in nine long years.

They boarded a bus early winter morning, braving the biting chill, from their little village Bikna Silpadanga in Bankura district of West Bengal to reach Kolkata in time to collect awards and certificates of merit for their lesser known eye-arresting art. But unable to read English, they took hours to locate the actual venue of ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations) in the heart of the city.

Culminating the year on a musical note, the culture-capital witnessed top-guns of international percussion right at the heart of Kolkata’s Rabindra Sarobar. This one-of-a-kind spectacular show was a part of the hugely popular ‘Live-in’concert series

If she’d wanted, she could have easily sat pretty at home as a certain Mrs Roshan and basked in the glory of her celebrity husband and one of Bollywood’s superstars.

He was a Bengali Hindu monk and represented India on a universal platform to reinstate Hinduism as a major world religion in the late 19th century. Swami Vivekananda is more than a youth icon today.

Take a walk down the aesthetic lane of India’s ancient art heritage and we bet your eyes will be wooed with the shiny pearls of a rich cultural treasure-trove.

His earthly sitar will never be strung to rend the air. His unique sense of humour will never lighten a grim atmosphere. Neither will his warm touch and good-natured spirit bring a smile on a dejected face. For the indefatigable world-renowned sitar genius Pandit Ravi Shankar now rests in peace at his heavenly abode.