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Informal discussion with celebrated artist

BHUBANESWAR: Much to the cheer of the Capital's community of artists and the connoisseurs of culture, the Coffee House Creative Corner (CHCC) here has launched a monthly meet-the-artist event recently.

Aptly named as ‘ Antaranga' (intimate interaction), it invites and features one of the celebrated writers or artists of the State to an informal discussion with the public at a public place on a Sunday evening. “Some of the literary and cultural organisations here host such sessions at regular intervals but those are restricted to invitees and are being held inside conference halls. We decided to make our events accessible for the public and hence thought of the space at the old bus stand in the heart of the city to host this monthly meet,” explained writer-painter Suresh Balabantaray, the brain behind CHCC.

“Since the old bus stand with a number of book, magazine and tea stalls is situated close to the famed Market Building and Indira Gandhi Park, it receives the maximum footfall on weekends when people from all over the city gather here. Since we host the event at this busy public place, a lot of people get a taste of it. And it helps us to discover more and more connoisseurs with each additional session,” pointed out Akshaya Behera, editor of popular literary digest ‘Katha Katha, Kabita Kabita' and one of the founder members of CHCC. Launched in January 2010 as a monthly poetry reading session at the same venue, CHCC has hosted a few art exhibitions and on-the-spot painting programmes there in its bid to attract the common man to appreciate art, informed Ramakant Samantray, an acclaimed young painter and writer who is a key functionary of the forum.

The ‘Antaranga' monthly meet-the-artist series commenced with painter Ramesh Panigrahi followed by Akademi awardee eminent Oriya poet and literary critic Sourindra Barik. The third in the series on Monday shall feature veteran theatre personality Asim Basu who would speak on his life and art, informed the hosts.

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