'TERRA COTTA TEMPLE TOURISM"
My friends , Somen Sengupta , Rangan Datta and I got an opportunity to make a presentation to a 160+ strong audience @ Rotary Sadan, Calcutta on 9/4/10 on Terra cotta temples of West Bengal. Somen covered the travel-related subject, Rangan the architecture and I spoke on the 'Iconography'.
Timir Roy, President of Rotary Club of Gardenreach helped us a lot to get this venue . He worked hard on our behalf to get media attention,. Our friend Soumitree Ghosh Dastidar played a very good role in roping in several TV channels.Connections of Rangan Datta and Somen also helped.All in all, our very 1st attempt did receive good publicity and audience support.
We started dot @ 6.30 pm with Timir and Ruby making short introduction about the subject and speakers.We could finish our Presentation within the scheduled time ......did not drag at all!
We three felt happy to note that the audience sat through the 3-part presentation .... however, the question-answer session found a part of the crowd melting away.
I am very pleased that I could bring out the best of the plaques of my collection, specially those which have some special point in imagery One example is here : 'Art of reverse similarity'.
'Abduction of Seeta and Jatayu' - Unconventional description @ Gangeswar temple , Baronagar at the centre. Conventional imageries by Ravi Verma and on RadheShyam Temple @ Bishnupur on its two sides.
This panel got a special mention in the article published in the Hindustan Times dated 17/04/10.
We three have planned more such presentations in the future. We have to incorporate a few suggestions :
- Introduce a few hilarious 'moments'. Otherwise , the presentations tend to become a little too 'heavy'.
- A bit of pause between the presentations, perhaps in form of a short Q&A session.
- A mic. on the collar and a hand-held mouse so that the speaker can move around the dais. Staying stuck to the podium looks too formal.
- More joint rehearsals.